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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.

Updated 12 criteria comparedSources last checked

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.

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

Visit Baseten documentationVisit 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.

CriterionBasetenOpenAI
Pricing
Pricing modelNo 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.
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, rising to $20 above the short-context threshold. gpt-5.6-sol is $4 and gpt-5.6-terra $2.
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, $75 at long 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.
$0.20 per million input tokens for gpt-5.6-luna at short context, with output at $1.20.
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, of which at most 922,000 may be input.
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 cachingSupportedSupported

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

  • 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

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, rising to $20 above the short-context threshold. gpt-5.6-sol is $4 and gpt-5.6-terra $2.
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

  • Pricing — OpenAI API docs ↗

    “| gpt-6-astra | $10.00 | $1.00 | $12.50 | $50.00 | $20.00 | $2.00 | $25.00 | $75.00 | [...] | gpt-5.6-sol | $4.00 [...] | gpt-5.6-terra | $2.00”

    Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing

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, $75 at long context.
Sources (2) →

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
$0.20 per million input tokens for gpt-5.6-luna at short context, with output at $1.20.
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

  • Pricing — OpenAI API docs ↗

    “| gpt-5.6-luna | $0.20 | $0.02 | $0.25 | $1.20 | $0.40 | $0.04 | $0.50 | $1.80 |”

    Read 2026-09-06 · official 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.

OpenAI

1,050,000 tokens on gpt-6-astra, of which at most 922,000 may be input.

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

  • gpt-6-astra — OpenAI API docs ↗

    “- 1,050,000 context window - Maximum input tokens: 922,000”

    Read 2026-09-06 · official docs

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

  • gpt-6-astra — OpenAI API docs ↗

    “- 128,000 max output tokens”

    Read 2026-09-06 · official docs

When these numbers change, hear about it. Sources are re-checked monthly; a repricing goes out as a short note.

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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.

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.
Batch discountOpenAI: 50% off input and output through the Batch API: gpt-6-astra falls from $10/$50 to $5/$25 at short context.
Rate limitsBaseten: 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.
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.
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.

Related comparisons

Anthropic vs OpenAIBaseten vs AnthropicBaseten vs DeepSeekBaseten vs Fireworks AIBaseten vs Google Gemini APIBaseten vs Novita AIDeepInfra vs BasetenDeepInfra vs OpenAI

Every page here is sourced and dated.