Compare/Head to head

Claude vs DeepSeek

Same facts, side by side: starting price, free tier, MCP, API and what each one is actually built for.

Starting price

Claude

$17/mo Free tier

Anthropic's AI assistant for long documents, careful writing and connected recruiting tools. Free plan; Pro $17/mo billed annually, Max from $100/mo, Team from $20/user/mo billed annually.

Where Claude fits

  • Recruiters working through long documents, résumé stacks and RFPs
  • Teams that want an assistant connected to their ATS or CRM through MCP
  • Outreach and job ads that need to read naturally
  • Microsoft 365 and Outlook users on Pro and above

DeepSeek

Free Free tier

DeepSeek is a free AI chat assistant from a Chinese AI lab, with a reasoning mode and web search. Recruiters can use it to draft outreach, rewrite job ads and work through Boolean strings at no cost. There is no paid consumer plan; the chat app is free and the API is billed per token.

Where DeepSeek fits

  • Recruiters who want a capable free assistant for drafting and rewriting
  • Testing prompts before paying for a premium assistant
  • Developers building low-cost internal tools on the API

At a glance

DetailClaudeDeepSeek
Starting price$17/moFree
Free tier✓Yes✓Yes
MCP server–No–No
Public API✓Yes✓Yes
Listed underAI assistantsAI assistants

Where they pull apart

Claude

Stands out: Claude connects to many of the recruiting tools listed here through MCP servers and connectors, so it can read a req from your ATS or update a CRM record instead of you copying text back and forth. It is strong on long documents and natural-sounding writing.

Watch out: Personal plans let you opt out of model training, so check that setting before pasting candidate data, or use Team or Enterprise, which do not train on your content by default. Usage limits are compute-based, so a heavy day can hit a cap.

Not the right fit for

  • Image or video generation
  • Finding candidate contact data or LinkedIn profiles

DeepSeek

Stands out: The chat app is completely free with no subscription tier, and the API is among the cheapest published, with off-peak rates at half the peak price.

Watch out: DeepSeek's privacy policy says personal data is collected, processed and stored in the People's Republic of China, and it asks users not to submit sensitive personal data, so keep candidate details out of it. There are no team workspaces, admin controls or business plan.

Not the right fit for

  • Teams that paste candidate personal data into chats
  • Companies that need admin controls, SSO or a signed data agreement

Pros and cons

Claude

  • Free plan includes web search, file creation, memory and connectors
  • Handles very long documents and large uploads
  • Team and Enterprise plans do not train on your content by default
  • Free plan caps projects at five and has no Research
  • Usage limits reset every five hours, with weekly caps on paid plans
  • No image or video generation

DeepSeek

  • Free chat app with no subscription needed
  • DeepThink reasoning and web search included free
  • Very low API prices with half-price off-peak hours
  • Personal data is stored in China under its privacy policy
  • No team plan, admin controls or business workspace
  • No built-in connections to email, calendar or recruiting tools

What each one costs

Claude

$17/mo

The Free plan costs nothing and includes web search, file creation, memory, connectors and up to five projects. Pro is $17/mo billed annually ($200 up front) or $20 billed monthly, and Max starts at $100/mo for 5x or 20x Pro usage. The Team plan, for 2 to 150 people, costs $20/user/mo billed annually ($25 monthly) for Standard seats and $100/user/mo billed annually for Premium seats; Enterprise is $20/seat/mo billed annually plus usage at API rates. Confirm current terms on the vendor site.

Checked 7 Oct 2026

DeepSeek

Free

The DeepSeek web and mobile chat app is free to use, and no consumer subscription plan is published. The API is pay-as-you-go from a topped-up balance: the deepseek-flash model costs $0.30 per 1M input tokens (cache miss) and $1.20 per 1M output tokens at peak hours, with off-peak rates at half price; deepseek-v4-pro costs $1.32 input and $3.96 output per 1M tokens at peak. Confirm current terms on the vendor site.

Checked 15 Oct 2026

Common questions

Can you try Claude or DeepSeek for free?
Claude and DeepSeek carry a free tier on our listing.

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Editorial listings, never paid rankings. Prices checked 7 Oct 2026. Confirm current terms on the vendor site. Spot an error?