DeepSeek is a sensible starting point for free chat, explanations and help with a draft. For recurring work with the same files and instructions, Claude is our pick: its Projects keep the reference material together, while Artifacts give you a separate place to revise what you are making. You can try both features on Claude’s free plan.
The paid decision is more specific. Claude Research can help when an answer requires several searches and a report, while Claude Code is useful for work across a software project. Neither is a reason to subscribe if ordinary free chat already does what you need. Here is how the tools, costs and data settings affect that choice.
Go to free and paid plans, writing, files, research, coding, API and local models or privacy.
What is free, and when is Claude worth paying for?
DeepSeek’s official mobile assistant is free. Claude also has a free plan, so comparing DeepSeek only with a paid Claude subscription misses a useful option.
| Option | Price | What to consider |
|---|---|---|
| DeepSeek assistant | Free | A starting point for chat, web searches and working with uploaded material. |
| Claude Free | Free | Includes web search, file creation, up to five Projects, and Artifacts with Docs, Slides and Design templates, within its usage limits. |
| Claude Pro | US$20 a month, or US$200 billed annually | More usage, Claude Code and Research for regular work. |
| Claude Max | US$100 a month for Max 5x; US$200 for Max 20x | Higher usage limits, plus monthly API credits that must be claimed for a linked Console organization. |
Claude’s subscription prices and included features were checked on October 11, 2026. They are US web subscription prices before applicable tax; regional and mobile prices can differ. Its current plan comparison lists the included features. Paid plans still have usage limits.
Our advice is to start free. Consider Pro when you need Claude Code, the Research workflow described below, or more usage for work you already do regularly. You do not need to subscribe just to try Projects or Artifacts. If you mainly rewrite emails or ask occasional questions, first see whether the free allowance is enough.
DeepSeek Harness has a separate cost from its free assistant. The Harness terms require a DeepSeek account with prepaid Open Platform funds for its default official-model service. If you configure another model provider, that provider’s charges apply. The desktop client being available to download does not make model usage free.
DeepSeek charges separately for API calls. With Claude, the plan matters: Free and Pro do not include monthly API credits, while Max 5x includes US$100 and Max 20x includes US$200 per month. Team plans have a shared credit pool capped at US$500, with the amount depending on seats. Eligible subscribers must link a Claude Console organization to claim the credit; new subscribers qualify after seven days.
These credits help pay for building apps and agents on the Claude Platform. They expire each billing cycle without rolling over, and do not cover interactive Claude Code sessions or extra usage in the Claude apps. If you already pay for Max, check this balance before buying more API credit. It does not increase your chat allowance or make API use unlimited.
Writing: a quick draft or an ongoing project?
For an email, an explanation or a rewrite, either assistant gives you a place to start. Supply the facts, audience and tone you need. For example, a useful request is “Rewrite this delivery update for a customer. Keep the revised date and the refund option, and remove the defensive language.” That brief gives you something concrete to judge: whether the result keeps the facts and says what you mean.
Claude becomes more interesting when the work continues across conversations. Projects can hold reference files and instructions for a particular subject or client. You could keep a product brief, approved terminology and a style guide together instead of attaching them again for each new draft.
With file creation and code execution enabled, Artifacts open work beside the conversation so you can revise and reuse it. Artifacts and the Docs, Slides and Design templates are available on Free as well as paid plans. You can try a document or presentation workflow before paying for a higher allowance. Together with Projects, Artifacts make Claude a useful choice when you are developing a document over several sessions.
That is a workflow recommendation, not proof that Claude always writes better. If DeepSeek already produces a draft you can use with a light edit, the extra organization may not matter. If you regularly lose time restating the same brief, keeping that context together can be the more important difference.
Files: what can the assistant actually read and create?
DeepSeek documents file uploads, text extraction and web search. Its current app release notes also confirm vision support. For a text document or a screenshot, those are useful starting points for asking a focused question.
For PDFs where charts, diagrams or scanned pages matter, Claude is our clearer starting recommendation because its file guide explicitly describes visual PDF analysis. It analyzes text and visuals in PDFs up to 100 pages; PDFs of 101–1,000 pages are processed as text only. If the answer depends on a chart in a long report, upload the relevant pages separately.
Give the document question a clear boundary. For example, ask which costs a proposal excludes and which passages establish those exclusions. If a table mixes monthly and annual figures, ask the assistant to identify the units before comparing the totals. Upload support alone does not establish that every page, image or number was interpreted correctly.
For an editable deliverable, Claude offers file creation and code execution on its free plan. Specify the output you need, such as a spreadsheet with formulas or a presentation based on the uploaded report. Then check the calculations and whether the final file accurately reflects the source.
DeepSeek’s separate desktop product, Harness, is in public preview for tasks involving documents, spreadsheets, slides and code. Consider it for working across files, with the prepaid or provider billing explained above. An uploaded document, an editable deliverable and a desktop agent are different requirements; choose the one that matches the job.
Research: when does the paid workflow help?
For a current fact or a small number of source checks, start with ordinary web search. Both assistants support it, and Claude’s search is available to free users. A request such as “Find the official cancellation terms for this service” does not automatically need a paid research workflow.
Claude Research is available on Pro, Max, Team and Enterprise, across web, desktop and mobile. It runs searches that build on one another, follows up on gaps and produces a cited answer. It can use the web and connected internal context, including Gmail, Google Calendar and Google Docs when those services are connected and accessible.
The practical difference is the scope of the assignment. Anthropic distinguishes Research from a quick lookup because it is designed to gather and combine information across multiple sources. It also distinguishes extended thinking: more reasoning effort alone does not supply fresh information from the web.
Suppose you are choosing software for a small team. A useful research brief would ask Claude to compare three products against your requirements, consult current official pricing and feature pages, and use an uploaded shortlist. Specify the region, number of users and features that are essential. Ask for a recommendation with a source for each deciding claim, plus any unresolved questions. That is a stronger reason to use Research than asking it to find one price.
To start Research, open the chat’s + menu and select Research. It needs web search available. In interfaces with a Web search switch, enable it; Anthropic says the newer Claude experience searches automatically and has no separate switch. If connected documents matter, name the relevant source in your request rather than assuming it was consulted.
Connecting a source does not mean every part of it is readable. The Google Workspace connector guide says embedded images in documents are not processed, and Gmail attachment access supplies metadata rather than the attachment contents. If a decision depends on a chart or an attachment, provide that material directly and check that it was used.
Research uses the same plan allowance as other Claude conversations, but can consume it faster because it retrieves more sources and produces fuller responses. Budget that capacity for decisions where gathering the evidence is the hard part. Paying for Pro enables the workflow; it does not buy unlimited research or guarantee that every citation supports the conclusion.
DeepSeek is not limited to questions about material you paste into chat. Its assistant has Search, and Harness separately advertises research across sources and files. Claude is a useful choice if you want the documented Research workflow within your paid Claude account; Harness is an alternative desktop route with different setup and billing. Open the sources that determine the decision in either case, checking that the plan, date and region match.
DeepSeek vs Claude for coding
For explaining a function or diagnosing an error you can paste into chat, either assistant can help you work through the problem. Include the relevant code, the error and the behavior you expected. Our DeepSeek coding guide covers that starting workflow.
For work across a repository, Claude Code gives you a direct route: it can read project files, make edits and run commands. It is included with Claude Pro and Max when you sign in through the subscription. We would start there if you want a coding agent included in a Claude account you already use.
Claude and Claude Code share the plan’s usage limits. Heavy coding sessions can reduce the capacity available for other work; signing in with an API key instead follows separate API billing. The monthly API credits included with Max do not pay for these interactive Claude Code sessions. This matters if you expect one subscription to cover both frequent research and long development sessions.
DeepSeek Harness is another option for repository work. Its official product page describes exploring code, fixing bugs and running tests. The application is open source and in public preview; default model use requires the prepaid service described earlier. It is worth considering if you prefer an extensible desktop tool and are comfortable with a product that is still evolving.
Review the changes and run the project’s checks before accepting a solution. A patch that fixes the reported error but breaks another behavior is not a successful result. The useful comparison is whether the tool understands the surrounding project and delivers a change you can verify.
Building an app or running a model yourself
For cost-sensitive API work, DeepSeek Flash deserves a look. As checked on October 4, 2026, DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash costs US$0.30 per million uncached input tokens and US$1.20 per million output tokens at peak rates, with both prices halved off-peak. Claude Sonnet 5.5 lists standard rates of US$2 for input and US$10 for output per million tokens. These are per-token API rates, not subscription prices; the DeepSeek pricing page defines its peak schedule. For eligible Claude API work, the included Max or Team credit can offset the metered cost until that balance runs out.
The lower token price makes Flash worth considering for a large volume of requests. It does not make the two services interchangeable. Check the inputs, tool support and output quality your application needs, then include retries and any tool charges when estimating the bill. A low cost per token can still produce a poor value if the task repeatedly needs correction.
DeepSeek also publishes downloadable models, including the R1 family and smaller distilled models. That gives you a route to running a model on your own hardware, with setup and maintenance to handle yourself. Check our hardware requirements guide before choosing one. A smaller local model does not reproduce the entire hosted assistant, and installing a desktop chat app does not, by itself, mean its model runs locally.
Check data settings before sharing work
For DeepSeek’s hosted assistant, the privacy policy says personal data is processed and stored in China. Its terms describe an “Improve the model for everyone” control for opting out of the input and output use described there. That is separate from deleting conversations or making processing local.
Claude’s model-improvement control for Free, Pro and Max is under Settings → Privacy → Help Improve our AI models. Turning it off stops previous and new chats and Claude Code sessions from being used in future model training, but cannot undo training already completed or in progress. The policy also describes exceptions for safety-related use.
Paying for a consumer Pro account does not automatically give you a no-training guarantee. Training choices and data retention are separate: opting out does not delete your saved conversations. Anthropic’s commercial services have a different no-training-by-default policy. For confidential work, use the service and account type your organization approves for those files.
Harness has a separate privacy policy. In custom-provider mode, inputs and outputs go to the selected model provider. A locally installed agent can still send data to a remote model; check that arrangement instead of assuming the assistant app’s controls apply to every DeepSeek-related tool.
Questions before you choose
Does Claude Research need access to my email or Google Drive?
No. Connecting internal sources is optional; Research can use web information. Add a connection when your question genuinely needs that material, and identify the files or sources relevant to the task. An external product comparison does not require opening access to unrelated work documents.
Can free DeepSeek replace Claude Pro?
It may cover the ordinary chat, drafting and explanation tasks you currently use Pro for. The decision changes if you rely on Claude Research, Claude Code or a recurring project workflow. List the tasks you would lose before canceling, and remember that Claude Free is also an option for Projects and Artifacts. An API’s lower token price is not a substitute for those consumer tools.
If DeepSeek fits the way you want to work, our DeepSeek start page brings together official access routes and the main ways to get started. Chat-Deep is an independent site, not DeepSeek’s official service.