DeepSeek V4 Peak Pricing: Skip 2x Rates, Zero Code Change
TL;DR DeepSeek V4 Flash introduced time-of-day pricing on July 1, 2026. During peak hours (09:00–12:00 and 14:00–18:00 Beijing time, Monday–Friday), per-token costs roughly double. Most advice you’ll see tells you to rewrite your scheduler, switch models manually, or queue batch jobs for midnight. This post shows you a better approach: point your existing client at an API gateway, change nothing else, and let the gateway handle routing, fallback, and cost smoothing. I’ll walk through the numbers, show you exactly how much you can save, and — honestly — when this approach doesn’t make sense. ...