How to Use DeepSeek V4 for Free ?

DeepSeek V4 launched on April 23, 2026, with real free access options. The official web chat runs V4-Pro—no credit card needed—and the weights are MIT-licensed and downloadable. Aggregators like OpenRouter and Chutes enable free tiers within days of a DeepSeek launch. With these methods, you can run substantial V4 workloads for free before considering paid plans.

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This guide outlines all verified no-cost paths, how they fit different use cases, and how to set up a production-ready collection in Apidog for a smooth transition to paid billing as your needs grow.

For a product overview, see what is DeepSeek V4. For API details, see how to use the DeepSeek V4 API.

TL;DR

• chat.deepseek.com — Free web chat on V4-Pro with Think High and Think Max toggles. No card needed. Available now.
• Hugging Face weights + your own GPU — MIT license. V4-Flash runs on 2–4 H100s; V4-Pro requires a cluster.
• OpenRouter and Chutes free tiers — Third-party gateways typically open free quota on DeepSeek models within a week of launch.
• Hugging Face Inference Providers — Shared, rate-limited endpoint for early experimentation with V4.
• Kaggle, Colab, and RunPod trial credits — Free compute for one-off self-hosting tests.
• All free paths have usage caps. For production workloads, switch to paid billing before hitting limits.

Path 1: chat.deepseek.com (the default free path)

The quickest, most reliable free option is the official chat interface. V4-Pro is the default model; use the top toggle to switch between Non-Think, Think High, and Think Max reasoning modes.

Setup

1. Go to chat.deepseek.com.
2. Sign in with email, Google, or WeChat.
3. Ensure the active model is V4-Pro.
4. Start chatting.

What you get

• Full 1M-token context window.
• File upload (PDFs, images, code bundles).
• On-demand web search.
• All three reasoning modes, including Think Max.
• Conversation history and folder organization.

Usage caps

There’s no published hard daily message cap; free usage is soft-throttled under load. Heavy use may slow responses or queue requests, but hard blocks are rare. If you see persistent rate limits, slow down or switch to the API.

Best for: Testing prompts, reviewing large codebases or documents, running Think Max on complex inputs.

Not for: Automation or reproducible workflows.

Path 2: Self-host V4-Flash on your own GPU

V4-Flash is MIT-licensed and practical for self-hosting. At 284B total, 13B active, a multi-H100 machine runs it in FP8; with INT4 quantization, it fits on a single 80GB card.

Note: The main cost is hardware. If you have GPUs, this is the most robust free path.

Pull the weights

pip install -U "huggingface_hub[cli]"
huggingface-cli login
huggingface-cli download deepseek-ai/DeepSeek-V4-Flash \
  --local-dir ./models/deepseek-v4-flash

Reserve about 500GB disk for FP8 weights.

Serve with vLLM

pip install "vllm>=0.9.0"

vllm serve deepseek-ai/DeepSeek-V4-Flash \
  --tensor-parallel-size 4 \
  --max-model-len 1048576 \
  --dtype auto \
  --port 8000

Once running, use any OpenAI-compatible client with http://localhost:8000/v1. The API shape matches the paid DeepSeek API; Apidog can treat this as a new base URL with your saved collections.

Hardware requirements

Variant	Minimum cards (FP8)	Minimum cards (INT4)	Realistic throughput
V4-Flash	2 × H100 80GB	1 × H100 80GB	50 to 150 tok/s
V4-Pro	16 × H100 80GB	8 × H100 80GB	cluster-dependent

If you don’t own GPU capacity, paid APIs are cheaper than renting. Self-hosting suits teams with existing hardware or strict compliance needs.

Path 3: OpenRouter free tier

OpenRouter aggregates open and closed models behind a single API. Free tiers are typically available for new DeepSeek releases (V3, V3.1, V3.2).

Setup

1. Sign up at openrouter.ai.
2. Create an API key.
3. Check the model catalog for deepseek/deepseek-v4-pro or deepseek/deepseek-v4-flash; free variants are usually suffixed with :free.
4. Use the OpenAI-compatible SDK:

from openai import OpenAI

client = OpenAI(
    api_key=OPENROUTER_KEY,
    base_url="https://openrouter.ai/api/v1",
)

response = client.chat.completions.create(
    model="deepseek/deepseek-v4-flash:free",
    messages=[{"role": "user", "content": "Write a Python CLI for semver bumping."}],
)

print(response.choices[0].message.content)

Usage caps

OpenRouter free tiers typically allow a few hundred requests per day per key and lower priority under load. Good for prototyping, not for production.

Path 4: Hugging Face Inference Providers

Hugging Face offers hosted inference endpoints for V4 checkpoints soon after release. These are rate-limited and may have variable latency, but are free to use.

from huggingface_hub import InferenceClient

client = InferenceClient(model="deepseek-ai/DeepSeek-V4-Flash")

response = client.chat_completion(
    messages=[{"role": "user", "content": "Summarize the V4 technical report in 5 bullets."}],
    max_tokens=512,
)

print(response.choices[0].message.content)

HF tokens are free. For heavier use, a Pro account offers higher limits, still at a lower cost than the official API.

Path 5: Trial credits on Colab, Kaggle, RunPod, and Lambda

Major GPU-rental providers offer trial credits for short-term use.

• Google Colab: Free T4 is too small; Colab Pro+ gives 500 units/month—enough for V4-Flash experiments on A100.
• Kaggle: Free weekly T4/P100 hours; usually too small for V4-Pro but can handle quantized V4-Flash.
• RunPod: $10 trial covers a few hours on H100—enough for vLLM benchmarking.
• Lambda: Occasionally offers free hours on H100/H200; check signup for current promos.

These options support bounded experiments, not ongoing free usage.

Build a provider-agnostic Apidog collection

You can test the same prompt across all providers without duplicating work. Recommended workflow:

1. Download Apidog.
2. Create a collection with four environments: chat (placeholder), deepseek (https://api.deepseek.com/v1), openrouter (https://openrouter.ai/api/v1), self-hosted (http://localhost:8000/v1).
3. Save a POST request to {{BASE_URL}}/chat/completions.
4. Store each provider’s key as a secret variable for consistent requests across environments.
5. Switch environments to A/B test prompts on every backend.

This matches the pattern from the GPT-5.5 free-tier collection: one tool, every provider, no duplicate setup.

Which free path should you pick?

Use these heuristics:

• Want a quick opinion? Use chat.deepseek.com.
• Prototyping a product? Use OpenRouter’s free tier until capped, then switch to paid DeepSeek.
• Have GPUs & compliance needs? Self-host V4-Flash with vLLM.
• Need long-term free usage? No sustainable option—combine chat.deepseek.com for manual work and paid API for automation.

When to move off free

Move to paid billing if:

1. Rate-limited more than once daily—your workload justifies a budget.
2. Need SLAs—free tiers don’t provide them; the official API does.
3. Need logging, auditing, or compliance—paid API delivers billing records; most free tiers don’t.

When these apply, use the official API. Minimum top-up is $2, and per-token pricing is among the lowest.

FAQ

Is chat.deepseek.com really free?

Yes. No credit card or trial period. Service is soft-throttled, not paywalled.

Do I need a Hugging Face account to download weights?

Not strictly, but a logged-in account gets better download rate limits.

Which free path runs real V4-Pro?

chat.deepseek.com provides full V4-Pro. OpenRouter’s free tier is usually V4-Flash. For V4-Pro output without paying, use the web chat.

Can I put a free tier behind a product?

No. Free tiers can rate-limit, change terms, or disappear. For customer-facing products, use the paid API or self-host.

Is self-hosting actually free?

License is free; hardware is not. If you own GPUs, marginal cost is electricity. Renting usually costs more than the paid API.

Will there be an Apidog free tier for testing?

Apidog is free for API design and testing; credits are only needed for paid APIs. You can use a free Apidog workspace with chat.deepseek.com or OpenRouter for a fully free workflow.