Is DeepSeek cheaper than GitHub Copilot?

Yes. On their starting paid plans, DeepSeek is about 100% cheaper than GitHub Copilot — roughly $120 per seat per year.

Does GitHub Copilot have a free plan?

GitHub Copilot does not advertise an ongoing free tier as of pricing checked June 2026. Pricing starts at $10/user/mo Pro / $19 Business.

Yes — DeepSeek's pricing page lists a free tier (Free chat; API ~$0.27 per 1M input tokens). Limits apply; see source for current caps.

Pick GitHub Copilot if you're devs already living in vs code/jetbrains. Pick DeepSeek if you're developers who need cheap inference.

// comparison

pricing checked June 2026

Compare

🐙

$10/mo

AI pair programmer with chat and inline completions in major IDEs.

Cheaper start

🔍

$0/mo

Open-weight LLM with cheap API access and strong reasoning benchmarks.

DeepSeek is 100% cheaper than GitHub Copilot on starting plans — roughly $10/mo · $120/yr per seat.

Formula: monthly = pricier − cheaper · percent = round((monthly / pricier) × 100) · annual = monthly × 12

Pick DeepSeek if you're developers who need cheap inference. Pick GitHub Copilot if you're devs already living in vs code/jetbrains.

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Other ways to swap GitHub Copilot or DeepSeek.

Prices change often — verify on the vendor's site before switching.