THE TICKER · HEAD-TO-HEAD · CHECKED DAILY · LAST CHANGE 2026-07-11
GPT-5.5 VS DEEPSEEK V4 FLASH
OpenAI vs DeepSeek, in USD per million tokens, verified daily against public list prices. Same jobs, both meters running.
GPT-5.5 costs 96.9x more than DeepSeek V4 Flash for the same job — a 1,000-token prompt with a 3,000-token reply runs $0.10 vs $0.0010. At 1,000 runs a day, that gap is $2,820.60 a month for identical traffic.
SIDE BY SIDE
| GPT-5.5 → | DeepSeek V4 Flash → | |
|---|---|---|
| Vendor | OpenAI | DeepSeek |
| Input / MTok | $5.00 | $0.140 |
| Output / MTok | $30.00 | $0.280 |
| Output multiple | 6.0x | 2.0x |
| 1K prompt + 3K reply | $0.10 | $0.0010 |
SAME JOB, BOTH BILLS
| Scenario | GPT-5.5 | DeepSeek V4 Flash | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| A typical prompt | $0.03 | $0.0003 | 96.9x |
| A 20-turn conversation | $0.14 | $0.0017 | 83.3x |
| Summarizing a 10-page document | $0.14 | $0.0020 | 67.5x |
| One agent run | $0.37 | $0.0036 | 101.6x |
| A code review request | $0.12 | $0.0013 | 95.2x |
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 GPT-5.5, DeepSeek V4 Flash and the other 10 models on the board — plus how much of it is waste either way.