DeepSeek released DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash-1017 on October 17, about five weeks after the previous Flash checkpoint, describing it as a Pareto improvement in performance and cost. API pricing is unchanged and developers reach it through the existing deepseek-flash endpoint; weights are also available for download.

On DeepSeek's own DeepSWE v1.1 coding evaluation the new model scores 77.0%, up from 74.2% for the previous version and above the 74.0% the company lists for Claude Opus 5. DeepSeek says shorter outputs lower the effective cost further, with per-task costs often under $0.20-$0.25 in its figures — company-reported numbers that have not been independently verified.

Alongside the model, DeepSeek opened its search and web-page retrieval tools to developers at $0.75 per 1,000 calls, free for a limited time when connected as a server-side feature to designated development tools. The release keeps pressure on the majors on cost per coding task, even as the headline gains are incremental.