# DeepSeek V4 peak billing is weekdays only: 35 hours a week, not 49

DeepSeek's rate card scopes its 2x peak window to Monday through Friday. Our entries said "seven daily peak hours", which overstated the expensive window by 14 hours a week on both V4 Pro and V4 Flash.

By Neomanex. Updated 2026-09-27.

Both [DeepSeek V4 Pro](/models/deepseek-v4-pro) and [DeepSeek V4 Flash](/models/deepseek-v4-flash) stay **recommended**. What changes is our description of when you pay double: DeepSeek's 2x peak window runs Monday to Friday only. Every hour of Saturday and Sunday bills off-peak.

This is a correction to our own entries, not a vendor price change.

## What happened

We re-verified DeepSeek's API rate card on 9 September 2026. The per-token rates are unchanged. The scope of the peak window was not what our entries said.

The rate card states: "Peak hours are 01:00 - 04:00 and 06:00 - 10:00 UTC, Monday through Friday (all other hours are off-peak)."

Our directory entries for V4 Pro and V4 Flash described "seven daily peak hours". The seven-hour figure is right. The word "daily" was not. Peak pricing never applies on a Saturday or a Sunday.

That is a 14-hour-per-week error, and it ran in the direction that costs you money: we described the expensive window as bigger than it is.

## Why it matters

Peak billing covers **35 hours a week, not 49**. Of the 168 hours in a week, 133 of them (79%) bill at the off-peak rate.

The practical rule is simpler than the one we gave you. Off-peak runs unbroken for 63 hours, from Friday 10:00 UTC to Monday 01:00 UTC. A batch evaluation, a bulk re-index or a long agent run started on Friday morning never touches the premium rate at all.

Confirmed rates, per 1M tokens (cache miss):

| Model | Input off-peak | Input peak | Output off-peak | Output peak |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| V4 Pro | $0.66 | $1.32 | $1.98 | $3.96 |
| V4 Flash | $0.22 | $0.44 | $0.66 | $1.32 |

Cache hits bill separately and far lower: $0.022 per 1M off-peak on V4 Pro and $0.007 on V4 Flash, doubling to $0.044 and $0.014 during peak. If your workload replays a large shared prefix, the peak multiplier barely registers on the input side of your bill.

## What changes for you

- **Move schedulable work to the weekend.** Batch jobs, evaluations and backfills bill entirely off-peak, with no scheduling logic beyond "not a weekday".
- **On weekdays, avoid 01:00-04:00 and 06:00-10:00 UTC.** Both windows are stated in UTC. If your cron runs in local time, convert it rather than assuming your morning matches theirs.
- **Do not switch on input price alone.** [GPT-5.6 Luna](/models/gpt-5-6-luna) undercuts Flash on input ($0.20 against $0.22 per 1M) but charges $1.20 on output against Flash's $0.66 off-peak, and it carries a conditional verdict in our directory. Output-heavy agent work still favors Flash.
- **Self-hosting remains the exit.** Both models are MIT licensed, so the peak window is an API pricing artifact rather than a property of the model.

## What we corrected

Both entries now carry the weekday scope in their pricing context. The verdicts are unchanged at recommended: this correction makes the models cheaper than we described, not worse. The [August 2026 price rise](/news/deepseek-v4-pro-ga-price-increase) still stands, and it still cost Flash its position as the cheapest credible API on input.

## FAQ

**Do DeepSeek peak rates apply at weekends?**
No. Peak hours are 01:00 - 04:00 and 06:00 - 10:00 UTC, Monday through Friday. Every other hour, including all of Saturday and Sunday, bills at the off-peak rate.

**How many hours a week does DeepSeek peak pricing cover?**
35. Seven hours on each of five weekdays, out of 168 hours in the week.

**How much more do peak hours cost?**
Double. Peak rates are exactly 2x off-peak on input, output and cache hits alike.

**Did DeepSeek change its prices?**
No. The per-token rates on the rate card are unchanged. What changed is our description of the peak window, not DeepSeek's pricing.

Canonical: https://neomanex.com/news/deepseek-v4-peak-billing-weekdays-only