Y-API vs the DeepSeek API
deepseek/deepseek-v4-flash is free through Y-API, with no credit deducted. The table compares cash costs for free and paid models. V4 Flash references use the historical 0731 prices from DeepSeek’s August 13 announcement; the official rolling alias now points to V4.1 Flash.
| Dimension | Y-API | DeepSeek API |
|---|---|---|
| API protocol | Y-APIOpenAI Chat Completions. Point base_url at https://api.y-api.bestvirtualgoods.com/v1, swap the key, leave the rest of your code alone. | DeepSeek APIOpenAI Chat Completions as well — its own quick-start documents the API as OpenAI-compatible. |
| DeepSeek builds you can call | Y-API4 DeepSeek model IDs, one of them free of charge: deepseek/deepseek-v4-flash. | DeepSeek APIThe builds it currently sells. New releases land there first, and a retired build stops being callable. |
| deepseek/deepseek-v4-flash — input / 1M tokens | Y-API$0 — no credit deducted | DeepSeek API$0.22–$0.44, top-up hours vs rest of day, cached input $0.007–$0.014 · historical official price |
| deepseek/deepseek-v4-flash-0731 — input / 1M tokens | Y-API$0.015 in cash | DeepSeek API$0.22 — 14.7× ours · historical official price |
| deepseek/deepseek-v4-pro — input / 1M tokens | Y-API$0.05 in cash | DeepSeek API$0.66 — 13.2× ours |
| deepseek/deepseek-v4.1-flash — input / 1M tokens | Y-API$0.02 in cash | DeepSeek API$0.15 — 7.5× ours |
| What a top-up converts to | Y-API$1 becomes $10 of account credit, then credit is deducted at each paid model's own rate. deepseek/deepseek-v4-flash never touches it. | DeepSeek APIYou pay the list price in cash. There is no credit multiplier. |
| Time-of-day pricing | Y-APIOne rate, every hour of the day — and a free build that costs nothing around the clock. | DeepSeek APITwo tiers. The range quoted above runs from the cheaper off-peak tier to the peak tier on the same rate card. |
| Cache-hit pricing | Y-APINo cache discount. A repeated prompt is billed exactly like a new one — and on the free build there is nothing left to discount. | DeepSeek APIA discounted rate for cached input. On deepseek/deepseek-v4-pro and deepseek/deepseek-v4.1-flash that rate sits below our cash price — see "Where DeepSeek still wins" below. |
Against us
Where DeepSeek still wins
Free settles the price column, not the whole comparison. These are the cases where paying DeepSeek directly remains the better choice, taken from the same data as the figures above.
Day-1 access to new builds
New DeepSeek releases land on its own API first; our catalog follows when our upstream adds them. If your work depends on a capability that shipped this week, going direct is the only way to have it.
Cached input on the paid builds
DeepSeek bills repeated input at a discounted rate, and we have no cache tier at all: on deepseek/deepseek-v4-pro its cached rate is $0.022 against our $0.05, and deepseek/deepseek-v4.1-flash its cached rate is $0.003 against our $0.02. On a workload where most of the prompt repeats, going direct is cheaper on these builds. The free build is exempt from this argument — nothing undercuts $0.
A billing relationship with the vendor itself
Committed-use discounts, consolidated invoices, their SLA and their support desk exist only in a direct contract. We resell access, not a relationship with DeepSeek.
Free can be withdrawn — and that decision is not ours
deepseek/deepseek-v4-flash is free because our upstream made it free, and the upstream can revert it. The day that happens, this build returns to the paid comparison at its listed rate: your code does not change, your cost does. We would rather say that here than have you find out from an invoice.
Most of the remaining gap is the top-up rate, not the model price
Our catalog rates in credit sit close to DeepSeek's own list prices. The gap on the paid build comes almost entirely from $1 converting to $10 of credit.
Fit
Which one to call
Call it through Y-API if
- You want deepseek/deepseek-v4-flash at $0 — no quota window to watch, on the same key as every other model.
- Your prompts are mostly fresh rather than repeated, so a cache discount would not apply anyway.
- You want one balance and one key across 20 models from several vendors, not one account per vendor.
- You want the same rate at every hour instead of watching a peak window.
Go direct to DeepSeek if
- Your workload is cache-heavy on the paid builds. Their cached-input rate is below our cash price on deepseek/deepseek-v4-pro and deepseek/deepseek-v4.1-flash.
- You need a new build the day it ships, or a capability that only exists in their own API.
- You want a billing relationship with the model vendor itself, with their SLA and their support.
FAQ
Questions people ask before switching
- Is Y-API cheaper than calling DeepSeek directly?
- On the flash build the comparison settled itself: deepseek/deepseek-v4-flash is free here, against $0.22–$0.44 per 1M input tokens on DeepSeek's own rate card. On the paid builds, fresh input is cheaper by a wide margin — deepseek/deepseek-v4-flash-0731 runs $0.015 against DeepSeek's $0.22, and deepseek/deepseek-v4-pro runs $0.05 against DeepSeek's $0.66, and deepseek/deepseek-v4.1-flash runs $0.02 against DeepSeek's $0.15 — while cache hits go the other way, and that margin rests on the 1:10 top-up rate.
- How can a model be free — what is the catch?
- None on the invoice: deepseek/deepseek-v4-flash deducts nothing from your balance per call. The free flag is set by our upstream provider, not by us — which is exactly why we tell you it can be withdrawn, in the section above. You still sign up and use a key, and the same rate limits apply as on any other build.
- What happens if the free build stops being free?
- Nothing changes in your code. The model ID stays in the catalog, your calls keep working, and the request log starts showing its listed paid rate — the rates in the table above. Whatever you build on it today survives the day the promotion ends.
- How much of my code has to change?
- Both speak OpenAI Chat Completions, so it is base_url, the key, and the model string — ours are prefixed, for example deepseek/deepseek-v4-flash. Nothing else in the request body changes.
Provenance
Sources
DeepSeek figures were read from its own pricing page on 2026-08-26, across its billed range — off-peak to peak, cached-input tiers quoted separately. Our own figures are on our pricing and terms pages.
The first call is already free
deepseek/deepseek-v4-flash deducts nothing on this side of the gateway. Change base_url, the key, and the model string on a single call you already make, and the request log shows $0.