Chinese social media is flooded with articles about “How to become a millionaire with DeepSeek”, along with selling courses, fortune telling services, and stock prediction using AI.
Not only did DeepSeek shake up the global stock market and force tech giants like Nvidia to respond, it also opened up countless money-making opportunities for individuals in China.
Chinese social media platforms like Weibo and Xiaohongshu are flooded with posts with enticing titles like “How to become a millionaire with DeepSeek” or “Make money while you sleep with DeepSeek.”
Whether it’s selling software installation packages, content creation tutorials, stock market predictions, or fortune-telling services, Chinese businesses have been quick to cash in on DeepSeek’s popularity. DeepSeek’s global reach has even intrigued people who aren’t interested in technology, according to Sixth Tone.
On the second-hand e-commerce platform Xianyu, many sellers are taking advantage of the information gap to make a profit. Speaking to The Paper, an anonymous seller admitted that he had once advertised the DeepSeek installation package for 39 yuan (about $5.34) even though the software could be downloaded for free from the official website.
In addition to the installation packages, dozens of other sellers on Xianyu offer DeepSeek user guides for between 1 and 10 yuan per download. One of these manuals has been purchased more than 900 times, according to Sixth Tone. But the content of these manuals is nothing special. Many are just general AI tutorials, while others are simply compilations of articles freely available online.
On Douyin (the Chinese version of TikTok), several streamers have been selling stock market prediction software that they claim uses DeepSeek. However, posts related to the software have been deleted by the platform.
A social media influencer named Tatara has even developed a fortune-telling service using DeepSeek and sells AI-generated readings for 888-2,888 yuan per session.
When criticized, she responded with a video claiming that she had earned more than 10,000 yuan from the service, noting that 97.5% of her customers found the results effective. She called the business model “a form of AI arbitrage” and said she enjoyed her work.
Under the terms of DeepSeek’s open source license, the company’s models can be used for any lawful purpose, including commercial purposes, without prior approval or registration. However, users must retain DeepSeek’s original copyright notice and disclose any modifications to the model.
Exploiting the DeepSeek “knowledge gap” to make a profit
However, DeepSeek’s rapid growth has caused the parent company to begin to worry about commercial practices that could affect their reputation. On the evening of February 6, DeepSeek issued an official statement, confirming its official social media accounts and denying any form of paid knowledge sharing services under the name of DeepSeek.
“We only have an official user exchange group on WeChat. DeepSeek does not set up any other groups on domestic platforms. Any group that asks for a membership fee and claims to be officially affiliated with DeepSeek is a scam,” the post read.
Yet on Zhishi Xingqiu, one of China’s most popular paid knowledge-sharing platforms, there are more than 100 DeepSeek-related groups. One called “DeepSeek Top Community” charges 62 yuan to join. One-on-one consultations cost up to 12,000 yuan an hour. A yearlong personal training package can cost as much as 68,000 yuan.
Zhang Xuguang, a researcher at Zhejiang University, said the phenomenon is nothing new. He said it is simply a repeat of the business model that appeared when OpenAI first launched ChatGPT. “They simply repackaged the old tutorials, renamed them ‘DeepSeek Monetization Guide’ and sold them,” he said.
DeepSeek’s explosive growth also led to server overload, slowing down the software’s response time. This created a new market for retailers: offering a version of DeepSeek that runs locally on PCs.
These versions are advertised as being faster because they don’t rely on DeepSeek’s servers. However, due to the smaller model size, their performance is also limited.
According to financial news site Yicai, many sellers are offering locally-run versions of DeepSeek for prices ranging from a few yuan to tens of yuan, with some copies having been downloaded more than 1,000 times on February 10 alone.
Not only small businesses, but also Chinese tech giants are not keen to miss out on the opportunity to exploit DeepSeek. In recent weeks, major companies such as Tencent and Baidu have been quick to integrate DeepSeek into their AI services and cloud platforms.
This race has helped drive down prices considerably. Baidu Cloud, one of China’s most popular cloud storage platforms, slashed prices by 80% after adding DeepSeek to its system.