DeepSeek · DeepSeek V3.2 · Mid
DeepSeek V3.2 (chat) pricing and limits
DeepSeek's general chat model in non-thinking mode. Very low list price and automatic context caching make it one of the cheapest capable models in the index.
| Line | Tokens | Rate / 1M | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Input, uncached | 2,000 | $0.28 | $0.00056 |
| Input, cache read | 6,000 | $0.028 | $0.00017 |
| Output | 900 | $0.42 | $0.00038 |
- Input / 1M
- $0.28
- Output / 1M
- $0.42
- Cached / 1M
- $0.028
- Cache write / 1M
- n/a
- Blended 3:1
- $0.32
- Context
- 128K
What drives DeepSeek V3.2 (chat) cost
DeepSeek caches prompt prefixes on disk automatically and bills cache hits at a tenth of the input rate, with no write premium. Workloads with long shared prefixes see large savings without any code changes.
Output is priced close to input, unlike most providers where output costs four to eight times more. That changes the optimization strategy: trimming verbose answers saves less here than trimming repeated context.
Cost of a typical call
Take a chat turn with 8,000 input tokens, 6,000 of them served from cache, and 900 output tokens. At DeepSeek V3.2 (chat) list prices ($0.28 input, $0.028 cached input, $0.42 output per 1M) one call costs $0.00111, against $0.00262 with no cache hits. At 800,000 calls a month that is $885, or $2,094 uncached.
Blended at a 3:1 input to output ratio, DeepSeek V3.2 (chat) costs $0.32 per 1M tokens. Routing the same call to the fallback in the policy below, Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite, costs $0.00071, which is what a tenant pays you in COGS once they cross the hard cap and PALM SOUQ downgrades instead of blocking.
Cost comparison
DeepSeek V3.2 (chat) against three alternatives
The same chat turn priced on Gemini 2.5 Flash, GPT-5 mini, Llama 4 Maverick. Move the sliders to match your traffic; models without a cache-read rate bill every input token in full.
Benchmark quality per task before switching. A cheaper model that needs more steps or longer outputs can cost more per finished task than its rate suggests, which is why PALM SOUQ reports cost per feature, not only per token.
DeepSeek V3.2 (chat) this guide
$0.00111 per call
$1,106 / mo
baseline
Gemini 2.5 Flash
$0.00330 per call
$3,300 / mo
+198% vs DeepSeek V3.2 (chat)
GPT-5 mini
$0.00245 per call
$2,450 / mo
+122% vs DeepSeek V3.2 (chat)
Llama 4 Maverick
$0.00214 per call, no cache discount
$2,140 / mo
+93% vs DeepSeek V3.2 (chat)
List prices from the PALM SOUQ LLM Price Index, computed per call as uncached input + cache reads + output. Reasoning tokens count as output on reasoning models.
Rate limits by usage tier
DeepSeek does not publish fixed per-account rate limits; it serves requests dynamically based on load, and requests can wait longer under heavy traffic. Build timeouts and retry limits into your client rather than assuming a fixed throughput.
Exact limits vary by account tier and change over time, so we do not reprint them here. Check the limits page for your own account in the DeepSeek documentation at api-docs.deepseek.com. PALM SOUQ enforces your own per-tenant limits in front of the provider's, so a single customer cannot consume the shared allowance that every other tenant depends on.
Circuit-breaker best practices
Retry storms are the main loop risk. When responses slow under load, clients with aggressive timeouts retry and duplicate work. Cap retries per logical request at the gateway and use exponential backoff.
Data residency and vendor policy may matter for your customers; PALM SOUQ's per-tenant routing can keep specific tenants off a provider entirely.
When a breaker trips, the gateway answers in under 50 ms with HTTP 429 and X-PalmSouq-Reason: circuit_breaker_triggered, before the request reaches DeepSeek. Your agent framework sees a normal rate-limit response and stops, and the audit log records which heuristic fired and for which tenant.
# palmsouq.policy.yaml
policy: deepseek-v3-2-chat-pro
match:
model: deepseek-v3.2-chat
tier: pro # from X-PalmSouq-Tier
budgets:
monthly_usd: 60 # per tenant
soft_cap_pct: 80 # webhook to your app
on_hard_cap: fallback # or: block (HTTP 429)
fallback:
- gemini-2.5-flash-lite
breakers:
tool_thrashing: { identical_calls: 3, window_steps: 8 }
token_velocity: { max_tokens_per_s: 50000, window_s: 10 }
semantic_echo: { repeats: 3 }
max_steps: 15
cache:
meter_reads: true- budgetsPer-tenant monthly dollar cap with an 80% soft-cap webhook, keyed by X-PalmSouq-Tenant.
- fallbackAt the hard cap, requests reroute to Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite ($0.18 blended per 1M) instead of failing.
- breakersAll four loop heuristics on, evaluated in the request path with under 5 ms added latency.
Where it fits
Cost-sensitive chat, coding assistance and batch-style processing where response time variability is acceptable.
Provider documentation: api-docs.deepseek.com
DeepSeek V3.2 (chat) pricing questions
How much does DeepSeek V3.2 (chat) cost per million tokens?
At list price DeepSeek V3.2 (chat) costs $0.28 per 1M input tokens and $0.42 per 1M output tokens, with cached input at $0.028 per 1M. Prices were last reviewed in the PALM SOUQ LLM Price Index and are for the standard tier and shortest context band.
Does DeepSeek V3.2 (chat) support prompt caching?
Yes. Cached input is billed at $0.028 per 1M tokens against $0.28 for uncached input. PALM SOUQ records cached tokens per tenant from the provider's usage data, so cache savings show up in each customer's COGS.
What are the DeepSeek V3.2 (chat) rate limits?
DeepSeek does not publish fixed per-account rate limits; it serves requests dynamically based on load, and requests can wait longer under heavy traffic. Build timeouts and retry limits into your client rather than assuming a fixed throughput. For your account's exact numbers, see the DeepSeek documentation at api-docs.deepseek.com.
How do I stop runaway DeepSeek V3.2 (chat) agent loops?
Retry storms are the main loop risk. When responses slow under load, clients with aggressive timeouts retry and duplicate work. Cap retries per logical request at the gateway and use exponential backoff. The sample policy on this page enables all four PALM SOUQ heuristics with a max step cap of 15 and falls back to Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite at the hard cap.
Is there a batch discount for DeepSeek V3.2 (chat)?
No batch tier; DeepSeek discounts through automatic context caching instead. Use caching and model routing to lower cost for asynchronous jobs.
Govern DeepSeek V3.2 (chat) spend per customer.
Point your DeepSeek client at gateway.palmsouqltd.com, pass X-PalmSouq-Tenant, and every DeepSeek V3.2 (chat) token is attributed, capped and protected by circuit breakers.
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