DeepSeek payment methods: PayPal, cards, Alipay and WeChat Pay for API top ups, but only Alipay and WeChat Pay in Chinese

What payment methods does DeepSeek accept?

DeepSeek accepts PayPal, a bank card, Alipay and WeChat Pay for its API, per its English help center: "You can top up online via PayPal, bank card, Alipay, or WeChat Pay." The money goes into a prepaid balance on platform.deepseek.com. That balance is the only thing DeepSeek sells. Its iPhone app shows Free and no in-app purchases on the App Store, as of October 2026.

We read both versions of the help center on 12 October 2026, and they don't match. The Chinese page says online top ups open once you finish real name verification. Then it names Alipay and WeChat Pay, and nothing else. The English page names four methods, PayPal and bank card among them. It mentions real name verification only in its troubleshooting answers and never makes it a step before a top up. So PayPal and cards are methods DeepSeek documents in English only. We didn't sign in, so we can't tell you which list a given account sees.

Bank transfer is for businesses. DeepSeek's Chinese help center says it's open to enterprise users only, and for now only to accounts registered with a +86 phone number. After enterprise verification you get a dedicated account number to send money to. The sender's account name has to match the verified company name. DeepSeek says the money reaches your platform balance about 10 minutes to an hour after its bank receives it.

Anthropic is stricter on the web. Its billing FAQ takes only credit or debit cards for Claude plans bought on claude.ai, as our Claude payment methods page sets out. OpenAI's multi-currency billing article doesn't list PayPal for ChatGPT on the web either. Of the three, only DeepSeek names it.

How do you top up the DeepSeek API?

You top up on the Top Up page of the DeepSeek platform, signed in to the account your API key belongs to. DeepSeek's Open Platform terms say the API platform and the chat service "use the same account."

1. Sign in at platform.deepseek.com.
2. Open the Top Up page at platform.deepseek.com/top_up.
3. Pick an amount and a payment method.
4. Check the order and the account before you pay, as the terms ask.
5. Open Billing to see whether the top up went through.

DeepSeek doesn't publish a minimum top up. Neither its API docs nor its help center names one, as of October 2026, and the amounts appear only after you sign in. The balance itself is held in yuan or dollars. DeepSeek's balance endpoint reports a currency of CNY or USD, and its English price list is in dollars while the Chinese one is in yuan.

Free credit goes first. DeepSeek's pricing page bills tokens times price and takes it "from your topped-up balance or granted balance," using the granted balance first when you have both. Granted credit can expire. Money you put in can't, and the help center says so in five words: "Top-up balances do not expire." For scale, a million output tokens on DeepSeek's Flash model cost $0.60 off peak and $1.20 at peak, as of October 2026.

When the balance hits zero, the API stops. DeepSeek's error code table lists 402, Insufficient Balance, and its fix is to check the balance and top up. That's different from a busy server, which DeepSeek server busy covers.

Why is your DeepSeek top up not working?

A top up that seems to vanish usually landed on another account. Check that first. That's DeepSeek's own first answer: you paid while signed in with a different login. Try your Google or email login and look for the top up there. For an Alipay or WeChat payment, the order details page names the DeepSeek account under the Product field. An account you deleted and opened again starts empty. DeepSeek won't move the old balance across, and it asks you to file a refund ticket instead.

Three other blocks come straight from DeepSeek's help center. "Current device environment error" means DeepSeek flagged your IP address or phone number as high risk, and it tells you to try a different environment. WeChat login works only from IP addresses in mainland China, and Google login doesn't work from them. Real name verification fails when too many accounts are bound to one ID number, or after too many wrong entries in a row, which locks it for a while.

A declined card or PayPal payment is a question for whoever pays. DeepSeek's help center has no article on declined payments, as of October 2026. It also doesn't say whether a prepaid or virtual card counts as a bank card. Card sellers such as PhotonPay pitch virtual cards for exactly this case, so try the smallest amount the Top Up page offers before you load more. Its terms add that DeepSeek may ask for documents proving that the money you top up with is legal. Our guide to paying for AI when your card is declined sorts decline reasons by who can fix each one.

Can you get a refund or an invoice from DeepSeek?

Yes to both, for money you haven't spent. DeepSeek's help center says "Unused balances can be refunded." If you paid online, you request it yourself in Billing, under Refunds. A corporate bank transfer needs a support ticket marked Refund Request. The Open Platform terms, released 22 April 2026 and in force since 29 April, are blunt about the rest: "partial refunds are not supported, and amounts already spent will not be refunded."

Invoices sit on the same Billing page, under Invoices. You can cancel one there and have it reissued, and a Remarks field takes any usage detail you want printed. DeepSeek's Chinese help center adds what the English page leaves out. The invoices are Chinese VAT invoices, ordinary or special, charged at a 6% rate as a technical service fee. You can invoice by amount spent or by amount topped up. An amount already invoiced can't be refunded until you cancel that invoice. And an enterprise verified account can invoice only in its own verified company name.

Deleting the account is the one move that loses money outright. Ask for the refund first. How to delete a DeepSeek account covers what else goes with it.

Can you pay for DeepSeek models some other way?

Yes, through a host that resells DeepSeek's models, at a fee. OpenRouter takes major cards, Alipay and USDC, per its FAQ, as of October 2026. It charges 5.5% on a card purchase, with a $0.80 minimum, and 5% on crypto. It also reserves the right to expire unused credit a year after purchase, and it refunds unused credit only within 24 hours. DeepSeek's docs list no fee on a top up, and its balance never expires. So buying direct wins whenever one of DeepSeek's methods works for you. A reseller earns its fee only when none of them does.

If you wanted DeepSeek to chat rather than to build on, there's no bill to solve: the app is free. For DeepSeek beside Claude and GPT in one app, Whizi Pro carries five DeepSeek models for $29.99 a month, billed by Stripe on the website or by the App Store or Google Play in the app. DeepSeek in Whizi lists them with their credit costs.