ByteDance Seed · Model

Seed 1.6 pricing, context window and specs

Q: What is the API model ID for Seed 1.6?

On OpenRouter it is bytedance-seed/seed-1.6. ByteDance Seed’s own API may use a different name, so check its model list before you deploy. Pass the ID as the model value in each request.

Seed 1.6 costs $0.25 per million input tokens and $2 per million output tokens, and reads up to 262,144 tokens per request. By blended price it is number 3 of ByteDance Seed’s 6 current models here, counting from the cheapest.

Input / 1M: $0.25
Output / 1M: $2
Cached / 1M: –
Context: 262,144
Max output: 32,768
Released: 2025-12-23

Estimate your cost with Seed 1.6 Compare all ByteDance Seed models Count tokens for Seed 1.6

Pricing

Seed 1.6 API pricing

Price per 1M tokens	Input	Output
Standard	$0.25	$2
Prompts of 128,000+ tokens	$0.50	$4

Output costs 8.0× the input price, so long replies drive the bill more than long prompts. No cached-input price is published, so repeated prompt prefixes are billed at the full input price. Once a single prompt reaches 128,000 tokens, the whole request is billed at the higher long-context rate shown above.

Examples

What Seed 1.6 costs in practice

Workload	Tokens in / out	Requests/day	Per request	Per month
Support chatbot	1,500 / 400	1,000	$0.00118	$35.74
RAG app	6,000 / 500	500	$0.0025	$38.02
Coding agent	40,000 / 2,000	200	$0.014	$85.17
Document summariser	8,000 / 600	300	$0.0032	$29.20

Change any number in the cost calculator.

Context

Context window

Seed 1.6 accepts up to 262,144 tokens per request, roughly 196,608 English words or 393 pages. That budget is shared between your prompt and the reply, and a single reply is capped at 32,768 tokens.

Filling the whole window with one prompt costs about $0.13 at list price, so for repeated long-document work, retrieval (sending only the relevant parts) or prompt caching is usually much cheaper.

Check whether your text fits Seed 1.6’s window.

Features

Capabilities

Image input: Yes
Tool / function calling: Yes
Reasoning mode: Yes
Prompt caching: No
Structured output: Yes
Open weights: No
Accepts: image, text, video
Knowledge cutoff: Not published

As declared by the provider’s API. It shows a feature exists, not how well it works.

API

Seed 1.6 model ID

OpenRouter: bytedance-seed/seed-1.6

Use the OpenRouter ID when calling it through OpenRouter; ByteDance Seed’s own API may name it differently. See the model ID reference for the providers we document.

ByteDance Seed

Where Seed 1.6 sits in ByteDance Seed’s line-up

Ranked by blended price (three parts input to one part output, $0.6875 per 1M for Seed 1.6), it is number 3 of ByteDance Seed’s 6 current models here, counting from the cheapest. One step down, Seed-2.0-Mini costs $0.175 blended (75% less). Unlike Seed 1.6, it caps a reply at 131,072 tokens (32,768 here). One step up, Seed-2.0-Lite costs $0.6875, the same. Unlike Seed 1.6, it caps a reply at 131,072 tokens (32,768 here). See every ByteDance Seed model and price

Model	Input / 1M	Output / 1M	Context	Released
Seed 1.6 Flash	$0.075	$0.30	262,144	2025-12-23
Seed-2.0-Mini	$0.10	$0.40	262,144	2026-02-26
Seed 1.6 (this page)	$0.25	$2	262,144	2025-12-23
Seed-2.0-Lite	$0.25	$2	262,144	2026-03-10
Seed 2.1 Turbo	$0.50	$2.50	262,144	2026-08-12
Seed-2.0-Code	$0.50	$3	262,144	2026-08-12

ByteDance Seed’s current models with a page here, cheapest first. Older and superseded models are listed on the provider page and in the comparison table.

Save

Cheaper alternatives

Qwen3.5-9BQwen84% cheaper
Seed 1.6 FlashByteDance Seed81% cheaper
GPT-6 LunaOpenAI71% cheaper
Claude Haiku 5.5Anthropic71% cheaper
GLM 4.6VZ.ai35% cheaper

Current models from major providers, one per provider, that keep image input, tool calling, a reasoning mode, a usable context window and output limit. Compared by blended price.

Compare

Similarly priced models

Qwen3.5-122B-A10BQwen$0.26 / $2.08
Command A+Cohere$0.30 / $1.50
GLM 5.3 FlashXZ.ai$0.37 / $1.25
Gemini 3.5 Flash LiteGoogle$0.30 / $2.50
Nova 2 LiteAmazon$0.30 / $2.50

Current models from other major providers, closest blended price.

FAQ

Seed 1.6 questions

How much does Seed 1.6 cost?

Seed 1.6 costs $0.25 per million input tokens and $2 per million output tokens. A typical chatbot reply (1,500 tokens in, 400 out) costs about $0.00118. Use the LLM cost calculator for your own workload.

What is Seed 1.6’s context window?

262,144 tokens, about 196,608 English words or 393 printed pages, shared between your prompt and the reply. A single reply can be up to 32,768 tokens.

Does Seed 1.6 support prompt caching and batch requests?

No cached-input price is published for it. No batch price is published for it.

What are cheaper alternatives to Seed 1.6?

With the same essentials (image input and tool calling), the cheapest options are Qwen3.5-9B (84% cheaper), Seed 1.6 Flash (81% cheaper), GPT-6 Luna (71% cheaper). Cheaper doesn’t mean equivalent, so test them on your own prompts.

What is the API model ID for Seed 1.6?

On OpenRouter it is bytedance-seed/seed-1.6. ByteDance Seed’s own API may use a different name, so check its model list before you deploy. Pass the ID as the model value in each request.

Is Seed 1.6 open source?

No, Seed 1.6 is only available through ByteDance Seed’s API and partners; its weights aren’t published.