AllocateDeepSeek V4 vs OpenAI GPT-OSS 20B
On provider list prices, OpenAI GPT-OSS 20B costs $0.05 per million input tokens against $1.74 for DeepSeek V4: 34.8x apart. Output is $0.20 against $3.48 (17.4x). On Allocate both bill at list plus the 7% transaction fee.
DeepSeek V4
OpenAI GPT-OSS 20BSpecifications 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 $130 a month on OpenAI GPT-OSS 20B and $3,306 on DeepSeek V4 at list: a gap of $3,176, or 25.4x.
DeepSeek V4 reads 512K tokens per request against 128K for OpenAI GPT-OSS 20B, 3.9x 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 OpenAI GPT-OSS 20B for
- The lower list price ($0.05 in / $0.20 out per M tokens)
- Open weights you can fine-tune and own
- Fine-tuning under a permissive license (Apache 2.0)
Common questions
Which is cheaper, DeepSeek V4 or OpenAI GPT-OSS 20B?
OpenAI GPT-OSS 20B, on this workload shape. At list prices it is $0.05/$0.20 per million tokens in and out against $1.74/$3.48 for DeepSeek V4. Billed on Allocate: $0.053/$0.21 against $1.86/$3.72, list plus 7%.
Which has the bigger context window?
DeepSeek V4: 512,000 tokens (512K) against 131,072 (128K) for OpenAI GPT-OSS 20B.
Can I fine-tune DeepSeek V4 or OpenAI GPT-OSS 20B?
OpenAI GPT-OSS 20B publishes open weights (Apache 2.0) and can be fine-tuned on your own data. DeepSeek V4 is a closed model served over API; its weights are not available.
Related comparisons
Run the numbers on your workload
Or don’t choose. On Allocate a route name is the contract: point yours at one model today, swap to the other tomorrow, and compare them on your live traffic with per-token metering.