DeepSeek rolls out search-and-fetch at $0.75 per 1,000 successful requests
deepseek
| Source: HN | Original article
DeepSeek now charges $0.75 per 1,000 successful search or fetch API calls, billing only for requests that return a 200 response with results.
DeepSeek has opened its in‑house web‑search engine to external developers via two new APIs – Search and Fetch – and set a flat rate of $0.75 per 1,000 successful calls. The announcement, posted on X on 17 October, makes the endpoints available to anyone, with billing triggered only when a request returns an HTTP 200 and produces a result (a non‑empty results array for Search, page content for Fetch). Failed calls, empty results and timeouts are excluded from the charge.
The move marks DeepSeek’s first foray into monetising its search infrastructure, which the company says handles “hundreds of millions of requests a day.” By pricing at less than a dollar per thousand hits and imposing a modest five‑requests‑per‑second limit per account per endpoint, DeepSeek aims to attract developers building AI agents that need live web data without inflating operating costs. The model also encourages efficient query design, as only successful, content‑rich responses are billed.
The launch could shift the economics of AI‑driven web retrieval, offering a low‑cost alternative to the higher‑priced offerings from larger cloud providers. It may also accelerate integration of DeepSeek’s search into tools such as Claude Code, Codex and DeepSeek Harness, which currently enjoy free access until billing commences.
What to watch next are adoption metrics and any adjustments to rate limits or per‑domain caps on Fetch calls. Developers will likely test the APIs in real‑time agent deployments, and competitive responses from other AI platforms could prompt a pricing race or new feature bundles. As we reported on DeepSeek’s v4.1 Flash model earlier this month, the company is clearly positioning its ecosystem as a full‑stack solution for next‑generation AI applications.
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