Baseten vs Modal

Baseten and Modal are both AI Infrastructure & Deployment tools (Model APIs). Below: what each costs, what it does well, its biggest catches, and who should pick which, all from public sources rather than our own testing.

Side by side

BasetenModal
CategoryAI Model Deployment · Model APIsAI Model Deployment · Serverless Deployment
PricingPer-minute GPU billing, e.g. A100 $0.06667/min, H100 $0.10833/min. (checked Oct 11, 2026)Starter: free with $30/mo credits. Pay per second (e.g. A100 80GB $2.50/hr, H100 $3.95/hr). (checked Oct 11, 2026)
Pros
  • Deploy models as production APIs with autoscaling
  • Scale-to-zero, so idle replicas cost nothing
  • Transparent per-minute GPU pricing, from T4 to B200
  • Python-first serverless GPUs that scale to zero, billed per second
  • Free Starter plan includes $30 of compute a month
  • Workspace budgets cap spend
Catches
  • Cold starts and model loading are billable
  • The default 15-minute scale-down delay keeps replicas, and the bill, running
  • Warm, redundant capacity means continuous per-minute charges
  • Per-hour GPU rates (H100 $3.95/hr) are above bare-metal rentals
  • Cold starts matter for latency-sensitive apps
  • Egress beyond 1 TiB is billed
Best forTeams serving bursty model traffic.Python teams running bursty ML jobs.
Skip it ifYou need always-on capacity cheaper than renting GPUs directly.You run GPUs 24/7. Reserved rentals are cheaper.

Which should you pick?

Pick Baseten if…

you fit this: teams serving bursty model traffic.

But not if: you need always-on capacity cheaper than renting GPUs directly.

Watch out for: Cold starts and model loading are billable.

Pick Modal if…

you fit this: python teams running bursty ML jobs.

But not if: you run GPUs 24/7. Reserved rentals are cheaper.

Watch out for: Per-hour GPU rates (H100 $3.95/hr) are above bare-metal rentals.

More options

Sources

Baseten

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.