DeepSeek Opens Self-Developed Search API at 5 Yuan per 1,000 Calls

DeepSeek opened its self-developed search API on Oct 17, offering it at 5 yuan per 1,000 calls. The company said the API would filter out SEO cheating and low-quality AIGC content.

On the same day, DeepSeek updated its V4.1-Flash model, released in September, to V4.1-Flash-1017, calling it a minor update. According to the company, the new version improves performance on reasoning, programming, agent tasks and vision benchmarks, with faster output and stronger 3D generation. It can also build game or 3D projects from scratch more quickly and completely, and handle more wish-style coding requests. API access and pricing remain unchanged; DeepSeek said shorter task execution time and output length would let users accomplish the same work at lower cost.

The update came as U.S. AI stocks were hit by heavy selling, with concerns over returns on AI infrastructure investment. The announcement was made on Saturday, and the market is expected to digest it when trading resumes on Oct 19. DeepSeek's no-price-increase, lower-cost update offers another possibility: stronger models may not necessarily require more spending.