DeepSeek V4.1 Flash serves nearly half of Vercel tokens at just 2.6% of spend
thealexbanks · x · 2026-10-18
Alex Banks argues spend ≠ usage: DeepSeek V4.1 Flash matches Meta's Muse Spark Open on Artificial Analysis at about a third of the cost per task ($0.27 vs $0.84), and in September handled nearly half of all tokens on Vercel's AI Gateway while accounting for only 2.6% of spending. Open models overall processed more than 70% of tokens. The quoted weekly roundup also notes Meta's Muse Wonder pricing at $4/$20 per million tokens (matching Claude Opus 5.5), Wonder Full scoring 56 on the AA Intelligence Index vs Opus 5.5's 58, and Google's Gemini 4 Argon launching at half of Opus 5.5's price until Nov 30.
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