If you landed here because the DeepSeek login screen is asking for a code you never got, or because you cannot remember whether you signed up with Google, Apple or email, this guide is for you. There are actually three different DeepSeek login surfaces — the web chat at chat.deepseek.com, the iOS/Android app, and the developer platform at platform.deepseek.com where API keys live. They share an account but behave differently, and as of April 24, 2026 DeepSeek V4 is the default model behind all of them. Below you will find the exact sign-in steps for each surface, the two-factor and SSO options DeepSeek supports, a fix list for the most common errors, and a short note on how the API differs from the chat once you are in.

The short answer: which DeepSeek login do you need?

There is one DeepSeek account, but three places you can sign in to. Pick the one that matches what you actually want to do — the credentials are the same across all three.

Chat history and saved conversations live behind the web and app surfaces. API keys, granted balance and invoices live behind the platform surface. If you only want to try the chatbot, stick with chat.deepseek.com; if you are building something, you will spend most of your time on the platform console. For a broader tour of what the product actually does before you sign in, see our what is DeepSeek explainer.

How to sign in to DeepSeek chat (web)

The web chat is the simplest way to test your account. Chat requests are handled server-side on DeepSeek’s infrastructure, not inside the browser, so expect a short authentication round-trip the first time.

1. Open https://chat.deepseek.com in any modern browser (Chrome, Edge, Safari, Firefox, Brave, Arc).
2. Click Log in in the top-right corner.
3. Choose your sign-in method: email + password, Google, Apple, or a phone-number / SMS code where available in your region.
4. Complete the CAPTCHA or slider challenge if prompted. This step appears more often on new devices or from unusual IP addresses.
5. If you have two-factor authentication enabled, enter the six-digit code from your authenticator app or the SMS DeepSeek sent you.
6. You will land in a fresh chat session with DeepSeek V4 selected and the DeepThink toggle off. Flip DeepThink on if you want the model to reason before answering.

New here? The companion sign up for DeepSeek guide walks through account creation first, and DeepSeek account setup covers profile, security and notification preferences once you are in.

How to sign in on the mobile app

The official DeepSeek app is listed on both the Apple App Store and Google Play. Before you install, verify you have the genuine app — several clones appeared during the January 2025 download spike. Our verify official DeepSeek app guide shows the publisher names and bundle IDs to check.

1. Install DeepSeek from the App Store (iOS/iPadOS) or Google Play (Android). Publisher should read DeepSeek.
2. Open the app and tap Log in on the welcome screen.
3. Pick the same sign-in method you used on the web. If you signed up with Google on desktop, use Google on mobile — otherwise you will create a second account by accident.
4. Approve the OS-level sign-in prompt (Face ID, Touch ID, Apple ID sheet, or Google account chooser).
5. On iOS, optionally enable Face ID unlock for the app itself under Settings → Privacy & Security inside the app.

Conversations sync across web and mobile on the same account. If you cannot see your desktop history on the phone, you are almost certainly signed in with the wrong provider — log out and try the other option. For platform-specific quirks, the DeepSeek on iPhone and DeepSeek on Android guides cover version differences and permission prompts.

How to sign in to the developer platform

The platform console is where you create API keys, top up credit, and watch usage. It is a separate URL from the chat, although the login is the same account.

1. Go to https://platform.deepseek.com.
2. Click Sign in and authenticate with your existing DeepSeek credentials.
3. Accept the developer terms if this is your first visit to the console.
4. Open API Keys in the sidebar and click Create new secret key. Copy the value immediately — DeepSeek shows it once and only once.
5. Visit Billing to add credit or check your granted balance. DeepSeek may offer a granted balance — a small promotional credit that can expire — so check the billing console for current offers rather than assuming new accounts are topped up automatically.

Once you have a key, you can hit POST /chat/completions, the OpenAI-compatible endpoint, from any language that speaks HTTP. The minimal Python example below uses the OpenAI SDK with base_url swapped to DeepSeek:

from openai import OpenAI

client = OpenAI(
    base_url="https://api.deepseek.com",
    api_key="sk-...",   # the key you just copied
)

resp = client.chat.completions.create(
    model="deepseek-v4-flash",
    messages=[{"role": "user", "content": "Say hi."}],
)
print(resp.choices[0].message.content)

DeepSeek also ships an Anthropic-compatible surface against the same base URL, so the Anthropic SDK works if that is your existing stack. Full reference lives in the DeepSeek API documentation, and the get a DeepSeek API key guide walks through the exact console clicks.

Two-factor authentication and SSO options

DeepSeek supports three common auth paths. Pick whichever matches how you signed up.

• Email + password with TOTP 2FA. Scan the QR code in the account settings with Google Authenticator, 1Password, Authy, or any RFC 6238 app. Back up the recovery codes — losing the authenticator without them means going through support.
• Google Sign-In. OAuth flow through Google. If your Google account uses a hardware key or passkey, that security posture carries through.
• Apple Sign-In. Available in the iOS app and on the web. Hides your real email behind an Apple relay address if you toggle that option.

SMS-based codes are available in some regions but are the weakest option — prefer TOTP or a provider-backed passkey where you can. If you have lost access, the reset DeepSeek password guide covers the recovery flow step by step.

DeepSeek login not working? A fix list

Most login failures fall into one of six buckets. The table below maps the symptom to the likely cause and the first thing to try.

If you see a flat “DeepSeek is unavailable” banner on every surface at the same time, it is usually an outage rather than your account. The DeepSeek status checker gives a quick read, and the broader DeepSeek troubleshooting guide covers harder cases like corrupted sessions and locked accounts.

Country and device restrictions you should know about

Not every login attempt fails because of the app. Regulatory actions have removed or limited DeepSeek access in several places. Italy’s Garante ordered the DeepSeek app blocked in January 2025 over data-protection concerns, and several U.S. states — Texas, New York and Virginia among them — have restricted DeepSeek on government-issued devices. There is no federal U.S. ban as of this article’s verification date. For a live country matrix, see DeepSeek availability by country.

On the privacy side: conversations are processed and may be stored on servers subject to Chinese law, and law-enforcement access under legal process is possible. If that trade-off matters for your work, read DeepSeek privacy before you sign in at all and compare with our DeepSeek alternatives roundup.

Chat vs API: what “being logged in” actually means

This is the single most common source of confusion after the first successful login.

When you sign in to the web chat or the mobile app, DeepSeek keeps your conversation state for you. You can close the tab, come back tomorrow, and scroll through past threads. The DeepThink toggle, file attachments, and session history all live on the server tied to your account.

The API is different. POST /chat/completions is stateless — DeepSeek does not remember prior turns on its side. Your client must resend the full messages array with every request to sustain a multi-turn conversation. “Being logged in” on the API means holding a valid API key in the Authorization header; it does not mean DeepSeek is keeping a conversation for you. Plan your code accordingly, and lean on context caching to keep the repeated prefix cheap.

V4 model IDs and the legacy window

Two model IDs are live in the API today:

• deepseek-v4-pro — 1.6T total / 49B active params, frontier tier, open-weight MoE under MIT.
• deepseek-v4-flash — 284B / 13B active, cost-efficient tier, also open-weight MoE under MIT.

Both ship with a 1,000,000-token context window by default and support outputs up to 384,000 tokens. Thinking mode is a request parameter, not a separate model — pass reasoning_effort="high" plus extra_body={"thinking": {"type": "enabled"}} on either tier, or reasoning_effort="max" for maximum-effort thinking. When thinking is on, the response returns reasoning_content alongside the final content.

The legacy deepseek-chat and deepseek-reasoner IDs still work — they currently route to deepseek-v4-flash in non-thinking and thinking modes respectively — but they retire on 2026-07-24 15:59 UTC. Migrating is a one-line model= swap; base_url does not change. If you have a cron job running against the old IDs, put the migration on your calendar now.

A quick cost sanity check on V4-Flash

Using V4-Flash rates as published on the pricing page: $0.028 per 1M tokens for cached input, $0.14 per 1M for uncached input, $0.28 per 1M for output. For 1,000,000 API calls with a 2,000-token cached system prompt, a 200-token user message, and a 300-token response:

• Cached input: 2,000 × 1,000,000 × $0.028/M = $56.00
• Uncached input: 200 × 1,000,000 × $0.14/M = $28.00
• Output: 300 × 1,000,000 × $0.28/M = $84.00
• Total: $168.00

Same workload on deepseek-v4-pro — $0.145 / $1.74 / $3.48 per 1M — lands at $1,682.00 for the million calls. Pick the tier your quality bar actually needs; do not default to Pro for standard chat traffic. The DeepSeek pricing calculator lets you plug in your own token counts.

What to do right after you log in

Two-minute checklist once you are in:

• Set up 2FA if you chose email + password. TOTP in an authenticator app, not SMS.
• Review session devices in account settings and revoke anything you do not recognise.
• Check privacy toggles — whether chats are used for training on your account, how long history is kept, and whether you want memory features enabled.
• Create a named API key per project if you are building, so you can rotate or revoke one without breaking the others.
• Bookmark the billing page and set a usage alert before your first real traffic day.

From here, the natural next step depends on why you signed in. For conversational use, how to use DeepSeek walks through DeepThink, uploads and search. For developer work, DeepSeek API getting started takes the key you just generated and builds a small working app around it. For a top-down view of everything in the product, the DeepSeek beginner guides hub is the index.

Last verified: 2026-04-24. DeepSeek AI Guide is an independent resource and is not affiliated with DeepSeek or its parent company. Model IDs, pricing and API behaviour change; check the official DeepSeek documentation and pricing page before committing to a production decision.