DeepSeek vs Exa
DeepSeek and Exa are both AI assistants tools. DeepSeek is aimed at developers and small businesses, while Exa is aimed at developers and enterprise. Both have a free plan.
Free AI chat app and low-cost API built on open-weight models
Web search and content API built for AI agents and LLM apps
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium |
| Starting price | Not published | Not published |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Built for | Developers, Small businesses, Enterprise, Freelancers | Developers, Enterprise, Small businesses |
| Platforms | web, ios, android | web |
| Country | CN · 2023 | US · 2021 |
| Rating | — | — |
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).
Choose Exa if
Developers and AI teams who need a fast, controllable web search and content layer for agents, RAG or research products.
- Free $10 monthly credit grant with no card required
- Lite search at $4 per 1,000 requests suits high-volume agents
- Highlights cut token usage and LLM costs compared with full pages
Look elsewhere if: Non-technical users who want a finished answer engine or chat app rather than an API (Perplexity, You.com).
DeepSeek vs Exa pricing
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
Exa
- Free$0$10 in credits every month plus a one-time $10 onboarding bonus
- Search Lite$4/1,000 requestsUp to 10 results per request; $1 per 1k extra results
- Search Auto$7/1,000 requestsUp to 10 results per request; AI summaries $1 per 1k pages
- Deep Search$12/1,000 requestsdeep-lite (about 4 seconds) and deep (4 to 15 seconds) types
- Contents$1/1,000 pagesPer content type; prepaid credits, no subscription or minimum
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
Exa · Key features
- Search API with lite, auto, deep-lite and deep types on one independent index
- Dynamic Highlights that pass only the most relevant tokens to the model
- Contents API for full page text, highlights and AI summaries
- Agent API for cited research, list building and enrichment with structured output
- Coverage of people, companies, code, papers, ecommerce listings and local businesses
- Monitors for recurring searches and Websets for verified datasets
Cons
- No flat monthly plan, so spend rises directly with traffic
- Websets API needs a separate paid Websets plan and credits
- Benchmark leadership is reported by Exa itself
DeepSeek vs Exa: FAQ
Do DeepSeek and Exa have a free plan?
Yes, both DeepSeek and Exa have a free plan; paid plans add more usage and features.