ByteDance Seed · Model
Seed-2.0-Lite pricing, context window and specs
Seed-2.0-Lite 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 4 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
- 131,072
- Released
- 2026-03-10
Estimate your cost with Seed-2.0-LiteCompare all ByteDance Seed modelsCount tokens for Seed-2.0-Lite
Pricing
Seed-2.0-Lite 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-2.0-Lite 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-2.0-Lite 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 131,072 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.
Features
Capabilities
- Image input
- Yes
- Tool / function calling
- Yes
- Reasoning mode
- Yes
- Prompt caching
- No
- Structured output
- Yes
- Open weights
- No
- Accepts
- text, image, video
- Knowledge cutoff
- Not published
As declared by the provider’s API. It shows a feature exists, not how well it works.
API
Seed-2.0-Lite model ID
- OpenRouter
bytedance-seed/seed-2.0-lite
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-2.0-Lite sits in ByteDance Seed’s line-up
Ranked by blended price (three parts input to one part output, $0.6875 per 1M for Seed-2.0-Lite), it is number 4 of ByteDance Seed’s 6 current models here, counting from the cheapest. One step down, Seed 1.6 costs $0.6875 blended, the same. Unlike Seed-2.0-Lite, it caps a reply at 32,768 tokens (131,072 here). One step up, Seed 2.1 Turbo costs $1 (1.5× as much). 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 | $0.25 | $2 | 262,144 | 2025-12-23 |
| Seed-2.0-Lite (this page) | $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-2.0-Lite questions
How much does Seed-2.0-Lite cost?
Seed-2.0-Lite 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-2.0-Lite’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 131,072 tokens.
Does Seed-2.0-Lite 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-2.0-Lite?
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-2.0-Lite?
On OpenRouter it is bytedance-seed/seed-2.0-lite. 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-2.0-Lite open source?
No, Seed-2.0-Lite is only available through ByteDance Seed’s API and partners; its weights aren’t published.