The DeepSeek API price cut made me rethink a habit I had quietly accepted: choosing an AI coding tool and then living with whatever model economics came with it.
Claude Code is great when I want a strong terminal-native coding agent. ChatGPT and Codex are great when I want OpenAI's workflow and model stack. But when a provider like DeepSeek suddenly drops API pricing, the obvious question is not just "is this cheap?"
It is: can I actually use the cheaper model from the tools I already use?
The Price Cut Is The Interesting Part
As of May 25, 2026, DeepSeek's pricing page lists V4 Flash at:
