# Baseten vs Novita AI

Canonical: https://inetgeek.com/compare/baseten-vs-novita/

Every value below is read from Baseten's and Novita AI's own documentation. See https://inetgeek.com/methodology/ for how.

## At a glance

| Criterion | Baseten | Novita AI |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Pricing model | No platform fee: per-token Model APIs for open models, and dedicated deployments billed per minute of compute with volume discounts. The Pro tier buys priority access to high-demand GPUs rather than a lower rate. | Per-token serverless inference with a cache-read rate published beside most models, and GPU instances offered at both on-demand and spot rates — the spot column is roughly half. Two models, Ling 3.0 Flash Fin and Sante, are listed at no charge on both input and output. |
| Input price, top model | $1.40 per million input tokens for GLM-5.3, with cached input at $0.14 and output at $4.40. GLM-5.2 Fast, a speed variant, is $2.10. | $2.00 per million input tokens for Qwen3.8 Max, the most expensive model in its catalogue, with cache reads at $0.25 and output at $6.00. |
| Output price, top model | $4.40 per million output tokens for GLM-5.3. | $6.00 per million output tokens for Qwen3.8 Max. |
| Input price, cheapest model | $0.10 per million input tokens for GPT OSS 120B, with output at $0.50. GLM-5.3-Flash is $0.15 in and $0.50 out. | $0.075 per million input tokens for GLM 5.3 Flash at short context, rising to $0.15 above the threshold, with cache reads at $0.015 and output at $0.25. Fireworks serves the same model at $0.15. |
| Context window | 1,048K tokens on the DeepSeek V4 line and the GLM 5.2/5.3 family, the widest it serves; 262K on the Kimi K2 models, 200K on GLM 4.7 and 128K on GPT OSS 120B. Baseten's table publishes these in thousands, so the magnitude is 1,048,000 rather than the 1,048,576 a power-of-two reading would give — the vendor's own figure, not a conversion of it. | 1M tokens on the DeepSeek V4 line and GLM 5.3, published as "1M" rather than an exact figure — so it is recorded at 1,000,000 and may in practice be the 1,048,576 other providers state. Qwen3.8 is listed at 977K. |
| Prompt caching | Supported | Supported |
| H100 SXM, per GPU-hour | $6.50 per hour for a dedicated H100 80GB. Baseten publishes $0.10833 per MINUTE — the hourly figure is that times 60, ours rather than Baseten's, and the page offers an hourly toggle. A100 80GB is $0.06667 a minute and B200 $0.16633. | $3.39 per GPU-hour for an on-demand H100 SXM 80GB, or $1.70 spot. The page names the card the site's GPU comparison is fixed on, so no substitution is involved. |
| Largest GPU offered | 180GB per GPU on a B200, at $0.16633 per minute — $9.98 an hour. | 80GB per GPU on an H100 SXM, the largest card it lists; below it are an L40S 48GB, RTX 5090 32GB and RTX 4090 24GB. |

## Where they differ

### Pricing model

- Baseten: No platform fee: per-token Model APIs for open models, and dedicated deployments billed per minute of compute with volume discounts. The Pro tier buys priority access to high-demand GPUs rather than a lower rate. ([source](https://www.baseten.co/pricing/))
- Novita AI: Per-token serverless inference with a cache-read rate published beside most models, and GPU instances offered at both on-demand and spot rates — the spot column is roughly half. Two models, Ling 3.0 Flash Fin and Sante, are listed at no charge on both input and output. ([source](https://novita.ai/pricing))

### Input price, top model

- Baseten: $1.40 per million input tokens for GLM-5.3, with cached input at $0.14 and output at $4.40. GLM-5.2 Fast, a speed variant, is $2.10. ([source](https://www.baseten.co/pricing/))
- Novita AI: $2.00 per million input tokens for Qwen3.8 Max, the most expensive model in its catalogue, with cache reads at $0.25 and output at $6.00. ([source](https://novita.ai/pricing))

### Output price, top model

- Baseten: $4.40 per million output tokens for GLM-5.3. ([source](https://www.baseten.co/pricing/))
- Novita AI: $6.00 per million output tokens for Qwen3.8 Max. ([source](https://novita.ai/pricing))

### Input price, cheapest model

- Baseten: $0.10 per million input tokens for GPT OSS 120B, with output at $0.50. GLM-5.3-Flash is $0.15 in and $0.50 out. ([source](https://www.baseten.co/pricing/))
- Novita AI: $0.075 per million input tokens for GLM 5.3 Flash at short context, rising to $0.15 above the threshold, with cache reads at $0.015 and output at $0.25. Fireworks serves the same model at $0.15. ([source](https://novita.ai/pricing))

### Context window

- Baseten: 1,048K tokens on the DeepSeek V4 line and the GLM 5.2/5.3 family, the widest it serves; 262K on the Kimi K2 models, 200K on GLM 4.7 and 128K on GPT OSS 120B. Baseten's table publishes these in thousands, so the magnitude is 1,048,000 rather than the 1,048,576 a power-of-two reading would give — the vendor's own figure, not a conversion of it. ([source](https://docs.baseten.co/inference/model-apis/overview))
- Novita AI: 1M tokens on the DeepSeek V4 line and GLM 5.3, published as "1M" rather than an exact figure — so it is recorded at 1,000,000 and may in practice be the 1,048,576 other providers state. Qwen3.8 is listed at 977K. ([source](https://novita.ai/pricing))

### H100 SXM, per GPU-hour

- Baseten: $6.50 per hour for a dedicated H100 80GB. Baseten publishes $0.10833 per MINUTE — the hourly figure is that times 60, ours rather than Baseten's, and the page offers an hourly toggle. A100 80GB is $0.06667 a minute and B200 $0.16633. ([source](https://www.baseten.co/pricing/))
- Novita AI: $3.39 per GPU-hour for an on-demand H100 SXM 80GB, or $1.70 spot. The page names the card the site's GPU comparison is fixed on, so no substitution is involved. ([source](https://novita.ai/gpus))

### Largest GPU offered

- Baseten: 180GB per GPU on a B200, at $0.16633 per minute — $9.98 an hour. ([source](https://www.baseten.co/pricing/))
- Novita AI: 80GB per GPU on an H100 SXM, the largest card it lists; below it are an L40S 48GB, RTX 5090 32GB and RTX 4090 24GB. ([source](https://novita.ai/gpus))

## Which should you choose?

Pick Baseten if Teams that want per-token APIs and dedicated GPUs from one vendor with no plan fee — minute-granularity billing means a model that runs for ten minutes costs ten minutes.

Pick Novita AI if Breadth — 200+ models under one API with a cache-read rate published next to most of them, and an H100 SXM at $3.39 an hour if the same vendor should run the dedicated side too.

Consider something else: Baseten — Its dedicated H100 works out at $6.50 an hour, roughly three times DeepInfra's, so steady GPU workloads pay a premium for the platform around them.

Consider something else: Novita AI — It is rarely the cheapest for any given model: DeepInfra serves DeepSeek-V4-Flash-0731 at $0.06 against Novita's $0.44, and its H100 is $2.20 against Novita's $3.39 on demand.

## Documented by only one

- Entry paid plan: Baseten: $0 per month on the Basic plan — pay as you go, with dedicated deployments, model APIs and training included rather than gated behind a fee.
- Max output tokens: Baseten: 262K tokens on most models, and it is a separate ceiling from the context window rather than the remainder of it: DeepSeek V4 Flash 0731 allows 384K output inside a 1,048K window, while GLM 4.7, Nemotron Ultra and GPT OSS 120B cap output at their full context. The Inkling models are the outlier at 32K.
- Rate limits: Baseten: Two limits, requests and tokens per minute, set by account status rather than spend: an unverified Basic account gets 15 RPM and 100,000 TPM, a verified Basic or Pro account 120 RPM and 500,000 TPM, Enterprise custom. Cached input counts toward TPM at full weight even though it is billed cheaper.

## Questions this comparison answers

**Should I choose Baseten or Novita AI?**

Pick Baseten if Teams that want per-token APIs and dedicated GPUs from one vendor with no plan fee — minute-granularity billing means a model that runs for ten minutes costs ten minutes.
Pick Novita AI if Breadth — 200+ models under one API with a cache-read rate published next to most of them, and an H100 SXM at $3.39 an hour if the same vendor should run the dedicated side too.