DeepSeek overtakes Google on volume, cost per token falls 13.6%
Vercel’s July gateway data shows model routing, not list-price cuts, drove a 13.6% drop in average token cost as open-weight models gained production traffic.
In Vercel AI Gateway’s July data, token volume rose **59%**, spend rose **37%**, and average price per token fell **13.6%**. DeepSeek reached **25% of token volume**, ahead of Google’s 10.7%.
Builders should route agent tasks by capability tier and price, then keep measuring the mix. The report attributes the cost decline to teams shifting traffic toward cheaper models, not models becoming cheaper within a fixed mix.
In Vercel AI Gateway’s July data, token volume rose **59%**, spend rose **37%**, and average price per token fell **13.6%**. DeepSeek reached **25% of token volume**, ahead of Google’s 10.7%. Builders should route agent tasks by capability tier and price, then keep measuring the mix. The report attributes the cost decline to teams shifting traffic toward cheaper models, not models becoming cheaper within a fixed mix. This is traffic from one gateway, not a capability benchmark or a view of the whole market. Workload composition changed sharply, so volume share alone does not establish which model is best for coding agents.
This extends Vercel’s gateway evidence from a broad open-weight shift to a July mix dominated by DeepSeek, alongside lower blended token cost. It confirms that routing mix can materially change spend, while narrowing interpretation: the figures measure one gateway’s changing workloads, not model quality or a market-wide ranking, so task-level verification still governs selection.