MiniMax Group IncDeepSeek's aggressive pricing and performance erodes MiniMax's competitive position

Chinese AI startup DeepSeek officially released its flagship AI model V4 Pro on the 13th. The price is set at several times that of the lower-tier V4 Flash, positioning it as a flagship model that leverages the high performance shown in benchmark tests to pursue monetization. According to independent benchmark firm Artificial Analysis, V4 Pro 0813 is priced at 1.32 dollars per million input tokens and 3.96 dollars per million output tokens, while V4 Flash, officially released last month, costs 0.14 dollars for input and 0.28 dollars for output, making Pro roughly 9 times more expensive for input and about 14 times more for output. V4 Flash had produced an unusual result in benchmark tests by outperforming the Pro preview version released in April, but the official V4 Pro has significantly improved performance over the preview. Artificial Analysis gave V4 Pro's reasoning mode a score of 53 on its Intelligence Index, which integrates nine evaluations including agent task execution, tool use, coding, scientific reasoning, and long-context handling, surpassing V4 Flash's score of 40. DeepSeek drew widespread attention in early 2025 when its R1 model showed performance on par with US players such as OpenAI despite low cost, but in China, emerging AI companies such as Moonshot AI, Zhipu AI, and MiniMax have since appeared one after another, eroding its advantage as a first mover.
MiniMax Group IncDeepSeek's aggressive pricing and performance erodes MiniMax's competitive position
Zai Lab LtdArtificial Analysis is cited for benchmark scores, highlighting its relevance