Baseten vs OpenAI

SEPT 2026 audit

A comparison of Baseten and OpenAI built from values read directly from each provider's own documentation, with the source recorded against every figure.

Reviewed by Palash BagchiUpdated September 202627 criteria comparedSources last checked 3 October 2026

This comparison is not published yet.

It does not meet the quality gate, so the page is marked noindex until the missing data is sourced.

— Baseten's minimum_paid_price was verified 56 days ago; the limit for this fact is 30.
— Baseten's pricing_model was verified 56 days ago; the limit for this fact is 30.
— Baseten's flagship_input_price was verified 56 days ago; the limit for this fact is 30.
— Baseten's flagship_output_price was verified 56 days ago; the limit for this fact is 30.
— Baseten's budget_input_price was verified 56 days ago; the limit for this fact is 30.
— Baseten's prompt_caching was verified 56 days ago; the limit for this fact is 30.
— Baseten's gpu_hourly_price was verified 56 days ago; the limit for this fact is 30.
— Baseten's max_vram was verified 56 days ago; the limit for this fact is 30.
— Baseten's rate_limits was verified 55 days ago; the limit for this fact is 30.
— Baseten's context_window was verified 54 days ago; the limit for this fact is 30.
— Baseten's max_output_tokens was verified 54 days ago; the limit for this fact is 30.
— Baseten's free_tier was verified 49 days ago; the limit for this fact is 30.
— Baseten's regions was verified 49 days ago; the limit for this fact is 30.
— Baseten's free_offer_type was verified 49 days ago; the limit for this fact is 30.
— Baseten's soc2 was verified 49 days ago; the limit for this fact is 30.
— Baseten's iso27001 was verified 49 days ago; the limit for this fact is 30.
— Baseten's hipaa_eligible was verified 49 days ago; the limit for this fact is 30.
— Baseten's gdpr_data_residency was verified 49 days ago; the limit for this fact is 30.
— Baseten's pci_dss was verified 49 days ago; the limit for this fact is 30.
— Baseten's encryption_at_rest was verified 49 days ago; the limit for this fact is 30.
— Baseten's customer_managed_keys was verified 49 days ago; the limit for this fact is 30.
— Baseten's rbac was verified 49 days ago; the limit for this fact is 30.
— Baseten's private_networking was verified 49 days ago; the limit for this fact is 30.
— Baseten's dedicated_infrastructure was verified 49 days ago; the limit for this fact is 30.
— Baseten's uptime_sla was verified 48 days ago; the limit for this fact is 30.
— Baseten's support_included was verified 48 days ago; the limit for this fact is 30.
— OpenAI's pricing_model was verified 56 days ago; the limit for this fact is 30.
— OpenAI's regions was verified 49 days ago; the limit for this fact is 30.
— OpenAI's rate_limits was verified 49 days ago; the limit for this fact is 30.
— OpenAI's soc2 was verified 49 days ago; the limit for this fact is 30.
— OpenAI's iso27001 was verified 49 days ago; the limit for this fact is 30.
— OpenAI's hipaa_eligible was verified 49 days ago; the limit for this fact is 30.
— OpenAI's gdpr_data_residency was verified 49 days ago; the limit for this fact is 30.
— OpenAI's pci_dss was verified 49 days ago; the limit for this fact is 30.
— OpenAI's encryption_at_rest was verified 49 days ago; the limit for this fact is 30.
— OpenAI's customer_managed_keys was verified 49 days ago; the limit for this fact is 30.
— OpenAI's rbac was verified 49 days ago; the limit for this fact is 30.
— OpenAI's private_networking was verified 49 days ago; the limit for this fact is 30.
— OpenAI's dedicated_infrastructure was verified 49 days ago; the limit for this fact is 30.
— OpenAI's flagship_input_price was verified 48 days ago; the limit for this fact is 30.
— OpenAI's flagship_output_price was verified 48 days ago; the limit for this fact is 30.
— OpenAI's context_window was verified 48 days ago; the limit for this fact is 30.
— OpenAI's max_output_tokens was verified 48 days ago; the limit for this fact is 30.
— OpenAI's prompt_caching was verified 48 days ago; the limit for this fact is 30.
— OpenAI's batch_discount was verified 48 days ago; the limit for this fact is 30.
— OpenAI's budget_input_price was verified 37 days ago; the limit for this fact is 30.

The short answer

Choose 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.

Editorial · Palash Bagchi · approved

Choose OpenAI if…

Work that fits inside the short-context rate, where the cheapest tier is $0.20 per million input tokens and the batch tier halves everything above it.

Editorial · Palash Bagchi · approved

Consider something else if…

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.
OpenAI: Long prompts cross into the long-context rate and roughly double the bill, which is a cliff the flat-rate vendors do not have.

18 sourced criteria separate them — see where, with sources, below.

Visit Baseten documentation Visit OpenAI documentation

No affiliate links, sponsored placements or paid rankings appear on this site. Ordering follows the sourced data and the stated criteria.

01.

At a glance.

Criterion	Baseten	OpenAI
Pricing
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 million tokens, with a second rate above the short-context threshold — long-context input and output cost roughly double. Batch, Flex, Fast and standard tiers are priced separately, and regional processing adds a 10% uplift on models released from March 2026.
Infrastructure
Regions	Two Baseten regions selectable for regional deployments: us (United States) and eu (European Union); other regions by request to support. GPU model deployments only; Chains, training jobs and shared CPU types cannot select a region.	Ten data-residency regions: US, Europe (EEA + Switzerland), Australia, Canada, Japan, India, Singapore, South Korea, United Kingdom, United Arab Emirates. Regional processing (inference) only in US, EU and UAE; the rest are storage-only.
Inference
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.	$10 per million input tokens for gpt-6-astra at short context.
Output price, top model	$4.40 per million output tokens for GLM-5.3.	$50 per million output tokens for gpt-6-astra at short context.
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.	$0.10 per million input tokens for gpt-6-luna at short context.
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.	1,050,000 tokens on gpt-6-astra.
Max output tokens	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.	128,000 tokens on gpt-6-astra.
Prompt caching	Supported	Supported — Cached input is a tenth of the input rate; cache writes are priced above it.
Rate limits	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.	Org- and project-level limits in RPM, RPD, TPM, TPD and IPM that vary by model; usage tiers graduate automatically as API spend rises.
Compliance
SOC 2	Maintains SOC 2 Type II certification for the inference platform; policies and certifications are held in the Baseten Trust Center.	SOC 2 Type 2 report by an independent third-party auditor covering security, confidentiality, privacy and availability; access requested in the Trust Portal.
ISO 27001	ISO 27001:2022 listed as a compliance program; an ISO 27001 certificate for Baseten Labs, Inc. is published in the Trust Center for request. Certificate is request-access in the Trust Center, not a public download.	ISO/IEC 27001:2022 certified, alongside 27017, 27018 and 27701; the certificate scope names the API, ChatGPT Enterprise and ChatGPT Edu.
HIPAA	Maintains HIPAA compliance alongside SOC 2 Type II for model inference on the Baseten platform.	BAA-eligible endpoints can process PHI once a Business Associate and Healthcare Addendum is executed; live Web Search is not HIPAA eligible.
GDPR / data residency	Baseten Cloud supports a GDPR compliance program; residency is set with regional environments or a region on a single deployment.	Per-project data residency stores customer content at rest in a chosen region; non-US regions need abuse-monitoring approval and a Modified Retention amendment.
PCI DSS	PCI DSS - SAQ D listed as a compliance program; a PCI-DSS v4.0.1 AOC for SAQ D Service Provider is published in the Trust Center for request. SAQ D self-assessment AOC, not a QSA Report on Compliance.	PCI DSS v4.0.1: compliance maintained for the components of ChatGPT that support delegated payment processing. Stated for ChatGPT delegated payment processing; the API platform is not named in the PCI scope.
Encryption at rest	Trust Center control: datastores housing sensitive customer data are encrypted at rest, and transmission over public networks is encrypted.	Data protection controls include encryption of your data in transit and at rest, per the applicable ChatGPT Enterprise or API organization settings. Stated in OpenAI's Codex HIPAA configuration guide; no separate API-docs statement.
Customer-managed keys	Runtime OIDC BYOK recipes: a model fetches customer-managed keys at runtime to decrypt encrypted weights and to decrypt requests and encrypt responses. Documented under runtime OIDC use cases, implemented in model code via the truss-examples envelope-encryption recipes.	Enterprise Key Management encrypts customer content with your own KMS keys; BYOK via AWS KMS, Google Cloud or Azure Key Vault.
Role-based access control	Role-based access control with three organization roles - Admin, Member and Viewer - in a single-team organization.	Role-based access control with preset and custom roles, groups syncable from an identity provider via SCIM, scoped at organization or project level.
Private networking / VPC	Single-tenant Enterprise environments expose endpoints via AWS PrivateLink or Google Cloud Private Service Connect, off the public internet.	Azure Private Link to regional OpenAI API endpoints; not self-service, and incompatible with IP allowlist controls or mutual TLS.
Dedicated infrastructure	Single-tenant runs workloads in an isolated VPC in Baseten Cloud with compute restricted to your organization; Enterprise, custom pricing.	Scale Tier offers more predictable capacity on eligible models for enterprise pay-as-you-go traffic; Reserved Tier covers GPT-5.6 and later models.

Only criteria both providers publish appear here; a tinted cell marks a real difference. Criteria only one of them documents are listed below, and an absence there means we found no source — not that the feature is missing. How we source this.

The small bar above a value is inetGeek's own lean toward that side — computed from the same facts shown, never a number the provider published. See the picker below "The short answer" to weigh only the criteria you care about.

02.

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.
OpenAI: Per million tokens, with a second rate above the short-context threshold — long-context input and output cost roughly double. Batch, Flex, Fast and standard tiers are priced separately, and regional processing adds a 10% uplift on models released from March 2026.

Sources (2) →

Pricing — Baseten ↗
“$0 per month, pay as you go [...] Only pay for the compute you use, down to the minute. Volume discounts available [...] Pro Unlimited autoscaling and priority compute access [...] Priority access to high-demand GPUs”
Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing · Report a correction
Pricing — OpenAI API docs ↗
“Prices per 1M tokens. [...] Regional processing (data residency) endpoints are charged a 10% uplift for models released on or after March 5, 2026 [...] Priority processing was renamed Fast mode on July 30, 2026.”
Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing · Report a correction

Regions

Baseten

Two Baseten regions selectable for regional deployments: us (United States) and eu (European Union); other regions by request to support. GPU model deployments only; Chains, training jobs and shared CPU types cannot select a region.

OpenAI

Ten data-residency regions: US, Europe (EEA + Switzerland), Australia, Canada, Japan, India, Singapore, South Korea, United Kingdom, United Arab Emirates. Regional processing (inference) only in US, EU and UAE; the rest are storage-only.

Sources (2) →

Regional deployments - Baseten ↗
“The following regions are available for regional deployments. [...] us United States eu European Union”
Read 2026-09-13 · official docs · Report a correction
Data controls in the OpenAI platform - OpenAI API docs ↗
“United States us.api.openai.com [...] Europe (EEA + Switzerland) eu.api.openai.com [...] United Arab Emirates ae.api.openai.com”
Read 2026-09-13 · official docs · Report a correction

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.
OpenAI: $10 per million input tokens for gpt-6-astra at short context.

Sources (2) →

Pricing — Baseten ↗
“GLM-5.3 GLM-5.3 $1.40 $1.40 $0.14 $0.14 $4.40 [...] GLM-5.2 Fast GLM-5.2 Fast $2.10 $2.10 $0.21”
Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing · Report a correction
Pricing — OpenAI Platform ↗
“Short context Long context Model Input Cached input Cache writes Output Input Cached input Cache writes Output gpt-6-astra $10.00 $1.00 $12.50 $50.00 $20.00 $2.00 $25.00 $75.00”
Read 2026-09-14 · official pricing · Report a correction

Output price, top model

Baseten: $4.40 per million output tokens for GLM-5.3.
OpenAI: $50 per million output tokens for gpt-6-astra at short context.

Sources (2) →

Pricing — Baseten ↗
“GLM-5.3 GLM-5.3 $1.40 $1.40 $0.14 $0.14 $4.40”
Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing · Report a correction
Pricing — OpenAI Platform ↗
“Short context Long context Model Input Cached input Cache writes Output Input Cached input Cache writes Output gpt-6-astra $10.00 $1.00 $12.50 $50.00 $20.00 $2.00 $25.00 $75.00”
Read 2026-09-14 · official pricing · Report a correction

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.
OpenAI: $0.10 per million input tokens for gpt-6-luna at short context.

Sources (2) →

Pricing — Baseten ↗
“GPT OSS 120B GPT OSS 120B $0.10 $0.10 - - $0.50 [...] GLM-5.3-Flash GLM-5.3-Flash $0.15 $0.15 $0.03 $0.03 $0.50”
Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing · Report a correction
Pricing — OpenAI Platform ↗
“gpt-6-luna $0.10 $0.01 $0.125 $0.50”
Read 2026-09-25 · official pricing · Report a correction

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.

OpenAI

1,050,000 tokens on gpt-6-astra.

Sources (2) →

Model APIs overview — Baseten Docs ↗
“SupportedModelsTable [...] model: "DeepSeek V4 Pro", context: 1048, maxOutput: 262 [...] model: "GLM 5.3", context: 1048, maxOutput: 262 [...] model: "GLM 4.7", context: 200, maxOutput: 200 [...] model: "OpenAI GPT 120B", context: 128, maxOutput: 128”
Read 2026-09-08 · official docs · Report a correction
GPT-6 Astra — OpenAI Platform ↗
“1,050,000 context window 128,000 max output tokens Apr 30, 2026 knowledge cutoff Reasoning token support”
Read 2026-09-14 · official docs · Report a correction

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.

OpenAI

128,000 tokens on gpt-6-astra.

Sources (2) →

Model APIs overview — Baseten Docs ↗
“SupportedModelsTable [...] model: "DeepSeek V4 Pro", context: 1048, maxOutput: 262 [...] model: "GLM 5.3", context: 1048, maxOutput: 262 [...] model: "GLM 4.7", context: 200, maxOutput: 200 [...] model: "OpenAI GPT 120B", context: 128, maxOutput: 128”
Read 2026-09-08 · official docs · Report a correction
GPT-6 Astra — OpenAI Platform ↗
“1,050,000 context window 128,000 max output tokens Apr 30, 2026 knowledge cutoff Reasoning token support”
Read 2026-09-14 · official docs · Report a correction

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.
OpenAI: Org- and project-level limits in RPM, RPD, TPM, TPD and IPM that vary by model; usage tiers graduate automatically as API spend rises.

Sources (2) →

Pricing and limits — Baseten Docs ↗
“Basic (unverified) | 15 | 100,000 | Basic (verified) | 120 | 500,000 | Pro | 120 | 500,000 [...] Cached and uncached input tokens count equally toward this limit, even though cached tokens cost less.”
Read 2026-09-07 · official docs · Report a correction
Rate limits - OpenAI API docs ↗
“Rate limits use metrics such as RPM (requests per minute), RPD (requests per day), TPM (tokens per minute), TPD (tokens per day), IPM (images per minute) [...] Rate limits are defined at the organization level and at the project level, not user level. [...] As your spend on our API goes up, we automatically graduate you to the next usage tier. This usually results in an increase in rate limits across most models.”
Read 2026-09-13 · official docs · Report a correction

SOC 2

Baseten: Maintains SOC 2 Type II certification for the inference platform; policies and certifications are held in the Baseten Trust Center.
OpenAI: SOC 2 Type 2 report by an independent third-party auditor covering security, confidentiality, privacy and availability; access requested in the Trust Portal.

Sources (2) →

Secure model inference - Baseten ↗
“Baseten maintains SOC 2 Type II certification and HIPAA compliance.”
Read 2026-09-13 · official docs · Report a correction
OpenAI Trust Portal ↗
“Our products are covered in our SOC 2 Type 2 report and have been evaluated by an independent third-party auditor to confirm that our controls align with industry standards for security, confidentiality, privacy and availability.”
Read 2026-09-13 · official site · Report a correction

ISO 27001

Baseten: ISO 27001:2022 listed as a compliance program; an ISO 27001 certificate for Baseten Labs, Inc. is published in the Trust Center for request. Certificate is request-access in the Trust Center, not a public download.
OpenAI: ISO/IEC 27001:2022 certified, alongside 27017, 27018 and 27701; the certificate scope names the API, ChatGPT Enterprise and ChatGPT Edu.

Sources (2) →

Baseten Trust Center ↗
“Compliance SOC 2 ISO 27001:2022 HIPAA [...] Baseten Labs, Inc. ISO 27001 Certificate.pdf”
Read 2026-09-13 · official site · Report a correction
OpenAI Trust Portal ↗
“Our products are also ISO 27001, 27017, 27018, and 27701 certified. [...] for OpenAI's API, ChatGPT Enterprise, and ChatGPT Edu services.”
Read 2026-09-13 · official site · Report a correction

HIPAA

Baseten: Maintains HIPAA compliance alongside SOC 2 Type II for model inference on the Baseten platform.
OpenAI: BAA-eligible endpoints can process PHI once a Business Associate and Healthcare Addendum is executed; live Web Search is not HIPAA eligible.

Sources (2) →

Secure model inference - Baseten ↗
“Baseten maintains SOC 2 Type II certification and HIPAA compliance.”
Read 2026-09-13 · official docs · Report a correction
Data controls in the OpenAI platform - OpenAI API docs ↗
“For customers who have executed an OpenAI Business Associate and Healthcare Addendum, once your org ID is provisioned with Eyes Off, BAA-eligible endpoints can be used for processing PHI [...] Web Search with live internet access is not HIPAA eligible and is not covered by a BAA.”
Read 2026-09-13 · official docs · Report a correction

GDPR / data residency

Baseten: Baseten Cloud supports a GDPR compliance program; residency is set with regional environments or a region on a single deployment.
OpenAI: Per-project data residency stores customer content at rest in a chosen region; non-US regions need abuse-monitoring approval and a Modified Retention amendment.

Sources (2) →

Baseten Cloud - Baseten ↗
“Baseten Cloud supports SOC 2 Type II, HIPAA, and GDPR compliance programs. [...] to constrain workloads and inference traffic to specific regions”
Read 2026-09-13 · official docs · Report a correction
Data controls in the OpenAI platform - OpenAI API docs ↗
“Data residency controls are a project configuration option that allow you to configure the location of infrastructure OpenAI uses to provide services. [...] To use data residency with any region other than the United States, you must be approved for abuse monitoring controls, and execute a Modified Retention amendment.”
Read 2026-09-13 · official docs · Report a correction

PCI DSS

Baseten: PCI DSS - SAQ D listed as a compliance program; a PCI-DSS v4.0.1 AOC for SAQ D Service Provider is published in the Trust Center for request. SAQ D self-assessment AOC, not a QSA Report on Compliance.
OpenAI: PCI DSS v4.0.1: compliance maintained for the components of ChatGPT that support delegated payment processing. Stated for ChatGPT delegated payment processing; the API platform is not named in the PCI scope.

Sources (2) →

Baseten Trust Center ↗
“GDPR PCI DSS - SAQ D [...] PCI-DSS-v4-0-1-AOC-for-SAQ-D-Service-Provider-r1.pdf”
Read 2026-09-13 · official site · Report a correction
OpenAI Trust Portal ↗
“OpenAI now maintains PCI-DSS compliance for the components of ChatGPT that support delegated payment processing, ensuring secure handling of payment information for supported merchant transactions.”
Read 2026-09-13 · official site · Report a correction

Encryption at rest

Baseten: Trust Center control: datastores housing sensitive customer data are encrypted at rest, and transmission over public networks is encrypted.
OpenAI: Data protection controls include encryption of your data in transit and at rest, per the applicable ChatGPT Enterprise or API organization settings. Stated in OpenAI's Codex HIPAA configuration guide; no separate API-docs statement.

Sources (2) →

Baseten Trust Center - Controls ↗
“The company's datastores housing sensitive customer data are encrypted at rest. [...] The company uses secure data transmission protocols to encrypt confidential and sensitive data when transmitted over public networks.”
Read 2026-09-13 · official site · Report a correction
HIPAA configuration guide for Codex - OpenAI Developers ↗
“Data protection controls include encryption of your data in transit and at rest, identity and access controls, role-based administration, logging, and retention controls”
Read 2026-09-13 · official docs · Report a correction

Customer-managed keys

Baseten: Runtime OIDC BYOK recipes: a model fetches customer-managed keys at runtime to decrypt encrypted weights and to decrypt requests and encrypt responses. Documented under runtime OIDC use cases, implemented in model code via the truss-examples envelope-encryption recipes.
OpenAI: Enterprise Key Management encrypts customer content with your own KMS keys; BYOK via AWS KMS, Google Cloud or Azure Key Vault.

Sources (2) →

OpenID Connect (OIDC) authentication - Baseten ↗
“Keep model weights encrypted in object storage and use runtime OIDC to retrieve the key material needed to decrypt them when the model starts. [...] Use runtime OIDC to retrieve customer-managed keys, then decrypt requests and encrypt responses during inference.”
Read 2026-09-13 · official docs · Report a correction
Data controls in the OpenAI platform - OpenAI API docs ↗
“Enterprise Key Management (EKM) allows you to encrypt your customer content at OpenAI using keys managed by your own external Key Management System (KMS). [...] OpenAI supports Bring Your Own Key (BYOK) encryption with external accounts in AWS KMS, Google Cloud (GCP), and Azure Key Vault.”
Read 2026-09-13 · official docs · Report a correction

Role-based access control

Baseten: Role-based access control with three organization roles - Admin, Member and Viewer - in a single-team organization.
OpenAI: Role-based access control with preset and custom roles, groups syncable from an identity provider via SCIM, scoped at organization or project level.

Sources (2) →

Access control - Baseten ↗
“Baseten uses role-based access control (RBAC) to manage organization access. [...] In organizations that use a single team, every organization member has one of three roles.”
Read 2026-09-13 · official docs · Report a correction
Role-based access control (RBAC) - OpenAI API docs ↗
“Role-based access control (RBAC) lets you decide who can do what across your organization and projects [...] Create custom roles with the exact permissions you need [...] Groups : Collections of users you can assign roles to. Groups can be synced from your identity provider (via SCIM)”
Read 2026-09-13 · official docs · Report a correction

Private networking / VPC

Baseten: Single-tenant Enterprise environments expose endpoints via AWS PrivateLink or Google Cloud Private Service Connect, off the public internet.
OpenAI: Azure Private Link to regional OpenAI API endpoints; not self-service, and incompatible with IP allowlist controls or mutual TLS.

Sources (2) →

Single-tenant - Baseten ↗
“Inference requests route directly from your application to your dedicated environment and can remain off the public internet. [...] such as AWS PrivateLink or Google Cloud Private Service Connect”
Read 2026-09-13 · official docs · Report a correction
Private Link - OpenAI API docs ↗
“OpenAI Private Link lets Azure workloads reach regional OpenAI API endpoints through Azure Private Link instead of connecting directly to public API endpoints. [...] Private Link is currently not self-service.”
Read 2026-09-13 · official docs · Report a correction

Dedicated infrastructure

Baseten: Single-tenant runs workloads in an isolated VPC in Baseten Cloud with compute restricted to your organization; Enterprise, custom pricing.
OpenAI: Scale Tier offers more predictable capacity on eligible models for enterprise pay-as-you-go traffic; Reserved Tier covers GPT-5.6 and later models.

Sources (2) →

Single-tenant - Baseten ↗
“Single-tenant runs your inference workloads in an isolated VPC in Baseten Cloud. [...] Compute and scheduling are restricted to your organization. [...] Single-tenant is available with custom pricing on the Enterprise plan.”
Read 2026-09-13 · official docs · Report a correction
Rate limits - OpenAI API docs ↗
“Enterprise customers whose pay-as-you-go traffic routinely hits ramp-rate limits can consider Scale Tier for more predictable capacity on eligible models. For GPT-5.6 and later models, see Reserved Tier”
Read 2026-09-13 · official docs · Report a correction

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03.

Documented by only one.

These criteria are published by one provider and not the other. An absence here means we have not found a source, not that the feature is missing — except where we say we read the other provider's own page on a given date and it does not state it. Those rows lean, and the provider can correct them with a link.

Free tierBaseten: No — New workspaces get starting credits for testing; usage beyond them is billed per minute.

Kind of free offerBaseten: Free credit

Entry paid planBaseten: $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.

Uptime SLABaseten: Custom SLAs on Enterprise. No percentage is published on the pricing page.

Batch discountOpenAI: 50% off input and output through the Batch API: gpt-6-astra falls from $10.00/$50.00 to $5.00/$25.00 at short context.

H100 SXM, per GPU-hourBaseten: $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.

Largest GPU offeredBaseten: 180GB per GPU on a B200, at $0.16633 per minute — $9.98 an hour.

Support on entry paid planBaseten: Email and in-app chat support on Basic, which is pay-as-you-go from $0. Pro adds dedicated support on Slack and Zoom.

04.

Questions this comparison answers.

Should I choose Baseten or OpenAI?

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 OpenAI if Work that fits inside the short-context rate, where the cheapest tier is $0.20 per million input tokens and the batch tier halves everything above it.

Provider pages

BasetenModel inference platform with per-token APIs for open models and dedicated deployments billed by the minute.OpenAIHosted inference for the GPT model family, sold per million tokens with separate short- and long-context rates.

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Baseten vs OpenAI

The short answer

Choose Baseten if…

Choose OpenAI if…

Consider something else if…

At a glance.

Where they differ.

Pricing model

Regions

Input price, top model

Output price, top model

Input price, cheapest model

Context window

Max output tokens

Rate limits

SOC 2

ISO 27001

HIPAA

GDPR / data residency

PCI DSS

Encryption at rest

Customer-managed keys

Role-based access control

Private networking / VPC

Dedicated infrastructure

Documented by only one.

Questions this comparison answers.

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