THE TICKER · HEAD-TO-HEAD · CHECKED DAILY · LAST CHANGE 2026-07-11
CLAUDE OPUS 4.8 VS DEEPSEEK V4 FLASH
Anthropic vs DeepSeek, in USD per million tokens, verified daily against public list prices. Same jobs, both meters running.
Claude Opus 4.8 costs 81.6x more than DeepSeek V4 Flash for the same job — a 1,000-token prompt with a 3,000-token reply runs $0.08 vs $0.0010. At 1,000 runs a day, that gap is $2,370.60 a month for identical traffic.
SIDE BY SIDE
| Claude Opus 4.8 → | DeepSeek V4 Flash → | |
|---|---|---|
| Vendor | Anthropic | DeepSeek |
| Input / MTok | $5.00 | $0.140 |
| Output / MTok | $25.00 | $0.280 |
| Output multiple | 5.0x | 2.0x |
| 1K prompt + 3K reply | $0.08 | $0.0010 |
SAME JOB, BOTH BILLS
| Scenario | Claude Opus 4.8 | DeepSeek V4 Flash | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| A typical prompt | $0.02 | $0.0003 | 81.6x |
| A 20-turn conversation | $0.12 | $0.0017 | 71.4x |
| Summarizing a 10-page document | $0.12 | $0.0020 | 59.5x |
| One agent run | $0.31 | $0.0036 | 85.2x |
| A code review request | $0.10 | $0.0013 | 80.4x |
Output sizes use the same editorial ratios as the Burn Calculator. Estimates, not invoices — and price is not a benchmark: the cheaper model is only a bargain if it does the job.
SETTLE IT WITH YOUR OWN PROMPT
Paste a real prompt into the Burn Calculator and see what it costs on Claude Opus 4.8, DeepSeek V4 Flash and the other 10 models on the board — plus how much of it is waste either way.