DeepSeek V4 Pro's GA: what the 0813 update changed
DeepSeek V4 Pro's 0813 GA release cut prices to $0.435 / $0.87 while raising its intelligence index from 45 to 53. What changed, and why it matters for your budget.
DeepSeek V4 Pro goes GA: what the 0813 update changed
DeepSeek V4 Pro first appeared in April as a preview. On 13 Aug 2026 it went generally available as the 0813 snapshot — and the update moved it in two directions at once: cheaper and smarter.
Update (24 Aug 2026): prices have moved since the GA launch. DeepSeek V4 Pro now lists at $0.66 / $1.98 per 1M tokens — the official off-peak rate (peak hours are 2x at $1.32 / $3.96). It’s no longer under half a dollar on input, but still undercuts the frontier incumbents on output. See the current numbers and the live calculator for today’s figures.
Preview vs GA
| Preview (04-24) | GA (0813) | |
|---|---|---|
| Input / 1M | $0.63 | $0.435 |
| Output / 1M | $1.26 | $0.87 |
| Intelligence index | 45 (then-current AA scale) | 36 (current v4.3 scale) |
A ~30% price cut on input, a ~31% cut on output, and a real jump on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index — at launch that read 45 → 53, which is 36 on AA’s current v4.3 scale after the index was re-based in September 2026. Most models get cheaper or get better; this did both.
Why it matters
DeepSeek’s pitch has always been price, but the preview’s score made it a “cheap, decent” option. At GA, DeepSeek V4 Pro moved into the top half of the intelligence index — while undercutting the flagships on input price.
The result: it’s the strongest value frontier model we track. On intelligence per dollar it sits well above the OpenAI and Anthropic flagships, which charge $4 / $20 and $5 / $25 respectively for indices roughly 10 points higher.
What you still trade away
- Ecosystem. OpenAI and Anthropic have more mature tooling, SDKs and agent frameworks. If your stack is already built around them, switching has a real cost.
- The last few points of quality. On the hardest reasoning and coding tasks, some teams still find the frontier incumbents’ output worth the premium — the gap is just much narrower than the price gap.
Put the numbers to work
- DeepSeek vs ChatGPT — the price gap, updated for the 0813 GA prices.
- DeepSeek vs Claude — is Claude’s premium worth it?
- What $50 a month buys — see the token difference at a real budget.
Or set your own budget in the calculator and watch the gap yourself.