G
GChatGPT vs DeepSeek
Pricing, features, platforms and who each one suits — side by side.
C
Choose ChatGPT if…
- you want a free plan to start with
- you're in its core audience: individuals and students, writers and knowledge workers
D
Choose DeepSeek if…
- you need an API to build on
- you work on iOS, Android
- you're in its core audience: developers, ai app builders
Side by side
Feature ChatGPT DeepSeek
Pricing modelFreemiumPaid
Starting price$8/mo—
Free plan
Free trial
API
Open source
Trains AI on your contentYes—
GitHub stars—263.8K
Web search—
File upload & analysis—
Image generation—
PlatformsWebWeb, iOS, Android, API
CategoryAI ChatbotsAI Chatbots
CompanyOpenAIDeepSeek
Based in——
Founded——
Part of——
Key features
C ChatGPT
- Chat-based answers to questions and tasks
- Help with writing and editing
- Coding help through the included Codex agent
- Several individual tiers from Free to Pro
- Per-seat team workspaces through Business
- Enterprise plan sold through sales
D DeepSeek
- Web chat at chat.deepseek.com
- Mobile app and DeepSeek Harness desktop client
- OpenAI- and Anthropic-compatible API
- 1M-token context window, 384K max output
- Thinking mode with adjustable reasoning effort
- Web search and page fetch through the API
- Discounted pricing for cache hits and off-peak hours
Plans and prices
From each vendor's site. Prices change — confirm before buying.
ChatGPT
Free$0
Go$8/mo (US)
Plus$20/mo
ProFrom $100/mo
Business$20/user/mo billed annually; $25 monthly
EnterpriseCustom
DeepSeek
deepseek-flash API$0.15/1M input tokens (cache miss, off-peak), $0.6/1M output tokens off-peak; peak rates are double
deepseek-v4-pro API$0.66/1M input tokens (cache miss, off-peak), $1.98/1M output tokens off-peak; peak rates are double
Search & Fetch$0.75 per 1,000 successful requests
Strengths and limitations
ChatGPT
- Free plan available
- Go plan costs $8/month in the US
- Codex is included in all plans, Free included
- Business plan starts at just 2 users
- Free plan has limited features
- Pro tiers cost $100–$500 per month
- Enterprise pricing is only available from sales
DeepSeek
- Off-peak API prices are 50% of peak prices
- 1M-token context on both API models
- Works with OpenAI and Anthropic API formats
- Available on web, mobile, and desktop
- Peak-hour API rates are twice the off-peak rates
- Web search and fetch through the API cost extra per request
- The site does not state free-tier terms or limits for the chat apps
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