DeepSeek V4.1 Flash vs Claude Haiku 5.5: which API costs less?
Averaged across three realistic workloads, Claude Haiku 5.5 is about 58% cheaper than DeepSeek V4.1 Flash. Below: raw rates and side-by-side monthly costs, computed from prices verified 2026-10-17 (we track what you are billed today, promos included).
Rates per 1M tokens
| Model | Input | Output | Cached input |
|---|---|---|---|
| DeepSeek V4.1 FlashDeepSeek | $0.300 | $1.20 | $0.006 |
| Claude Haiku 5.5Anthropic | $0.100 | $0.500 | $0.010 |
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash: Peak-hour price (01-04 and 06-10 UTC, Mon-Fri); off-peak costs half. Replaced DeepSeek V4 Flash. Claude Haiku 5.5: Prompts up to 100K tokens; longer prompts cost $0.50/$2.50.
Monthly cost, side by side
| Workload | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash | Claude Haiku 5.5 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
Customer-support chatbot 2M input + 0.5M output tokens/month, 60% of input served from prompt cache | $0.847 | $0.342 | Claude Haiku 5.5 −60% |
RAG / document Q&A 20M input + 1M output tokens/month, 70% cached (shared context) | $3.08 | $1.24 | Claude Haiku 5.5 −60% |
Agentic coding assistant 50M input + 5M output tokens/month, 80% cached (long sessions) | $9.24 | $3.90 | Claude Haiku 5.5 −58% |
Your traffic looks different? Run your own numbers in the calculator.
FAQ
Which is cheaper: DeepSeek V4.1 Flash or Claude Haiku 5.5?
Across three realistic workloads (chatbot, RAG, agent), Claude Haiku 5.5 works out about 58% cheaper than DeepSeek V4.1 Flash on average. Raw rates: DeepSeek V4.1 Flash $0.300/$1.20 per 1M tokens vs Claude Haiku 5.5 $0.100/$0.500. Verified 2026-10-17.
Does prompt caching change the comparison?
Yes — cached input costs $0.006 on DeepSeek V4.1 Flash and $0.010 on Claude Haiku 5.5. Our scenario numbers already include realistic cache hit rates.
Is cheaper always better?
No. Price is one axis — model capability, context window and latency differ. This page answers only the cost question; benchmark quality on your own tasks before switching.