DeepSeek
Alternatives

Best cheaper alternatives to DeepSeek-V3 (Chat)

Looking for a cheaper or smarter replacement for DeepSeek-V3 (Chat) by DeepSeek? We compared every LLM model with verifiable pricing on real input/output cost, context window, intelligence and modalities. 16 options are meaningfully cheaper.

Category: LLM Intelligence 63 64K context
Meta
Llama 3.2 11B Vision54% CHEAPER
Meta
Better valueLarger contextMore modalitiesSame category
Meta
Llama 3.1 8B54% CHEAPER
Meta
Better valueLarger contextSame category
Writer
Palmyra Vision97% CHEAPER
Writer
Same category
Alibaba Cloud
Qwen Image Plus75% CHEAPER
Alibaba Cloud
Same category
Google
Gemini 1.5 Flash-8B45% CHEAPER
Google
Larger contextMore modalitiesSame category
Groq
Llama 3.1 8B Instant 128k52% CHEAPER
Groq
Larger contextSame category
Google
Imagen 467% CHEAPER
Google
Same category
Alibaba Cloud
Qwen2.5 3B Instruct45% CHEAPER
Alibaba Cloud
Same category
Alibaba Cloud
Qwen Turbo27% CHEAPER
Alibaba Cloud
Larger contextSame category
Together AI
GPT OSS 20B27% CHEAPER
Together AI
Larger contextSame category
Mistral AI
Ministral 3 3B17% CHEAPER
Mistral AI
Larger contextMore modalitiesSame category
Alibaba Cloud
Qwen 7B25% CHEAPER
Alibaba Cloud
Larger contextSame category
OpenAI
o3
OpenAI
Smarter (78 vs 63)Larger contextMore modalitiesSame category
Alibaba Cloud
Qwen Image MAX38% CHEAPER
Alibaba Cloud
Same category
Google
Gemini 2.5 Pro
Google
Smarter (76 vs 63)Larger contextMore modalitiesSame category
Mistral AI
Ministral 317% CHEAPER
Mistral AI
Larger contextSame category
Mistral AI
Ministral17% CHEAPER
Mistral AI
Larger contextSame category
Together AI
Qwen3.5 9B6% CHEAPER
Together AI
Larger contextMore modalitiesSame category

Costs are normalised to a blended 1M-token workload (or per-unit price for non-token models) using each model's latest verified pricing. Models with pricing under review are excluded from recommendations.