Stu Clott, an operations manager and part-time developer in San Diego, used to code with Claude. But he recently found a cheaper alternative: DeepSeek.
While an hourlong coding session would cost about $10 on Claude, the same work cost less than 50 cents on DeepSeek, Clott said. Over the past few weeks, he has used the Chinese model for everything from coding to personal counseling and building software to manage his family’s bank accounts.
“I laugh every time I go see [the costs],” Clott told Rest of World. “The output quality, to be honest, I can’t tell the difference.”
U.S.-based developers and small companies are turning to Chinese models to cut costs. Although Chinese models still lag behind the best American ones in performance, they can handle most tasks at a fraction of the price. But under political scrutiny, Chinese companies still face the challenge of turning that popularity into significant revenue.
Chinese companies have kept prices low thanks to lower salaries and infrastructure expenses at home. Many have also released open models and offered subsidized plans to attract early adopters. Models from DeepSeek, XiaomiiXiaomiXiaomi is a Chinese consumer electronics company that leads the country in smartphone manufacturing and sales.READ MORE MiMo, and Minimax are now among the most cost-efficient available, according to an Artificial Analysis index that measures models’ performance against cost.
