Screenshots
DeepSeek
Free chat on open-weight models
Enki editor score
Great
Human-vetted editorial rating
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Overview
DeepSeek is the chat app and API of Hangzhou-based DeepSeek, which publishes its models' weights under the MIT license. The free app on web, iOS and Android runs the DeepSeek V4 family, with a one million token context window and an optional thinking mode for harder problems. There is no paid consumer plan: the chat app is free, and developers pay per token for the API, at prices well below most Western labs, with off-peak rates at half price. The trade-off is data: DeepSeek's privacy policy says it stores personal data in China and uses inputs for training unless you email to opt out.
Enki verdict
The best free chatbot with no paywall at all and the cheapest strong API; keep anything sensitive out of it, because your data goes to China and is trained on by default.
Key features
Thinking mode
Switch on step-by-step reasoning for harder problems.
Long context
A one million token context window in the API.
Open weights
Download the models and run them yourself under the MIT license.
Pros & cons
What we like
- Genuinely free chat with no paid tier
- Open-weight models under the MIT license
- Very low API prices, halved off-peak
Worth noting
- Data is stored in China and trained on by default
- Rate limited and sometimes throttled at busy times
- Fewer integrations and app features than ChatGPT
DeepSeek pricing
Is DeepSeek free?
Yes. DeepSeek's chat app is free on web, iOS and Android, with no paid consumer plan and no published message quota.
- No published message cap, but rate limited under heavy load
- Some features can be throttled or unavailable by region
- Data is stored in China and used for training unless you opt out by email
Chat app
Free
- DeepSeek V4 models with thinking mode
- Web, iOS and Android
- File uploads and web search
API: deepseek-flash
$0.30 in, $1.20 out
per million tokens at peak; half price off-peak; cached input $0.006
- DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash
- 1M token context, vision and tool calls
API: deepseek-v4-pro
$1.32 in, $3.96 out
per million tokens at peak; half price off-peak
- DeepSeek-V4-Pro, built for agent tasks
- 1M token context and tool calls
Price history
- Checked against DeepSeek's API pricing page: deepseek-flash (V4.1 Flash) and deepseek-v4-pro, with off-peak rates at half the peak price. The chat app has no paid plan.
Source: DeepSeek's official pricing, checked Oct 3, 2026. Prices can change; confirm at checkout.
DeepSeek FAQ
- Is DeepSeek free?
- Yes. The DeepSeek chat app on web, iOS and Android is free and has no paid consumer plan. Only the developer API is paid, per token.
- Is DeepSeek unlimited?
- DeepSeek publishes no message quota for its free chat app, but the service is rate limited and can slow down or restrict features under heavy load.
- Is DeepSeek safe to use?
- Its privacy policy says DeepSeek stores personal data in the People's Republic of China and uses inputs to train its models unless you email privacy@deepseek.com to opt out. Avoid sharing confidential or personal information, or run its open-weight models locally instead.
- Can I run DeepSeek locally?
- Yes. DeepSeek publishes its model weights under the MIT license, so smaller versions can run on your own computer through tools such as Ollama. The largest models need far more memory than a typical laptop has.
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