Ways to buy model access
Gateways, cloud and data platforms, and developer hubs: what each adds to the token price.Updated 5h ago
5 of 22 gateways and platforms
| Gateway or platform | Fee on tokens | Pricing model | BYOK | Models | Fallback | Cache | Guardrails | Logs | Rate limits | Residency | Private net |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cloud model platforms | |||||||||||
 AWS BedrockPass-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 FoundryPer 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 AIPer 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.aiPer 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 AIUnverifiedMixed: 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 | |||||||
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
Calculator100M input and 20M output tokens a month: $400.00 direct from the lab.
Helicone$400.00+0%
Kong AI Gateway$400.00+0%
LiteLLM$400.00+0%
Vercel AI Gateway$400.00+0%
Databricks Mosaic AI$400.00+0%
Hugging Face Inference$400.00+0%
Cloudflare AI Gateway$420.00+5%
Requesty$420.00+5%
Eden AI$422.00+5.5%
OpenRouter$422.00+5.5%
Snowflake Cortex AI$480.00+20%
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.