ChatGPT vs DeepSeek: Features, Pricing and User Reviews 2026

ChatGPT offers a free plan plus several paid tiers built for different needs.

• Free ($0/month): Limited access to GPT-5.5 Instant, messages, image creation, and Codex.

• Go ($8/month): More messages, uploads, image creation, and longer memory, with possible ads.

• Plus ($20/month): Advanced reasoning with GPT-5.6, expanded Deep Research, Projects, scheduled tasks, and custom GPTs.

• Pro (from $100/month): Five to twenty times more usage, top level reasoning, and maximum Codex and research limits.

For teams, Business costs $20 per user per month billed yearly, or $25 monthly, with a two user minimum, adding admin controls and app connectors. Enterprise uses custom pricing with advanced security, data residency, and dedicated support.

DeepSeek is free to use through its website and mobile app, with no cost for chat, writing help, or file uploads.

For developers, DeepSeek offers an API that is billed by usage, based on the number of tokens processed.

• DeepSeek-V4-Flash: Costs $0.14 per 1 million input tokens, $0.0028 per 1 million tokens on a cache hit, and $0.28 per 1 million output tokens.

• DeepSeek-V4-Pro: Costs $0.435 per 1 million input tokens, $0.003625 per 1 million tokens on a cache hit, and $0.87 per 1 million output tokens.

Charges are calculated by multiplying the number of tokens used by the price, and fees are taken automatically from your account balance. You only pay for what you actually use, so there is no fixed monthly fee for the API.