# DeepSeek V4 Pro vs Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite

Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite is the cheaper of the 2: for the same tokens, 3 read for each 1 written, DeepSeek V4 Pro costs 2.3 times as much. Below are both price lists, what 8 everyday jobs cost a month on each, and how many tokens the same text takes on each, which can change the answer.

- Page, with a calculator for your own job: https://tecyfy.com/prices/compare/deepseek-v4-pro-vs-gemini-3-5-flash-lite
- Makers: DeepSeek V4 Pro from DeepSeek, Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite from Google

## Price per million tokens, in US dollars

| | DeepSeek V4 Pro | Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite |
| --- | --: | --: |
| Input | $1.32 | $0.30 |
| Cached input | $0.044 | $0.03 |
| Cache write | not listed | not listed |
| Output | $3.96 | $2.50 |
| Blend, 3 read for each 1 written | $1.98 | $0.85 |
| Batch input | not listed | not listed |
| Batch output | not listed | not listed |
| Context window, tokens | 1M | 1.05M |
| Capability score (Epoch Capabilities Index; GPT-5 is 150) | 155 | 145 |
| Longest answer, tokens | not listed | 66K |

DeepSeek V4 Pro: The peak-hours price. Off-peak hours are half. Peak is 01:00 to 04:00 and 06:00 to 10:00 UTC on weekdays.

## The same text, counted by each maker

Our lesson "How AI writes" (https://tecyfy.com/learn/how-ai-works/how-ai-writes), about 1,700 words of English:

- DeepSeek V4 Pro: 2,063 tokens. Counted with the tokenizer DeepSeek publishes with V4-Pro and V4.1 Flash, the same models its API serves.
- Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite: about 2,200 tokens. Google does not publish the Gemini tokenizer. Its rule is that a token is about 4 characters, so the count is the characters divided by 4.

## What 8 everyday jobs cost a month on each

Each job at its usual runs a day, for 30 days, at the standard price.

| Job | Tokens in, out, runs a day | DeepSeek V4 Pro | Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite |
| --- | --- | --: | --: |
| A chat question | 300, 500, 100 | $7.13 | $4.02 |
| A hard question, with thinking | 300, 1,400, 100 | $17.82 | $10.77 |
| A long report, summarised | 60,000, 2,000, 20 | $52.27 | $13.80 |
| A 40-turn agent task | 2,800,000, 40,000, 10 | $192 | $77.88 |
| A support bot's reply | 4,000, 300, 2,000 | $235 | $84.60 |
| Sort a message into a category | 250, 5, 50,000 | $525 | $131 |
| Read an invoice into fields | 1,500, 250, 1,000 | $89.10 | $32.25 |
| Review a pull request | 25,000, 4,500, 50 | $76.23 | $28.13 |

## Questions

### Which is cheaper, DeepSeek V4 Pro or Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite?

Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite is cheaper: $0.30 per million tokens read and $2.50 per million written, against $1.32 and $3.96 on DeepSeek V4 Pro. On a mix of 3 tokens read for each 1 written, DeepSeek V4 Pro costs 2.3 times as much.

### Which is better, DeepSeek V4 Pro or Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite?

On the Epoch Capabilities Index, an independent score from Epoch AI that combines over 50 benchmarks, DeepSeek V4 Pro scores 155 and Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite 145, above the top of the range of doubt around Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite's score (GPT-5 is 150). One score is an average; test both on your own work before you switch.

### What does a support bot cost a month on DeepSeek V4 Pro and Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite?

At 2,000 replies a day, each reading 4,000 tokens (50 percent of them from cache) and writing 300, it costs $235 a month on DeepSeek V4 Pro and $84.60 on Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite: DeepSeek V4 Pro costs 2.8 times as much for this job.

### What does an AI agent task cost on DeepSeek V4 Pro and Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite?

One 40-turn task that reads 2,800,000 tokens in all, 90 percent of them from cache, and writes 40,000, costs 64 cents on DeepSeek V4 Pro and 26 cents on Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite. At 10 tasks a day that is $192 and $77.88 a month.

### Which has the larger context window, DeepSeek V4 Pro or Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite?

Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite, with 1.05M tokens against 1M on DeepSeek V4 Pro. The window holds your instructions, the files you attach, the conversation so far and the answer, all at once.

### Does the same text take the same number of tokens on DeepSeek V4 Pro and Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite?

No. Our lesson "How AI writes", 1,700 words long, is 2,063 tokens on DeepSeek V4 Pro and about 2,200 on Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite. Each maker cuts text its own way, and every extra token is paid for at the model's price.

### Can I pay less on DeepSeek V4 Pro and Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite for work that can wait?

Not with a batch price: neither maker's price page lists one for these models. A cache still lowers the price of text the model reads again.

## Sources

- [DeepSeek: API prices](https://api-docs.deepseek.com/quick_start/pricing)
- [Google: API prices](https://ai.google.dev/gemini-api/docs/pricing)
- [Epoch Capabilities Index, by Epoch AI (CC BY 4.0)](https://epoch.ai/benchmarks/eci)

## Other comparisons

- [Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite vs Gemini 3.6 Flash](https://tecyfy.com/prices/compare/gemini-3-5-flash-lite-vs-gemini-3-6-flash.md)
- [Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview vs Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite](https://tecyfy.com/prices/compare/gemini-3-1-pro-preview-vs-gemini-3-5-flash-lite.md)
- [Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite vs Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite](https://tecyfy.com/prices/compare/gemini-3-1-flash-lite-vs-gemini-3-5-flash-lite.md)
- [Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite vs Gemini 3 Flash Preview](https://tecyfy.com/prices/compare/gemini-3-5-flash-lite-vs-gemini-3-flash-preview.md)
- [Gemini 2.5 Pro vs Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite](https://tecyfy.com/prices/compare/gemini-2-5-pro-vs-gemini-3-5-flash-lite.md)
- [Gemini 2.5 Flash vs Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite](https://tecyfy.com/prices/compare/gemini-2-5-flash-vs-gemini-3-5-flash-lite.md)