The News: V4-Pro Drops to 25% of Original Price
On May 31, 2026, DeepSeek will permanently cut V4-Pro pricing to 25% of the original rate. This follows a series of aggressive pricing moves across the Chinese AI model landscape.
The new effective prices (estimated from the 75% cut):
- Input tokens: ~¥0.5 per million (down from ~¥2)
- Output tokens: ~¥2 per million (down from ~¥8)
For context: this makes V4-Pro roughly 16x cheaper than GPT-4o on a per-token basis. The model quality is genuinely competitive with frontier US models.
The Catch: Official Access Barriers Haven't Changed
Here's what the headlines don't tell you.
To use DeepSeek officially at this new price, you still need:
1. A Chinese phone number for SMS verification (international numbers rejected)
2. Alipay or a Chinese bank card for payment (no Visa, no PayPal, no Apple Pay)
3. Tolerance for account bans — DeepSeek actively bans accounts it suspects of reselling API access
4. Coping with rate limits and downtime — the March 2026 13-hour outage affected all direct users
So yes, the model is 75% cheaper. But if you can't register an account, the discount is irrelevant.
Why Third-Party Stable Access Is the Real Story
The price war among Chinese AI labs (DeepSeek, Xiaomi MiMo, Alibaba Qwen) is accelerating. Xiaomi's MiMo V2 series just cut prices by up to 99%. The result: model prices are collapsing, but access is fragmenting.
This is where third-party API access providers like AiCredits become more valuable, not less:
Stability over savings: A ¥0.5/M token price is meaningless if your account gets banned mid-project. AiCredits provisions API keys that are not tied to your personal DeepSeek account.
Compliance buffering: DeepSeek's Terms of Service prohibit reselling. Third-party providers operate in a gray area — but for the end user, the risk is on the provider, not you.
Multi-model readiness: As prices shift between DeepSeek, MiMo, and Qwen, a stable access layer lets you switch models without re-registering accounts.
What About Xiaomi MiMo? Should You Switch?
MiMo V2-Pro now undercuts even the new DeepSeek V4-Pro pricing by ~40%. And MiMo just claimed 22%+ of OpenRouter's single-model token volume.
Should you switch? Not necessarily:
- Model maturity: DeepSeek V4-Pro has been battle-tested for months; MiMo is newer
- API stability: MiMo's OpenRouter listing shows it may be delisted on May 31 — the same day as the DeepSeek price cut. That's not a coincidence.
- Ecosystem: DeepSeek has broader SDK support, more community examples, and better tooling compatibility
Our recommendation: keep using DeepSeek V4-Pro via a stable access provider. The 75% price cut makes it compelling again. MiMo is worth watching, but not worth betting on today.
How to Get V4-Pro at the New Price — Without a Chinese Phone Number
AiCredits provisions DeepSeek V4-Pro API keys that work with the new pricing immediately. No account registration, no Chinese payment methods, no waiting.
Step 1: Go to aicreditsapi.com/buy
Step 2: Choose a package (starts at $3 for 5M tokens)
Step 3: Pay with any international credit card or PayPal
Step 4: Your API key appears on-screen instantly
The key is OpenAI-compatible — just change your base_url to https://api.aicreditsapi.com/v1 and your existing code works without changes.
FAQ
Q: Is this the real V4-Pro, or a watered-down version?
It is the exact same model as the official DeepSeek API. Same weights, same output quality. The difference is in how you pay and access it.
Q: Will my API key stop working if DeepSeek changes pricing again?
No. Your prepaid tokens are consumed at the rate in effect at the time of use. Future price changes by DeepSeek do not affect already-purchased tokens.
Q: Can I use this for commercial projects?
Yes. Many of our users are startups and indie developers building commercial products. We do not log or store your prompt content.
Q: What if I need MiMo later?
We are evaluating adding MiMo API access as a separate package. Follow our blog or subscribe to updates — we'll announce it if/when it's available.