DeepSeek vs GPT-5: ₹ Cost Comparison for India

DeepSeek's models are priced to be used at volume, and GPT-5 is priced as an accessible flagship — so this comparison is really about how far your ₹ goes per million tokens, not just which lab built the model. unoblox carries three DeepSeek variants and GPT-5 behind the same ₹-billed key.

Three DeepSeek tiers, one GPT-5 flagship

DeepSeek ships more than one current model on unoblox, and picking the right variant matters as much as picking DeepSeek over GPT-5 in the first place:

Model	Model id	Input (₹ / 1M tokens)	Output (₹ / 1M tokens)
DeepSeek V4 Flash	deepseek-ai/deepseek-v4-flash	₹9.07	₹18.14
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash	deepseek-ai/deepseek-v4.1-flash	₹20.16	₹60.48
DeepSeek V3.2	deepseek-ai/deepseek-v3.2	₹26.21	₹38.30
GPT-5	openai/gpt-5	₹126	₹1,008

DeepSeek V4 Flash is the cheapest model in this comparison by a wide margin — roughly 14 times cheaper than GPT-5 on input tokens. DeepSeek is broadly known in the industry for publishing efficient, open-weight-lineage models, which lines up with why its unoblox pricing sits well below the large closed flagships; that's a general positioning point, not a benchmark claim, so validate quality against your own prompts.

What the price gap means in practice

At high request volumes — support automation, bulk classification, background summarisation — the per-token gap between DeepSeek V4 Flash and GPT-5 adds up quickly. A workload doing 20 million output tokens a month would cost roughly ₹363 on DeepSeek V4 Flash versus roughly ₹20,160 on GPT-5, purely from the ₹ rate card above. Whether that trade-off makes sense depends entirely on whether DeepSeek's output quality clears your bar for the task — there's no shortcut around testing it on your own prompts.

Where GPT-5 still earns its price

GPT-5 is the safer default when you need OpenAI's specific tuning, tool-calling behaviour, or ecosystem compatibility, or when a task is sensitive enough that you'd rather pay more for a model you've already validated at scale elsewhere. For many teams the practical answer is a hybrid: route routine, high-volume calls to a DeepSeek tier and reserve GPT-5 for the subset of requests that need it.

Same endpoint, either provider

curl https://api.unoblox.ai/v1/chat/completions \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer ub-gw-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"model":"deepseek-ai/deepseek-v4-flash","messages":[{"role":"user","content":"Classify this support ticket by urgency."}]}'

Swapping "model" to openai/gpt-5 is the entire migration — same key, same monthly GST invoice either way.

Frequently asked questions

Which DeepSeek model is cheapest on unoblox? DeepSeek V4 Flash, at ₹9.07 input and ₹18.14 output per million tokens — the lowest rate of any paid model in this comparison.

Is DeepSeek data processed in India? No. DeepSeek's models run on their own hosting infrastructure; unoblox's India benefit for this family is ₹ billing, GST invoicing and one endpoint, not data residency.

Can I route some requests to DeepSeek and others to GPT-5 automatically? Yes — since both are called the same way, your application can choose the model id per request based on task type, cost budget, or a fallback rule you define.

Why are there three DeepSeek variants instead of one? V4 Flash, V4.1 Flash and V3.2 trade off cost and behaviour differently; test each against your workload rather than assuming the cheapest is always the right fit.

Do I need a separate account for DeepSeek? No. One unoblox account and one ub-gw-… key cover DeepSeek, GPT-5, and every other model in the catalog.

Are these ₹ prices fixed? Treat them as indicative; the live rate on each model's own page at https://unoblox.ai/models is the source of truth before you commit to production volume.

Get started in rupees → https://unoblox.ai/sign-in