28 cents today, tomorrow $1.30 – Deepseek raised its prices overnight by 4.6x. Anyone who worked cheaply for months wakes up to completely different costs, without any warning.
It is like toilet paper during the pandemic: first everything is free, then the faucet gets turned off. And the exact same pattern is now showing up with AI services.
Free first, then pay – the industry playbook
Test for free first, then raise prices massively, then throttle usage times with reduced speed. Unannounced price hikes are not an isolated case but part of the industry picture – from toilet paper to gas stations to AI services.
What you can do as a customer
Demand a refund
I requested my credits back – within minutes, no hassle. Anyone who asks politely but firmly usually gets remaining credit refunded.
Switch to Open Router
There I can choose which model from which provider at what price. No lock-in, no unannounced price shock – because the choice remains.
Stay flexible
The market for AI models is maturing fast. Anyone not tied to one provider can switch overnight – and stays on the safe side.
Why this matters for agentic systems
Anyone building agentic AI systems needs to plan for this risk from the start. Today's foundation can change overnight: prices, quotas, speeds. An architecture that can swap providers is no longer a nice-to-have option but risk management.
Are you prepared?
The video shows the pattern, the refund and the alternative – and ends with the question everyone using AI services should answer: what happens to your systems when the price rises overnight?
➡️ All content in the embedded video was created with AI.