DeepSeek
“China’s cheap and fast flagship AI” — a latecomer that cut prices while building up capability
What is DeepSeek?
DeepSeek is a conversational AI from Hangzhou-based DeepSeek, known for releasing its models openly and sharply cutting developer API prices. You can use it in Korean right away on the web and in its app.
- 1China’s leading AI that made its name by cutting prices
- 2A separate Korean-language privacy policy is available
- 3The official notice states that its servers are in China
What sets it apart
These are the differences we found by running the same material through several tools in our training sessions.
Noticeably lower prices
According to the official pricing docs, deepseek-flash starts at $0.15 per 1 million input tokens and $0.6 per 1 million output tokens. The same document lists separate peak and off-peak rates, differing by a factor of two, so running non-urgent jobs off-peak lowers the cost further.
Shows its reasoning
This tool doesn’t just toss out an answer; it lays out the steps it took to get there. When you doubt an answer, a person can pinpoint where the reasoning went off track, which makes it a useful teaching aid for anyone new to AI.
Korean-language support available
The official privacy policy is also available in Korean. You can read everything from server location and retention period to how to opt out of training use in Korean, so internal review documents can quote the original text without translation.
⚖️ The weaknesses are clear, too
The official privacy policy says “Our servers are located in the People’s Republic of China,” and the governing law in the terms of use is also PRC law. It states that disputes go to the court with jurisdiction over the Hangzhou entity’s principal place of business, so decide on company-wide adoption only after a legal review.
💡 In plain EnglishThink of a market vendor who gets good goods at wholesale prices. The price is clearly cheaper, but you need to ask separately where the goods come from.
A service that proved with hard numbers that AI doesn’t have to be expensive. It was also the tool that first put the question 'Can we use this at work?' front and center in corporate training.
Same job, different approach
You need to summarize long meeting minutes and pull out next week’s action items
The old way
- Reread the transcript from the start and underline key points
- Separate decisions from small talk by hand
- Move owners and deadlines into a table
- Reread the summary to look for what is missing
With DeepSeek
- Remove names and contact details from the meeting minutes, then paste them in
- Ask it to sort the content into decisions, open items, and to-dos
- Read the reasoning it lays out and catch the mistakes
- Ask for the result as a table, then have a person adjust only the deadlines
Common uses
Summarizing long documents and outlining key issues
Use material that is safe to share outside the company, such as public reports or news articles, and pull out just the key issues. Do not enter internal documents.
Polishing draft sentences
Changes the tone or shortens text you have already written. Remove company and customer names before pasting.
Studying concepts and clarifying terminology
Have unfamiliar concepts explained and ask follow-up questions to learn them. Verify anything that needs a source separately.
Who it’s for
Best for
- ✓Professionals who want to try AI for the first time while keeping costs low
- ✓People who research and summarize public information
- ✓Training managers who want to see how AI arrives at its answers
Better served by other tools
- –Work that involves customer information or unpublished materials
- –Organizations with rules requiring data to stay in Korea
- –Situations where you must produce official documents under the company name
Can we use it at work?
The questions that adoption leads and security teams ask first.
Please verify: Korean companies need a consent procedure for overseas transfers of personal data and must disclose it in their privacy policy. In 2025, press reports said Korean regulators were reviewing these overseas transfers, and a Korean-language privacy policy was published afterward. Have your legal and security teams confirm the latest status.
10-minute quick start
- 1
Sign up at deepseek.com, then use it on the web or in the app.
- 2
In Settings, find “Improve the model for everyone” and turn it off first.
- 3
Start with a simple first task: summarizing one publicly available document.
- 4
Once the answer comes back, read through the reasoning it laid out, spot the errors, and ask follow-up questions.
Copy-and-paste prompts
Replace only the [bracketed] parts, then paste it in.
Read the text below and split it into three groups. ① Already decided ② Not yet decided ③ Who needs to do what by when. Don’t add anything that isn’t in the text; if something is unclear, write 'Not in the text'. [Paste text that is safe to share]
Before answering [question], first write out in steps what evidence you weighed and in what order to reach your conclusion. Then summarize the conclusion in one paragraph, and mark any weakly supported parts as “needs verification.”
Polish the draft below into an executive-report tone. Keep sentences short, drop speculation, and leave the numbers exactly as I wrote them. After each change, add a one-line reason. [Paste draft]
Explain [concept] as if to a new hire at our company. Include: ① a one-sentence definition ② one everyday analogy ③ two situations where it is used in real work ④ one common misconception. If you use technical terms, add a plain-language equivalent in parentheses.
From the table below, pick only the rows that match [criteria] and rebuild them as a table. Never fill in values that aren’t in the original; leave blanks blank. At the end, tell me as a number how many rows were filtered out. [Paste table]
Using it with other tools
Linking two or three tools changes your work more than any single tool does.
One public-information research task (two hours)
Drafting training materials (half a day)
Before you start
- First, turn off the setting that lets your data be used for training. The most common mistake is starting to use the tool without checking the defaults.
- Do not enter internal documents or customer information. According to the official notice, the servers are in China, which counts as an overseas transfer.
- People must verify numbers and citations. Plausible-looking errors are the most dangerous.
- Before adopting it company-wide, you need to disclose it in your privacy policy and obtain consent for cross-border data transfer. Personal use and company use are different matters.
Pricing: personal use and work use
Plans that individuals pay for are different from plans that organizations contract for by member.
For individual use
The official pricing document covers the developer API only. Plans and free usage limits for the chat service are not published.
Using it at work
Output costs $0.6 per million tokens ($1.2 at peak times). On a cache hit, input drops as low as $0.003.
Output costs $1.98 per 1 million tokens ($3.96 at peak hours). With a cache hit, input drops as low as $0.022.
Checked 21 Sep 2026 · US dollar amounts as shown in the pricing table of DeepSeek’s official API documentation. The same document lists separate rates for peak and off-peak hours, so your actual charge depends on when you run the job. The web and app chat service has no plan information, so it is left blank. Prices can change without notice — check the official page before paying. DeepSeek official API pricing ↗ · DeepSeek official privacy policy (Korean) ↗ · DeepSeek official terms of use ↗
Where DeepSeek falls short
We don’t just list the positives. Here is what fell short when we used it.
- Keeps stalling at peak times
At busy times, answers cut off midway or take a long time to arrive. Some days you hand off an urgent task, go into a meeting, and come back to find nothing done.
- Explanations run too long
Because it spells out its whole thought process, even an answer that could fit on one line fills the screen. When you are busy and only want the conclusion, you have to hunt for it by eye.
- Hard to admit you use it for work
It works well for personal use, but the moment you try to recommend it to your team, the conversation turns to where the servers are. You have to prepare separate materials to explain it, so even though you know it is good, you end up quietly using it alone.
Tools to compare
ChatGPTBounced back with Astra→
QwenAlibaba’s multilingual AI→
KimiReads long documents in one pass→
ClaudeThe most talked-about AI→
GLMChinese AI model strong at coding→FAQ
Last updated 22 Sep 2026 · The ratings on this page come from John Kim, CEO of Nanum Consulting, who has used these tools firsthand in training and real work.
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