In six months, the same token got 75% cheaper at DeepSeek and up to 99% cheaper at Xiaomi.
The cuts, with numbers
DeepSeek made the cut permanent on V4-Pro: one million input tokens went from 1.74 to 0.435 dollar, and output from 3.48 to 0.87 dollar. Xiaomi went further with MiMo V2.5, with prices up to 99% lower and plan credits multiplied by 5 to 8, including a full reset of what had already been consumed.
The community''s reaction is the best portrait of the moment: in the OpenCode repository, the issue asking for plan limit adjustments registered the era when the token price falls faster than the subscription cap.
The credit thesis
A subscription with a fixed cap becomes arbitrage. When the token price falls, or the credit buys more, the same monthly plan delivers more work. Whoever locked the rule before the cut bought the same cap for less.
That changes the geometry of the buying decision: the list price is the variable that matters least, because tomorrow it is another one. What matters is the fixed side of the equation, the cap and the credit you already have.
The two rules of AI FinOps
AI FinOps in 2026 has two rules: the per-token price, which only falls, and the consumption rule, which decides what you actually pay. The second one rules.
And the consumption rule has a denominator that survives every cycle: the cost per completed task on your workload. It is what turns a price drop into a decision (renew, switch, scale) instead of a headline.
At the buying end, the discount rule follows the models'' commercial cycle: entry bonus, never budget, as we documented in the 30-day commercial life of a model and in the discount that does not survive renewal. Whoever wants the plan with that mechanic today: https://z.ai/subscribe?ic=BGIRP61T2P (10% off the first order).
Conclusion
A 75% drop in six months is not a promotion, it is market structure. The right answer is not celebrating the new price: it is having the consumption rule mapped to renew at the right moment and buy cap with credit that buys more. At Tech86, rule review is agent FinOps work. If your AI subscription expires in the coming months, the review comes before the renewal.