# About Cache How repeated input becomes a cache hit, and what that means for your token bill. ## What is a cache hit? A provider can reuse earlier computation when your request matches a stored input prefix. Shared instructions or conversation history are common examples. The model still generates a new answer. A cache hit requires a stored prefix that satisfies the provider’s matching rules. ## How the price works Matched input uses the cache-read rate. Unmatched input uses the regular input rate; generated tokens use the output rate. Calculation example 10,000 input tokens: 8,000 cached + 2,000 uncached. At $0.02 / 1M cached and $0.20 / 1M uncached, input costs **$0.00056**: (8,000 × $0.02 + 2,000 × $0.20) ÷ 1,000,000. Output is billed separately. ## Why a request can miss A changed prefix, an unavailable cache entry or a different provider route can prevent reuse. Cache behavior varies across services. DeepSeek describes its cache as best effort; inspect reported cache-hit and cache-miss usage instead of assuming every repeat will qualify. For our subscription comparison, cached input, uncached input and output all consume the shared allowance at 1×. The displayed subscription price assumes full allowance use. ## Cache and FP8 can work together Caching reuses input computation. FP8 describes numerical representation during inference. An FP8 route can have cache hits and misses. [Read About FP8 →](https://deepseeksub.com/about-fp8/index.md) ## Further reading [DeepSeek · Context Caching](https://api-docs.deepseek.com/guides/kv_cache/) --- HTML source: [About Cache — dssub](https://deepseeksub.com/about-cache/)