Cheapest DeepSeek R1 API: SwiftRoute is 87% below the official price
DeepSeek R1 costs $0.550/$2.19 per 1M tokens from DeepSeek. The cheapest quote is SwiftRoute: $0.072 in, $0.285 out. Full table and buying checklist below.
| # | Provider | 1M input | 1M output | Discount | Tokens per $100 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| — | Official list | $0.550 | $2.19 | 0% | 121M |
| 1 | SwiftRoutedemo | $0.072 | $0.285 | −87% | 933M |
| 2 | ModelMilldemo | $0.111 | $0.444 | −80% | 600M |
| 3 | NovaRelaydemo | $0.168 | $0.667 | −70% | 399M |
| 4 | APIBridgedemo | $0.236 | $0.940 | −57% | 283M |
Tokens per $100 assume a “code” mix: 5 input tokens per output token. Prices are crawled; verify them on the provider page before buying.
What to check before buying
- Test the key with the free API checker — it verifies the endpoint responds, without sending tokens.
- Compare the blended cost for your workload, not just the input price: output tokens dominate in agent workloads.
- Check uptime and minimum top-up: the cheapest provider is useless if it is down half the day.