DeepSeek V4.1 Flash vs V4 Flash: Price, Images, TWD Math

Query date: 2026-09-11 (Taipei time). Pricing follows the USD unit prices shown on the BazaarLink models page, and calculations use 1 USD = NT$ 31.5. This article only covers specs we have actually verified on the site.

DeepSeek V4.1 Flash is live on BazaarLink with the model ID deepseek-v4.1-flash. It is the first model in the DeepSeek series to use the Causal Encoder-Decoder (CED) architecture, a sparse mixture-of-experts design that activates 8B parameters for input and 16B for output.

Bottom line up front: This is one of the few options on the site that combines a million-token context, image understanding, and an input price below $0.5/M. Input is $0.30/M, output is $1.20/M, cache reads are $0.006/M, the context is 1,048,576 tokens, the maximum output per call is 384,000 tokens, and it supports text and image input. It suits scenarios where you want to feed in long documents or screenshots without paying flagship model prices.

Spec Summary

Pricing and TWD Estimates

Real-world scenario estimates (no cache used):

Cache reads cost only 2% of the input price. For workloads with repeated prefixes (system prompts, fixed documents, few-shot examples), putting the cacheable part at the very beginning can save most of the input cost.

Comparison with deepseek-v4-flash in the Same Series

For text-only tasks, v4-flash is still much cheaper (its output price is one third), so do not switch everything over just because the version number is newer. For TWD pricing and three scenario estimates across the full DeepSeek lineup (V4 Pro, V4 Flash, V3.2, R1), see DeepSeek API TWD Cost Estimate. The extra cost only makes sense when you actually need image input or the reasoning quality of v4.1.

DeepSeek V3.2 Shutdown: 9/28 at 8:00 AM Taiwan Time

BazaarLink's public announcement dated 2026-09-21 states that DeepSeek V3.2 will stop service. 2026-09-27 is the last day it is available, and the actual shutdown takes effect at 2026-09-28 00:00 UTC (9/28 at 8:00 AM Taiwan time). deepseek-v3.2-exp stops at the same time. When migrating, change the model ID from deepseek-v3.2 to deepseek/deepseek-v4.1-flash. The announcement also lists US$0.30 input, US$1.20 output, and a context of about 1 million tokens, and notes that the calling method stays the same. Other DeepSeek models are not affected.

We recommend completing three things in a test environment first:

1. Replace only the model ID and keep your existing request format.
2. Check text answers, image input, and structured output with fixed samples.
3. Re-record input and output tokens and the actual USD cost, then decide whether to adjust max_tokens.

How to Call It

BazaarLink uses an OpenAI-compatible interface. Point the base URL to it and change the model name; existing code does not need to change.

curl https://api.bazaarlink.ai/v1/chat/completions \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $BAZAARLINK_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "model": "deepseek-v4.1-flash",
    "messages": [{"role": "user", "content": "Summarize this meeting transcript into three decisions"}],
    "max_tokens": 2048
  }'

For image input, use the standard image_url content block:

{
  "model": "deepseek-v4.1-flash",
  "messages": [{
    "role": "user",
    "content": [
      {"type": "text", "text": "What is the trend in this chart?"},
      {"type": "image_url", "image_url": {"url": "https://example.com/chart.png"}}
    ]
  }],
  "max_tokens": 1024
}

⚠️ A Trap We Hit in Testing: max_tokens Too Small Returns an Empty String

This is a reasoning model, and the tokens used for thinking count toward the output. When we verified the model before listing it, we sent a request with max_tokens: 8. All 8 tokens were used up by thinking, so finish_reason returned length and content was an empty string.

So: max_tokens must leave enough room for both "thinking plus answer." Even short replies should get at least a few hundred. To control cost, use reasoning_effort to limit the length of thinking instead of lowering max_tokens. Lowering max_tokens only means you pay and still get no answer.

TWD Billing and Unified Invoices

BazaarLink is operated by Taiwan company Jilian Technology Co., Ltd. (集聯科技有限公司), and can issue Taiwan electronic unified invoices, both two-copy and three-copy, with the actual issuance confirmed based on the payment channel you choose. Top up in NT$ and report expenses with your company tax ID; you do not need an overseas credit card or a USD account.

For when to connect directly to DeepSeek's official API and when a relay is more cost-effective, see Why Taiwanese Developers Use BazaarLink for DeepSeek. For the full process of expensing AI APIs at a Taiwan company, see Complete Guide to Expensing AI APIs for Taiwan Companies.

TWD billing · Taiwan invoices · leading AI models · OpenAI-compatible API