Ways to buy model access

Gateways, cloud and data platforms, and developer hubs: what each adds to the token price.Updated 5h ago

22 of 22 gateways and platforms

Gateway or platform	Fee on tokens	Pricing model	BYOK	Models
Independent gateways
Helicone 0% markup on credits; plans by requests and seats (Pro $79 a month) · BYOK 0% · 100+ modelsFallbacks, Caching, Guardrails, Observability, Rate limits	None	0% markup on credits; plans by requests and seats (Pro $79 a month)	Yes, 0%	100+
Kong AI Gateway $100 a month per model proxied (Konnect Plus); no token fee · BYOK no · See page modelsFallbacks, Caching, Guardrails, Observability, Rate limits	None	$100 a month per model proxied (Konnect Plus); no token fee	No	See page
LiteLLM Open source, self-hosted with your own keys; enterprise license by quote · BYOK 0% · 100+ modelsFallbacks, Caching, Guardrails, Observability, Rate limits	None	Open source, self-hosted with your own keys; enterprise license by quote	Yes, 0%	100+
Vercel AI Gateway Provider list prices, no markup or platform fee on tokens · BYOK 0% · See page modelsFallbacks, Caching, Observability, Rate limits	None	Provider list prices, no markup or platform fee on tokens	Yes, 0%	See page
Cloudflare AI Gateway Core features free; 5% fee on Unified Billing credits · BYOK yes · See page modelsFallbacks, Caching, Guardrails, Observability, Rate limits	5%	Core features free; 5% fee on Unified Billing credits	Yes	See page
Requesty 5% on top of model costs, pay as you go · BYOK yes · 600+ modelsFallbacks, Caching, Guardrails, Observability	5%	5% on top of model costs, pay as you go	Yes	600+
Eden AI Provider prices passed through; 5.5% fee on credit purchases · BYOK yes · 500+ modelsFallbacks, Observability	5.5%	Provider prices passed through; 5.5% fee on credit purchases	Yes	500+
OpenRouter Provider prices passed through; 5.5% fee on card credit purchases (5% crypto) · BYOK 5% · 500+ modelsFallbacks, Caching, Observability	5.5%	Provider prices passed through; 5.5% fee on card credit purchases (5% crypto)	Yes, 5%	500+
Martian GatewayUnverified No public pricing · BYOK no · 200+ modelsObservability	Not published	No public pricing	No	200+
Portkey Per logged request: free 10k logs a month, Production from $49 a month · BYOK yes · 250+ modelsFallbacks, Caching, Guardrails, Observability, Rate limits	$49/mo	Per logged request: free 10k logs a month, Production from $49 a month	Yes	250+
TrueFoundry AI GatewayUnverified Per user and per request ($25 per user a month on Pro) · BYOK no · 1,600+ modelsFallbacks, Guardrails, Observability, Rate limits	$25/mo	Per user and per request ($25 per user a month on Pro)	No	1,600+
Cloud model platforms
AWS Bedrock Pass-through per 1M tokens at the lab's list price for Global cross-region inference; Geo and in-region inference cost 10% more; billed on your AWS account · BYOK no · 19 models	List price	Pass-through per 1M tokens at the lab's list price for Global cross-region inference; Geo and in-region inference cost 10% more; billed on your AWS account	No	19
Azure AI Foundry Per 1M (or 1K) tokens on your Azure bill; Global deployment at OpenAI list price, Data Zone and Regional deployments cost 10% more; PTUs for provisioned throughput · BYOK no · 2 models	List price	Per 1M (or 1K) tokens on your Azure bill; Global deployment at OpenAI list price, Data Zone and Regional deployments cost 10% more; PTUs for provisioned throughput	No	2
Google Vertex AI Per 1M tokens on your Google Cloud bill; partner models at the lab's list price on the Global endpoint, regional/multi-region endpoints about 10% more · BYOK no · 2 models	List price	Per 1M tokens on your Google Cloud bill; partner models at the lab's list price on the Global endpoint, regional/multi-region endpoints about 10% more	No	2
IBM watsonx.ai Per 1M tokens (billed as Resource Units, 1 RU = 1,000 tokens incl. input and output); Essentials plan from USD 0/month, Standard from USD 1110/month · BYOK no · See page models	Not published	Per 1M tokens (billed as Resource Units, 1 RU = 1,000 tokens incl. input and output); Essentials plan from USD 0/month, Standard from USD 1110/month	No	See page
OCI Generative AIUnverified Mixed: per 1M tokens for Google, xAI and OpenAI gpt-oss models; per 10,000 transactions (1 transaction = 1 character of prompt plus response) for Meta and Cohere; dedicated AI clusters per unit hour · BYOK no · 3 models	Not published	Mixed: per 1M tokens for Google, xAI and OpenAI gpt-oss models; per 10,000 transactions (1 transaction = 1 character of prompt plus response) for Meta and Cohere; dedicated AI clusters per unit hour	No	3
Data platforms
Databricks Mosaic AIUnverified DBUs per 1M tokens (Standard pay per token; Priority and Batch tiers separate) · BYOK no · See page models	List price	DBUs per 1M tokens (Standard pay per token; Priority and Batch tiers separate)	No	See page
Snowflake Cortex AI Snowflake AI Credits per 1M tokens (input and output priced separately) · BYOK no · 6 models	20%	Snowflake AI Credits per 1M tokens (input and output priced separately)	No	6
BigQuery ML BigQuery bytes processed (on-demand or editions) plus the underlying Vertex AI model charges billed directly by that service; no separate BigQuery per-token rate for LLM calls · BYOK no · See page models	Not published	BigQuery bytes processed (on-demand or editions) plus the underlying Vertex AI model charges billed directly by that service; no separate BigQuery per-token rate for LLM calls	No	See page
Developer hubs
Hugging Face Inference Pass-through at each provider's rate with no Hugging Face markup; pay as you go on your HF account, or bill directly to the provider with your own key · BYOK yes · 200+ models	List price	Pass-through at each provider's rate with no Hugging Face markup; pay as you go on your HF account, or bill directly to the provider with your own key	Yes	200+
Cloudflare Workers AI Neurons: $0.011 per 1,000 Neurons, with per-model token prices published as the Neuron equivalent · BYOK no · See page models	Not published	Neurons: $0.011 per 1,000 Neurons, with per-model token prices published as the Neuron equivalent	No	See page
NVIDIA NIMUnverified Hosted API endpoints free for NVIDIA Developer Program prototyping; production self-hosted NIM requires an NVIDIA AI Enterprise license from $4,500 per GPU per year (about $1 per GPU per hour in the cloud); no per-token price · BYOK no · n/a models	Not published	Hosted API endpoints free for NVIDIA Developer Program prototyping; production self-hosted NIM requires an NVIDIA AI Enterprise license from $4,500 per GPU per year (about $1 per GPU per hour in the cloud); no per-token price	No	n/a

A tick means the vendor's own pricing page or docs say so; a dash means we did not find it stated. An amber dot marks a row with facts we could not confirm.

Claude Sonnet 5 through each

Calculator

100M input and 20M output tokens a month: $400.00 direct from the lab.

Questions

What is an AI gateway?

A proxy between your app and model providers that gives you one API for many models, with fallbacks when a provider fails, caching, logs, rate limits and spend controls.

OpenRouter vs Vercel AI Gateway: which is cheaper?

Vercel AI Gateway states no markup and no platform fee on tokens. OpenRouter passes provider prices through but charges a fee when you buy credits (5.5% by card). With your own keys, OpenRouter's first allowance is free and then 5%.

What is BYOK?

Bring your own key: you give the gateway your own provider API key, pay the provider directly, and the gateway charges nothing or a small fee for routing.

Is Claude or GPT more expensive on Bedrock, Azure or Vertex AI?

Usually not in the default region: AWS Bedrock, Azure AI Foundry and Google Vertex AI mostly charge the lab's own list price, and some regional endpoints add about 10%. Each platform page lists every model it sells with the premium against the direct API.

How do Snowflake Cortex and Databricks price LLM calls?

In their own units: Snowflake bills Cortex AI functions in credits per million tokens and Databricks bills Foundation Model APIs in DBUs per million tokens. Their pages here convert those to dollars and state the credit or DBU price assumed.

Can I self-host an AI gateway?

Yes. LiteLLM, Portkey (gateway core) and Helicone publish open-source gateways you can run yourself; you pay only for hosting.

Pricing as read from each vendor's own pages on the date shown; your contract may differ. Logos via logo.dev; trademarks belong to their owners.