Claude vs DeepSeek
Claude and DeepSeek are both AI assistants tools aimed at developers and small businesses. Both have a free plan.
Anthropic's AI assistant for writing, analysis and code
Free AI chat app and low-cost API built on open-weight models
| Pricing | Freemium · $20 | Freemium |
| Starting price | $20/mo | Not published |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Built for | Developers, Small businesses, Creators | Developers, Small businesses, Enterprise, Freelancers |
| Platforms | web, ios, android, macos, windows | web, ios, android |
| Country | US · 2023 | CN · 2023 |
| Rating | — | — |
Choose Claude if
Writers, analysts, developers and teams who work with long text or code and value precision.
- Writing quality and instruction-following are top tier
- Excellent for long documents and coding
- Artifacts make iterative work tangible
Look elsewhere if: Image-generation-heavy workflows or users who want the broadest consumer app ecosystem.
Choose DeepSeek if
Developers and cost-conscious teams who want strong reasoning and coding models at very low API prices or as open weights.
- Consumer chat is completely free
- Among the cheapest frontier-class API token prices
- Open weights allow self-hosting and fine-tuning
Look elsewhere if: Organisations with strict data residency or public-sector rules (Mistral Le Chat, Claude, ChatGPT Enterprise).
Claude vs DeepSeek pricing
Claude
- Free$0Sonnet and Haiku, up to 5 Projects, no Claude Code or Opus
- Pro$20/mo$17/mo billed annually; Claude Code, Opus, Projects
- Maxfrom $100/mo5x or 20x Pro usage per session, priority access
- Team Standard$25/seat/mo$20/seat billed annually; 2-150 seats; Premium seat $125
- Enterprise$20/seat/moBilled annually, 20-seat minimum, plus usage at API rates
DeepSeek
- Chat app$0Web, iOS and Android; no paid consumer tier
- deepseek-flash API$0.30/1M input tokensPeak cache-miss rate; output $1.20/1M; off-peak rates are half
- deepseek-v4-pro API$1.32/1M input tokensPeak cache-miss rate; output $3.96/1M; off-peak rates are half
- Search & Fetch API$0.75/1,000 requestsBilled per successful request
Claude · Key features
- Long-context analysis of documents, spreadsheets and codebases
- Artifacts: live documents, code and apps beside the chat
- Projects with persistent knowledge and instructions
- Web search with citations and extended thinking
- Claude Code for agentic programming in terminal and IDE
- Connectors via MCP to Google Workspace, Slack, GitHub and more
Cons
- Usage limits can bite heavy users on Pro
- Fewer consumer features than ChatGPT (image generation)
- Voice mode arrived later and is more limited
DeepSeek · Key features
- Free chat app with thinking and instant modes on web and mobile
- 1M-token context window on V4 models
- API compatible with OpenAI and Anthropic request formats
- Automatic context caching with much cheaper cache-hit pricing
- Off-peak API rates at half the peak price
- Tool calls, JSON output and FIM completion for coding tools
Cons
- Hosted service stores user data on servers in China
- Banned on government devices in several countries
- Answers on politically sensitive Chinese topics are censored
Claude vs DeepSeek: FAQ
Do Claude and DeepSeek have a free plan?
Yes, both Claude and DeepSeek have a free plan; paid plans add more usage and features.