budget
Deepseek Chat vs Claude Sonnet 4 6
Side-by-side pricing, context window, features, and per-use-case verdict. Data sourced from LiteLLM, updated regularly.
Specifications
| Feature | Deepseek Chat | Claude Sonnet 4 6 |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | deepseek | anthropic |
| Model ID | deepseek/deepseek-chat | claude-sonnet-4-6 |
| Input / 1M tokens | $0.28 (91% cheaper) | $3.00 |
| Output / 1M tokens | $0.42 (97% cheaper) | $15.00 |
| Cached input / 1M | $0.03 | $0.30 |
| Context window | 131kk tokens | 1000kk tokens |
| Max output | 8kk tokens | 64kk tokens |
| Vision | ⬜ | ✅ |
| Function calling | ✅ | ✅ |
| Prompt caching | ✅ | ✅ |
| Web search | ⬜ | ⬜ |
| JSON schema | ✅ | ✅ |
Monthly cost comparison
No cache discount applied — pure token costs at three usage scales.
| Scale | Deepseek Chat | Claude Sonnet 4 6 | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|
| Small 1M in / 0.2M out | $0.36 | $6.00 | Deepseek Chat saves 94% |
| Medium 10M in / 2M out | $3.64 | $60.00 | Deepseek Chat saves 94% |
| Large 100M in / 20M out | $36.40 | $600 | Deepseek Chat saves 94% |
Category winners
Cheapest input
Deepseek Chat
$0.28/M
· 91% less than the other
Cheapest output
Deepseek Chat
$0.42/M
· 97% less than the other
Larger context
Claude Sonnet 4 6
1000kk tokens · 663% larger window
More features
Claude Sonnet 4 6
4 / 5 capabilities
Better for…
High-volume RAG & repeated context
$0.03/M cached input — prompt caching makes repeated context retrieval significantly cheaper
Deepseek Chat
Short interactions & high-throughput APIs
$0.42/M output — 97% cheaper on output at scale
Deepseek Chat
Long-document processing & large codebases
1000k context window vs 131k — 663% larger context
Claude Sonnet 4 6
Agentic workflows & tool use
Supports 4 of 5 tracked capabilities (vision, function calling, caching, web search, JSON schema)
Claude Sonnet 4 6
Deep-dive on each model
Pricing data sourced from LiteLLM and refreshed regularly. Always verify with each provider's official pricing page before making business decisions.