DeepSeek enters the fight for token volume, Anthropic continues to dominate spend

In three linesDeepSeek V4 captured 17% of token volume on AI Gateway in May 2025, jumping from <1% in April, thanks to pricing 20–50× lower than Claude. Despite massive volume growth, DeepSeek accounts for only 1% of spend, while Anthropic dominates production costs.

Summary generated by Claude — human-verified