DeepSeek has announced an API pricing update that adopts peak-valley pricing, charging half the peak rate during idle periods. Peak hours are set at 9:00-12:00 and 14:00-18:00 Beijing time, with all other periods treated as off-peak. The new rates will take effect at 00:00 Beijing time on Aug. 17, 2026. Under the revised schedule, deepseek-v4-pro output will cost as much as 27 yuan per million tokens during peak hours, according to a report by National Business Daily cited by PANews.