From $14K Monthly Bills to 65% Savings: DeepSeek Reshapes RAG Economics

RAG deployment has become prohibitively expensive for many teams, with traditional setups costing over $14,000 monthly for moderate workloads. This comprehensive benchmark across 184 models reveals that DeepSeek can match GPT-4o's performance while cutting costs by up to 65%—validating that model selection, not infrastructure, is the primary lever for RAG cost control. For enterprises struggling with LLM economics, this data-driven analysis provides a roadmap to reclaim margins without sacrificing quality.