On the evening of June 29, a number of developers reported receiving upgrade notification emails from DeepSeek. These emails revealed that the official release of DeepSeek V4 is slated for mid-July, boasting functional upgrades and performance improvements. Notably, the email also outlined a significant shift in the API pricing strategy: the introduction of a peak-valley pricing system for the first time. Under this new scheme, the pricing for the V4 Pro and V4 Flash models will remain steady during off-peak times. However, during the two peak usage windows—9:00 AM to 12:00 PM and 2:00 PM to 6:00 PM daily—API prices will double. This move aims to better allocate computational resources and bolster service stability. Prior to this, DeepSeek had permanently slashed the price of the V4 Pro API to just one-fourth of its initial cost starting June 1, continuing its strategy of competing on price.