# DeepSeek R1 API, paid in crypto

> DeepSeek R1-0528 by API at $0.57 / $2.208 per 1M tokens, paid in crypto, no KYC. OpenAI-compatible; DeepSeek’s own API no longer lists R1.

- URL: https://llmwithcrypto.com/models/deepseek-r1/
- Last updated: 2026-10-23
- Publisher: LLMwithCrypto (https://llmwithcrypto.com)

DeepSeek’s reasoning model, release R1-0528, served by us under the MIT licence and billed per token from a crypto balance. DeepSeek no longer lists R1 on its own API; a few hosts still do. No KYC.

**Quick answer — Can I still call the DeepSeek R1 API, and pay in crypto?**

Yes. DeepSeek’s own API no longer lists R1, but **LLMwithCrypto** serves the R1-0528 release under the API id `deepseek-r1`. As of 23 October 2026 it costs $0.57 per million input tokens and $2.208 per million output tokens, 5% below the median of 2 hosts, with a 160K-token context. Pay in crypto, no KYC.

## How does our price compare with other hosts?

List prices per million tokens on each host's own pricing page, read on 23 October 2026; promotions are left out. Ours is the median of these prices minus 5%; every host is in the [price index](https://llmwithcrypto.com/data/open-model-api-price-index-2026/).

| Host | Input / 1M | Output / 1M |
| --- | --- | --- |
| **LLMwithCrypto** | $0.57 | $2.208 |
| DeepInfra | $0.50 | $2.15 |
| Novita AI | $0.70 | $2.50 |

*Prices checked on October 23, 2026.*

## How do I call DeepSeek R1?

With the OpenAI SDK, as for any OpenAI-compatible API: set the base URL to `https://llmwithcrypto.com/api/v1`, read your key from `LLMWITHCRYPTO_API_KEY`, and pass `deepseek-r1` as the model. Pass your API key as a Bearer token in the Authorization header, as the OpenAI SDK does.

*deepseek_r1.py*

```python
import os

from openai import OpenAI

client = OpenAI(
    base_url="https://llmwithcrypto.com/api/v1",
    api_key=os.environ["LLMWITHCRYPTO_API_KEY"],
)

resp = client.chat.completions.create(
    model="deepseek-r1",
    messages=[{"role": "user", "content": "A train leaves at 14:05 and arrives at 17:50 after two 12-minute stops. How long was it moving?"}],
)
print(resp.choices[0].message.content)
print(resp.usage)  # prompt_tokens and completion_tokens: what the call costs

```

## What is DeepSeek R1 good for?

R1 is the DeepSeek model built for step-by-step reasoning; the release served here is R1-0528, MIT-licensed. On 23 October 2026 only two of the hosts we read listed it, and DeepSeek’s own API had moved on to the V4 family.

Keep R1 for apps already tuned to it, or for problems that reward working through steps. For new projects, compare it with [DeepSeek V4 Pro](https://llmwithcrypto.com/models/deepseek-v4-pro/), which has a much longer context.

## What licence does DeepSeek R1 come with?

MIT. The R1-0528 weights carry the MIT licence on Hugging Face, which allows hosting them as an API with the copyright notice kept. Each model keeps its own licence and use policy (for example Meta’s Llama Acceptable Use Policy and the “Built with Llama” notice); using a model through us means accepting them.

## DeepSeek R1 questions

### Why is R1 more expensive than V4.1 Flash?

Because the market prices it that way: our price follows the median of the hosts that still list R1-0528, minus 5%, and those hosts charge more for it than for V4.1 Flash.

### Will you keep serving R1?

As long as it stays on the models page. If we retire a model, the change is dated in the [changelog](https://llmwithcrypto.com/changelog/) before it goes.

### Is my data kept?

We do not store your prompts or the model’s answers: once a response is sent, its text is gone. Each call leaves one log line with the time, the account, the model and the token counts, deleted after 30 days.

## Sources

1. [DeepInfra pricing](https://deepinfra.com/pricing) — DeepInfra (read 2026-10-23)
2. [Novita AI pricing](https://novita.ai/pricing) — Novita AI (read 2026-10-23)

---

LLMwithCrypto: LLMwithCrypto is an OpenAI-compatible LLM API for open-weight models — DeepSeek V4 Pro, DeepSeek V4.1 Flash, DeepSeek R1, Qwen3.5 397B A17B, Qwen3 235B A22B Instruct, gpt-oss-120b, gpt-oss-20b, GLM-4.7, Llama 3.3 70B Instruct, Gemma 4 31B, Mistral Large 3, Mistral Small 4 — paid per token from a prepaid crypto balance, at 5% below the median price of the public hosts. No KYC: no ID, no selfie, no documents. Prompts and outputs are not stored.