GitHub's new Copilot billing made me realize how insanely cheap DeepSeek V4 Flash actually is

Ever since GitHub switched Copilot to usage-based billing, I started wondering:

Instead of comparing token prices, I used a simple benchmark:

Build a modern SaaS landing page

• React / Next.js
• Tailwind CSS
• Responsive design
• Multiple prompt iterations
• Roughly 1,500 lines of production-ready code

Here's what $10 worth of AI usage gets you:

Model	Webpages Generated
DeepSeek V4 Flash	100
Gemini 2.5 Flash	40
GPT-5 Mini	33
DeepSeek V4 Pro	33
Gemini 2.5 Pro	10
Grok 4 Fast	8
GPT-5	6
Claude Sonnet 4	5
Grok 4	3
Claude Opus 4	1

Or if you prefer thinking in code volume:

Model	Approx Lines of Code per $10
DeepSeek V4 Flash	150,000
Gemini 2.5 Flash	60,000
GPT-5 Mini	49,500
DeepSeek V4 Pro	49,500
Gemini 2.5 Pro	15,000
Grok 4 Fast	12,000
GPT-5	9,000
Claude Sonnet 4	7,500
Grok 4	4,500
Claude Opus 4	1,500

Before anyone jumps in:

• This does not mean DeepSeek is better than Claude, GPT-5, Gemini Pro, etc.
• Higher-end models often produce better architecture, reasoning, debugging, and agent behavior.
• The comparison is purely about how much AI work you get per dollar spent.

What surprised me is that the gap isn't 2x or 3x.

For many coding workloads, we're talking about 10x–80x differences in cost depending on which model you choose.

I think the Copilot billing change is exposing something that was previously hidden behind flat subscriptions:

Curious what everyone else is seeing.

Have you changed models since Copilot moved to usage-based billing, or are you still defaulting to Claude/GPT-5 for most coding tasks?

Disclosure: I used ChatGPT to help calculate and format these estimates using public pricing information and a hypothetical "build a modern landing page" workload. These aren't laboratory benchmarks, just a way to visualize the relative cost differences between popular coding models. If anyone spots newer pricing or better assumptions, I'd love to see the numbers updated.