Model comparison
DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash vs Claude Haiku 4.5: 1M context vs 200K
DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash holds 5x the context of Claude Haiku 4.5 and costs $0.22 against $1.20 for a cached coding session. Haiku 4.5's successor is announced.
· Prices as of September 28, 2026
DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash
DeepSeek · Released September 10, 2026
DeepSeek's small, low-cost, natively multimodal model on its new architecture, which DeepSeek says outperforms its own DeepSeek-V4-Pro.
DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash facts and comparisonsClaude Haiku 4.5
Anthropic · Released October 15, 2025
Anthropic's fastest and cheapest current model, aimed at latency-sensitive work and at coding sub-agents.
Claude Haiku 4.5 facts and comparisons
The short answer
DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash costs $0.22 for the example agentic coding session against $1.20 on Claude Haiku 4.5, a 5.5x gap, and it accepts 1M tokens of context where Haiku 4.5 stops at 200K. Claude Haiku 4.5 still makes sense inside Claude Code, where Anthropic positions it for latency-sensitive work and coding sub-agents, but Anthropic lists its retirement as not sooner than October 15, 2026 and has announced Claude Haiku 5.5. DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash fits work routed through OpenRouter or OpenCode, or self-hosted under its MIT license.
Choose DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash if
- Your prompts can outgrow 200K tokens: DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash accepts 1M, 5x Haiku 4.5's window.
- You want the lower price per session, $0.22 against $1.20, or $24.42 against $132.00 over 110 sessions a month.
- You generate long outputs, with up to 384K tokens per response against 64K.
- You want open weights under the MIT license, which let you run the model yourself.
Choose Claude Haiku 4.5 if
- You use Claude Code and want a low-cost Claude model for sub-agents, a role Anthropic names for Haiku in multi-agent refactors and migrations.
- You want manual extended thinking with a token budget you set, which Haiku 4.5 uses instead of effort levels.
- Your tools are Cursor or GitHub Copilot, which offer Haiku 4.5 and do not list DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash.
- You want to stay on Anthropic's models and move to Claude Haiku 5.5 once it ships.
Side by side
Specs and prices
| Fact | DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash | Claude Haiku 4.5 |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | DeepSeek | Anthropic |
| API model id | deepseek-flash | claude-haiku-4-5 |
| Released | September 10, 2026 | October 15, 2025 |
| Status | Current | Current |
| Context window | 1M tokens | 200K tokens |
| Max output | 384K tokens | 64K tokens |
| Open weights | Yes | No |
| Input, per 1M tokens | $0.30 | $1 |
| Cache hit, per 1M | $0.006 | $0.10 |
| Cache write, per 1M | $0.30 (same as input) | $1.25 (5-minute), $2 (1-hour) |
| Output, per 1M tokens | $1.20 | $5 |
| Runs in | OpenCode and OpenRouter | Claude Code, Cursor, OpenCode, OpenRouter, and GitHub Copilot |
Standard API rates in US dollars, as published by each maker (DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash: September 28, 2026; Claude Haiku 4.5: September 26, 2026). Batch and priority tiers, taxes, and subscription plans are not included. DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash: Prices are DeepSeek's peak rates. Off-peak hours cost 50% less: peak is 01:00 to 04:00 and 06:00 to 10:00 UTC on weekdays, excluding Chinese public holidays.
Cost
What the same work costs
The same token counts, priced at each model’s published rates. Cached tokens are billed at each maker’s cache prices, so the session shows what caching is worth on each model.
Real sessions differ: the two models count the same code as different numbers of tokens, and reasoning settings change how much each one writes. Your own history is the real test.
| Workload | DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash | Claude Haiku 4.5 |
|---|---|---|
| Agentic coding session, 100K input, 400K written to cache, 2M read from cache, 50K output | $0.22 | $1.20 |
| Large one-off review, 150K input with no cache hits, 10K output | $0.06 | $0.20 |
| Output-heavy generation, 30K input, 80K output | $0.11 | $0.43 |
| A month of sessions, 110 sessions: 5 a day, 22 working days | $24.42 | $132.00 |
| Where the session’s cost goes | ||
| Cache writes | $0.12 | $0.65 |
| Cache reads | $0.01 | $0.20 |
| Uncached input | $0.03 | $0.10 |
| Output | $0.06 | $0.25 |
- caching saves on the session with DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash (73%)
- $0.59
- caching saves on the session with Claude Haiku 4.5 (56%)
- $1.55
200K or 1M: the context window decides many cases
The biggest difference here is not price. Claude Haiku 4.5 accepts 200K tokens of context and writes up to 64K. DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash accepts 1M and writes up to 384K. An agent that loads a large repository, a long log, or a long conversation can fit 5x as much into one DeepSeek request.
For short, focused jobs the window matters less. Anthropic aims Haiku 4.5 at latency-sensitive work and names sub-agents in multi-agent refactors and migrations as a use, where each sub-agent sees a slice of the codebase rather than all of it. It also claims coding performance similar to Claude Sonnet 4 at one-third the cost and more than twice the speed.
Token counts are not directly comparable. Haiku 4.5 uses Anthropic's older tokenizer, so the same text counts as fewer tokens than on Claude models from 4.7 on, which produce about 30% more. DeepSeek's tokenizer is its own, so a prompt that measures 200K on one model will not measure exactly 200K on the other.
Where the 5.5x session gap comes from
At list prices DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash charges $0.30 input and $1.20 output per million at its peak rates, against $1 and $5 for Haiku 4.5. On the large one-off review that is 3.3x, $0.06 against $0.20, and on the output-heavy generation 3.9x, $0.11 against $0.43.
The cached session widens it to 5.5x. A Haiku 4.5 cache hit costs $0.10 per million, 10% of input; a DeepSeek hit costs $0.006, 2% of input, which makes the 2M cached tokens $0.20 on Haiku and $0.01 on DeepSeek. Writes differ too: Anthropic bills 1.25x input for a 5-minute write and 2x for a 1-hour write, $1.25 and $2 on Haiku, while DeepSeek lists no write fee. The session's writes cost $0.65 on Haiku and $0.12 on DeepSeek.
Outside 01:00 to 04:00 and 06:00 to 10:00 UTC on weekdays, and all day on weekends and Chinese public holidays, DeepSeek charges 50% less than the peak rates used here, so the gap can be wider still. Through OpenRouter a request goes to one of several providers, whose prices can differ from DeepSeek's own API price in these tables.
Haiku 4.5's retirement date and what replaces it
Anthropic lists Claude Haiku 4.5's retirement as not sooner than October 15, 2026, and as of September 28, 2026 it had announced Claude Haiku 5.5 as due within weeks. Haiku 5.5 is not part of this comparison yet. Choosing Haiku 4.5 today means planning for a move to its successor.
DeepSeek has its own naming change to know about: the API id deepseek-flash serves V4.1 Flash, and the older deepseek-v4-flash ids route to it, so code that used the older ids now reaches V4.1 Flash.
In tools, Haiku 4.5 is in Claude Code, Cursor, OpenRouter, OpenCode, and GitHub Copilot, and Claude Code, as Anthropic's own agent, runs Claude models. DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash is in OpenRouter and OpenCode, and it was the most-used model on OpenRouter in the week before September 28, 2026, by tokens processed.
EveryToken prices Haiku 4.5 at Anthropic's rates from Claude Code, Cursor, or OpenCode history, and prices DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash when your requests go through OpenRouter, using OpenRouter's catalog.
Prompt caching
How each maker bills cached tokens
DeepSeek
DeepSeek's disk cache is on by default for every account, with no code changes. DeepSeek lists no fee for writing the cache.
A cache hit costs $0.006 per million tokens on DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash and $0.044 on DeepSeek-V4-Pro at peak rates, and off-peak hours cost 50% less.
Source: DeepSeek API: Context caching
Anthropic
Claude caches a prompt prefix up to a breakpoint. One top-level cache_control field places the breakpoint automatically and moves it as the conversation grows, or you can mark up to 4 blocks yourself. Claude Code manages caching for you.
A 5-minute cache write costs 1.25x the input price and a 1-hour write costs 2x. A cache hit costs 0.1x input on most models, 0.05x on Claude Opus 5.5, and 0.025x on Claude Fable 5.1 and Claude Mythos 5.1. Every hit restarts the cache lifetime at no charge.
Anthropic's rule of thumb: a 5-minute write pays for itself after one cache read, and a 1-hour write after two.
In Claude Code, the main conversation uses the 1-hour cache on a Claude subscription and the 5-minute cache with an API key. Each model has its own cache, so switching models starts over.
Source: Anthropic: Prompt caching
Your own numbers
See what DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash and Claude Haiku 4.5 really cost you.
everyaitoken reads your OpenRouter, Claude Code, Cursor, and OpenCode history on your Mac and prices every request at API rates, with what caching saved or cost. $9 once.
FAQ
Questions
Is DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash cheaper than Claude Haiku 4.5?
Yes. Input costs $0.30 against $1 per million and output $1.20 against $5 at DeepSeek's peak rates. The example cached session costs $0.22 against $1.20, a 5.5x gap, because DeepSeek's cache hits and writes cost far less.
When will Claude Haiku 4.5 be retired?
Not before October 15, 2026, by Anthropic's own schedule, and Anthropic had announced Claude Haiku 5.5 by late September 2026. Until it retires, Haiku 4.5 remains a current model in Claude Code and on the API.
Can Claude Haiku 4.5 handle a 1M token prompt?
No. Its context window is 200K tokens, and it writes up to 64K. DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash accepts 1M tokens and writes up to 384K.
Can DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash replace Haiku 4.5 as a Claude Code sub-agent?
Claude Code is built around Anthropic's Claude models and defaults to them, so its sub-agents normally use models such as Haiku 4.5. It can reach other providers' compatible endpoints with custom configuration, which this post doesn't cover. To use DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash in an agent, run it through OpenCode or OpenRouter, or call DeepSeek's API as deepseek-flash.
Sources
- DeepSeek API: Models and pricing
- DeepSeek: V4.1 Flash release
- DeepSeek API: Change log
- OpenRouter: DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash
- OpenRouter: Rankings
- OpenCode docs: Zen
- Anthropic: Pricing
- Anthropic docs: Claude Haiku 4.5
- Anthropic: Introducing Claude Haiku 4.5
- Anthropic: Claude Haiku
- Anthropic docs: Model deprecations
- Cursor docs: Models and pricing
- OpenRouter: Claude Haiku 4.5
- OpenCode docs: Zen
- GitHub Docs: Supported AI models in Copilot
- DeepSeek API: Context caching
- Anthropic: Prompt caching