# DeepSeek V4 vs Meta Llama 3.1 405B Instruct

On provider list prices, DeepSeek V4 costs $1.74 per million input tokens against $3.50 for Meta Llama 3.1 405B Instruct: 2.0x apart. Output is $3.48 against $3.50. On Allocate both bill at list plus the 7% transaction fee.

## Specifications

| | DeepSeek V4 | Meta Llama 3.1 405B Instruct |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Lab | Deepseek | Meta |
| Access | API only | Open weights |
| Context window | 512K tokens | 4K tokens |
| List price, input | $1.74 / M tokens | $3.50 / M tokens |
| List price, output | $3.48 / M tokens | $3.50 / M tokens |
| Cached input | $0.20 / M tokens | n/a |
| License | Proprietary API | Llama community |
| Fine-tunable | No | Yes |

Specifications and provider list prices from the Allocate catalog, checked 2026-07-08. Billed price is list plus the 7% transaction fee.

## What the numbers say

Take 1,000,000 requests a month at 1,200 input and 350 output tokens each. That workload costs $3,306 a month on DeepSeek V4 and $5,425 on Meta Llama 3.1 405B Instruct at list: a gap of $2,119, or 1.6x.

DeepSeek V4 reads 512K tokens per request against 4K for Meta Llama 3.1 405B Instruct, 125.0x the window. That decides which one can take whole documents without splitting them.

## Choose DeepSeek V4 for

- Reasoning-heavy agents
- Long-document analysis
- Cost-sensitive production routes

## Choose Meta Llama 3.1 405B Instruct for

- Open weights you can fine-tune and own

## Common questions

### Which is cheaper, DeepSeek V4 or Meta Llama 3.1 405B Instruct?

DeepSeek V4, on this workload shape. At list prices it is $1.74/$3.48 per million tokens in and out against $3.50/$3.50 for Meta Llama 3.1 405B Instruct. Billed on Allocate: $1.86/$3.72 against $3.75/$3.75, list plus 7%.

### Which has the bigger context window?

DeepSeek V4: 512,000 tokens (512K) against 4,096 (4K) for Meta Llama 3.1 405B Instruct.

### Can I fine-tune DeepSeek V4 or Meta Llama 3.1 405B Instruct?

Meta Llama 3.1 405B Instruct publishes open weights (Llama community) and can be fine-tuned on your own data. DeepSeek V4 is a closed model served over API; its weights are not available.

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[HTML page](https://allocate.network/compare/deepseek-v4-vs-meta-llama-3-1-405b-instruct) · [DeepSeek V4](https://allocate.network/models/deepseek-v4.md) · [Meta Llama 3.1 405B Instruct](https://allocate.network/models/meta-llama-3-1-405b-instruct.md) · [Machine-readable catalog](https://allocate.network/catalog.json)