Baseten in one minute
Best for: Teams serving bursty model traffic.
Biggest catch: Cold starts and model loading are billable.
Skip it if: You need always-on capacity cheaper than renting GPUs directly.
Price: Per-minute GPU billing, e.g. A100 $0.06667/min, H100 $0.10833/min. (checked Oct 11, 2026)
Full Baseten review
AI Model Deployment · Model APIs
Best for: Developers prototyping with many models, or running batch jobs.
Pros
- Run thousands of open models with one API call
- Public models bill only active processing time. Setup and idle are free
- Deploy your own models with Cog, with autoscaling
Biggest catch
Shared queues mean cold boots, which can take minutes for rarely used models (per Replicate's docs)
Skip it if: You need consistently low latency without paying to keep instances warm.
Starting price: Free tier: no flat plan; pay-as-you-go. Per-second hardware rates or per-input/output pricing per model. (checked Oct 10, 2026)
Full Replicate review · Replicate vs Baseten · Replicate alternatives
Sources for Replicate
AI Model Deployment · LLM Deployment
Best for: Teams serving open-source or fine-tuned models in production.
Pros
- Fast serverless inference for open models, billed per token
- Cached input is about 50% off and batch jobs cost half
- Dedicated GPUs per second with no startup charge
Biggest catch
Prepaid, usage-based billing needs monitoring
Skip it if: You just want a chatbot subscription.
Starting price: Serverless per token (varies by model). Dedicated: H100/H200 $8/hr, B200 $13/hr. (checked Oct 11, 2026)
Full Fireworks AI review · Baseten vs Fireworks AI · Fireworks AI alternatives
Sources for Fireworks AI
AI Model Deployment · Serverless Deployment
Best for: Python teams running bursty ML jobs.
Pros
- Python-first serverless GPUs that scale to zero, billed per second
- Free Starter plan includes $30 of compute a month
- Workspace budgets cap spend
Biggest catch
Per-hour GPU rates (H100 $3.95/hr) are above bare-metal rentals
Skip it if: You run GPUs 24/7. Reserved rentals are cheaper.
Starting price: Starter: free with $30/mo credits. Pay per second (e.g. A100 80GB $2.50/hr, H100 $3.95/hr). (checked Oct 11, 2026)
Full Modal review · Baseten vs Modal · Modal alternatives
Sources for Modal
Pros, catches and prices are compiled from public sources (official pricing and docs pages, published reviews, user reports), not hands-on testing. Prices change often, so check the vendor page before you buy.