> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.rockapi.ai/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
# DeepSeek V4 Pro and Flash API pricing: 30% off at peak and off-peak times
> Compare DeepSeek V4 Pro and V4 Flash, official peak and off-peak token prices, and Rock API pricing at 70% of each official rate.
# DeepSeek V4 Pro and Flash API pricing: 30% off at peak and off-peak times
Rock API offers `deepseek-v4-pro` and `deepseek-v4-flash` at **70% of DeepSeek's official price**. The discount follows DeepSeek's time-based billing: you pay the discounted peak rate during peak hours and the discounted off-peak rate during all other hours.
*Last updated: August 19, 2026*
Save 30% on each official peak or off-peak token rate.
Peak and off-peak usage remain separate instead of being flattened into one rate.
Choose Flash for throughput and Pro for demanding agent and reasoning work.
## Rock API prices compared with official prices
The following prices are in USD per 1 million tokens. They apply the formula `official rate × 0.7` to DeepSeek's published rates effective August 16, 2026.
| Model and token type | Official off-peak | Rock API off-peak | Official peak | Rock API peak |
| ----------------------- | ----------------: | ----------------: | ------------: | ------------: |
| V4 Flash cached input | \$0.007 | \$0.0049 | \$0.014 | \$0.0098 |
| V4 Flash uncached input | \$0.22 | \$0.154 | \$0.44 | \$0.308 |
| V4 Flash output | \$0.66 | \$0.462 | \$1.32 | \$0.924 |
| V4 Pro cached input | \$0.022 | \$0.0154 | \$0.044 | \$0.0308 |
| V4 Pro uncached input | \$0.66 | \$0.462 | \$1.32 | \$0.924 |
| V4 Pro output | \$1.98 | \$1.386 | \$3.96 | \$2.772 |
DeepSeek defines peak hours as **01:00–04:00 and 06:00–10:00 UTC**. All other hours are off-peak. That corresponds to 09:00–12:00 and 14:00–18:00 in Taipei (UTC+8). Check daylight-saving changes when converting the schedule for another region.
Model availability and prices can change. Confirm the current model ID, billing unit, and live price in the Rock API dashboard before production use. DeepSeek's [official pricing page](https://api-docs.deepseek.com/quick_start/pricing/) remains the source for its reference rates and time windows.
## Why time-based 0.7x pricing matters
The 30% discount applies in both periods, while off-peak scheduling provides a second cost lever. For the same token category, Rock API's off-peak price is 35% of DeepSeek's official peak price because `0.5 × 0.7 = 0.35`.
For example, 100 million V4 Flash output tokens cost $132 at the official peak rate, $92.40 through Rock API at peak, or \$46.20 through Rock API off-peak. Moving flexible work from peak to off-peak saves another 50% relative to the Rock API peak rate.
Suitable workloads include:
* nightly evaluation and regression suites;
* repository indexing and codebase analysis;
* document extraction, summarization, and embedding preparation;
* queued agent jobs without a strict interactive deadline;
* synthetic-data and offline content pipelines.
Keep latency-sensitive user requests in their required time window. Schedule only workloads that can tolerate a queue, and monitor retries so a delayed batch does not spill into a peak period unexpectedly.
## DeepSeek V4 Flash or V4 Pro?
Both models support a 1M-token context window, thinking and non-thinking modes, JSON output, tool calls, the Responses API, the Anthropic API, prefix completion, and non-thinking FIM completion. DeepSeek lists a maximum output of 384K tokens.
| Choose | When it fits |
| ------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| `deepseek-v4-flash` | High-volume agents, extraction, classification, routine coding, and workloads where latency and unit cost lead the decision. |
| `deepseek-v4-pro` | Complex agent workflows, difficult coding tasks, long-horizon reasoning, and work where higher capability can reduce retries or human review. |
DeepSeek currently identifies the served versions as DeepSeek-V4-Flash-0731 and DeepSeek-V4-Pro-0813. Its [V4 release notes](https://api-docs.deepseek.com/updates/) also document three thinking-effort levels: low, high, and max.
## A practical cost-control plan
1. Route routine, high-volume requests to V4 Flash first.
2. Escalate only difficult or failed cases to V4 Pro.
3. Reuse stable prompt prefixes to improve cache-hit volume.
4. Queue flexible jobs for off-peak hours in UTC.
5. Record input, cached input, output, model, and execution window separately.
6. Compare cost per completed task, not only price per token.
## Start using DeepSeek V4
1. [Create a Rock API account](https://rockapi.ai/sign-up?utm_source=docs\&utm_medium=referral\&utm_campaign=deepseek_v4_70_off_en).
2. Confirm that `deepseek-v4-pro` and `deepseek-v4-flash` are currently listed and review their live rates.
3. Create an API key and follow the [authentication guide](/authentication).
4. Send a small request using the [quickstart](/quickstart), then verify the usage record and time band.
5. Read [pricing and billing](/pricing-and-billing) before moving scheduled production jobs.
## Frequently asked questions
### Is the 30% discount available during peak hours?
Yes. Rock API charges 70% of the applicable official rate in both peak and off-peak periods.
### Is Rock API off-peak pricing 70% below the official peak price?
No. It is 65% below the official peak price: the official off-peak rate is half the peak rate, then Rock API applies 0.7x. The result is 35% of the official peak price.
### Which timezone controls billing?
DeepSeek publishes the schedule in UTC. Peak hours are 01:00–04:00 and 06:00–10:00 UTC; every other hour is off-peak.
View current V4 Pro and V4 Flash availability and time-based prices in the Rock API dashboard.