THE TICKER · HEAD-TO-HEAD · CHECKED DAILY · LAST CHANGE 2026-08-14
GPT-5.6 LUNA VS DEEPSEEK V4 FLASH
OpenAI vs DeepSeek, in USD per million tokens, cross-checked daily against the public pricing dataset. Same jobs, both meters running.
GPT-5.6 Luna costs 3.9x more than DeepSeek V4 Flash for the same job — a 1,000-token prompt with a 3,000-token reply runs $0.0038 vs $0.0010. At 1,000 runs a day, that gap is $84.60 a month for identical traffic.
SIDE BY SIDE
| GPT-5.6 Luna → | DeepSeek V4 Flash → | |
|---|---|---|
| Vendor | OpenAI | DeepSeek |
| Input / MTok | $0.200 | $0.140 |
| Output / MTok | $1.20 | $0.280 |
| Output multiple | 6.0x | 2.0x |
| 1K prompt + 3K reply | $0.0038 | $0.0010 |
SAME JOB, BOTH BILLS
| Scenario | GPT-5.6 Luna | DeepSeek V4 Flash | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| A typical prompt | $0.0011 | $0.0003 | 3.9x |
| A 20-turn conversation | $0.0056 | $0.0017 | 3.3x |
| Summarizing a 10-page document | $0.0054 | $0.0020 | 2.7x |
| One agent run | $0.01 | $0.0036 | 4.1x |
| A code review request | $0.0048 | $0.0013 | 3.8x |
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-5.6 Luna, DeepSeek V4 Flash and the other 18 models on the board — plus how much of it is waste either way.