DeepSeek and Xiaomi cut API token prices by up to 99%, undercutting OpenAI and Anthropic’s recent price increases for frontier AI models.
DeepSeek made its 75% discount on the V4-Pro model permanent, setting output at $0.87 per million tokens. Xiaomi followed by reducing MiMo-V2.5 cached input prices to $0.0036 per million tokens for its Pro model, a near-99% cut. These moves contrast sharply with US competitors, where OpenAI’s GPT-5.5 doubled output prices to $30 per million tokens at launch.
Token pricing directly impacts the cost structure for businesses integrating AI into products. While Chinese labs aggressively lowered rates, Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4.7 introduced a tokenizer that can inflate costs by up to 35%. The divergence highlights a growing price gap in the AI infrastructure market.
The pricing shifts may pressure Western AI providers to adjust strategies as cost efficiency becomes a key differentiator for enterprise adoption.