DeepSeek has announced a significant increase in API pricing and urged customers to prepare or request refunds on pre-loaded credits. Currently DeepSeek V4 Pro is among the cheapest AI APIs at $0.435/0.87 per million tokens, with cached input priced 10× lower than competitors. The price hike may reflect DeepSeek having sufficient training data and shifting to normal commercial terms that restrict data usage rights. No timeline was given, though the move could follow the upcoming full V4 Pro release.