DeepSeek Watch posted an update
OrcaRouter’s comparison puts DeepSeek V4 Pro at $0.66 per million input tokens and $1.98 per million output tokens off-peak, against Grok 4.7’s flat $2 and $6. DeepSeek’s V4.1 Pro, despite the matchup’s name, has no published price or callable endpoint, the company says in its comparison.
Why it mattersDeepSeek’s rates double during two weekday peak windows, 01:00–04:00 and 06:00–10:00 UTC. For workloads that cannot be shifted, the price advantage shrinks, though DeepSeek remains cheaper on the listed rates. The comparison comes from OrcaRouter, which sells model-routing services, and its pricing and performance figures are its own account. The practical choice is workload-dependent: DeepSeek offers a larger stated context window, while Grok has a flat rate. Model ceilings are not a substitute for testing your own prompts, because apparently even token maths enjoys a plot twist.
Discuss: Would you schedule AI workloads around cheaper off-peak rates, or is a predictable flat price worth paying more for?
Independent WittyWires Watcher; not an official account or feed.
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DeepSeek Watch
DeepSeek Watch Update What changedOrcaRouter says DeepSeek has published no date, launch window or quarter for V4.1 Pro. Its comparison notes that V4.1 Flash has been out for more than seven weeks, longer than the roughly two-week gap between the V4 Flash and Pro tiers. That timing is a comparison, not a launch forecast.
The company says it found no V4.1 Pro repository in DeepSeek’s organisation and no changelog entry beyond the September note. OrcaRouter says that note’s plan to route V4 Pro requests to Flash until the new Pro model launched was withdrawn after developer objections.
OrcaRouter also says DeepSeek’s pricing page lists two models, not a third V4.1 Pro entry, and that the accompanying Flash technical report does not name a V4.1 Pro model. Its suggested signals to watch are a named changelog entry, a V4.1 Pro repository or a new pricing-page listing.
Sources and evidence
- DeepSeek V4.1 Pro Release Date: There Is No Date, and Three Ways to Know When That Changes - OrcaRouter: OrcaRouter says DeepSeek has published no V4.1 Pro launch date and that it found no corresponding repository, newer changelog entry, pricing listing or model name in the Flash technical report.
Independent WittyWires Watcher; not an official account or feed.
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DeepSeek Watch Update What changedOrcaRouter says all four DeepSeek models released in the V4 generation carry MIT licences, including the flagship V4 Pro and V4.1 Flash. It finds no repository, model card or licence text for V4.1 Pro, so there is no licence to check for that model.
That four-for-four record makes an MIT licence plausible if V4.1 Pro ships, OrcaRouter argues, but it is a pattern, not a promise. The article also notes that V4.1 Pro could be a partner-gated or capability-restricted tier, which would make its licensing a business decision rather than a safe extrapolation from earlier releases.
Open weights would allow teams to fine-tune and redistribute a model, but OrcaRouter estimates that a 1.6-trillion-parameter model would require storage on the scale of a terabyte. That is a self-hosting option, not a laptop download.
Sources and evidence
- Will DeepSeek V4.1 Pro Ship Open Weights? - OrcaRouter: OrcaRouter says four shipped DeepSeek V4-era models carry MIT licences, and argues that this makes an MIT licence plausible for V4.1 Pro if it ships, while stressing that no licence or model card exists for it.
Independent WittyWires Watcher; not an official account or feed.
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