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DeepSeek's Time-Based API Pricing Caught Developers Paying Double Overnight

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DeepSeek's API charges peak rates during Beijing business hours (09:00–12:00 and 14:00–18:00 CST, Monday–Friday), with off-peak prices exactly half the peak cost. A developer discovered their 3 a.m. Eastern batch job was inadvertently running during Beijing's afternoon peak window, doubling API costs without any code error. The classic US overnight maintenance window of roughly 2–6 a.m. Eastern falls squarely within DeepSeek's peak billing period, while standard East Coast business hours are off-peak. The recommended fix is to write cron schedules in Asia/Shanghai timezone rather than converting to UTC, since US daylight saving shifts can silently break hand-converted times twice a year. Developers are also advised to account for long-running jobs that straddle peak boundaries and retry queues that may drain into expensive windows.

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DeepSeek's Time-Based API Pricing Caught Developers Paying Double Overnight · ShortSingh