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Groq vs OpenAI API: pricing, quotas & features (2025)

Fastest LLM inference — LPU-powered (300-1000+ tokens/sec)
vs. Frontier models: GPT-5, o-series reasoning, image, audio, embeddings

Data sourced from vendor documentation · Last updated May 2026

Groq website ↗OpenAI Platform ↗

Summary

Groq and OpenAI API are both ai-api platforms, addressing the same core use case with different implementation philosophies and trade-offs. Both offer a free tier, making it easy to prototype without a credit card. OpenAI API has a broader documented feature set (12 vs 7 features). The right choice depends on your existing stack, team experience, and feature requirements. All pricing and quota data below is sourced from Groq and OpenAI API's official documentation — not generated by AI or estimated.

Groq vs OpenAI API: Comparativa de precios, cuotas y características (2025)

En esta comparativa analizamos Groq y OpenAI API lado a lado — incluyendo precios mensuales, límites del tier gratuito, características técnicas, cuotas de uso (almacenamiento, transferencia, usuarios activos mensuales) y los interfaces de desarrollo disponibles. Todos los datos proceden de la documentación oficial de cada proveedor, no de respuestas generadas por IA.

Groq es una plataforma de la categoría ai-api — Fastest LLM inference — LPU-powered (300-1000+ tokens/sec). Ofrece 4 tiers de precio: Free Tier gratuito, On-Demand (paid) gratuito, Developer Tier gratuito, Enterprise (personalizado). Su catálogo en Staxly documenta 7 características y 3 interfazes para desarrolladores.

OpenAI API pertenece a la categoría ai-api — Frontier models: GPT-5, o-series reasoning, image, audio, embeddings. Ofrece 4 tiers de precio: Free Tier (Trial) gratuito, Pay-as-you-go gratuito, Usage Tiers (1-5) gratuito, Enterprise (personalizado). Su catálogo documenta 12 características y 7 interfazes para desarrolladores.

A continuación encontrarás los tiers de precio completos de ambas plataformas, una matriz de cuotas del tier gratuito (transferencia, almacenamiento, MAU, llamadas a la API y otros límites), el listado completo de características y los interfaces (CLI, SDKs, REST, GraphQL, MCP) disponibles para integrar cada servicio.

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Pricing tiers

Groq

Free Tier
Generous free RPM / TPM by model. Great for dev + small apps.
Free
On-Demand (paid)
Pay-as-you-go per token. OpenAI-compatible API, no infrastructure to manage.
$0 base (usage-based)
Developer Tier
Higher rate limits for production apps.
$0 base (usage-based)
Enterprise
Custom. Dedicated capacity, SLA, on-prem option.
Custom
Groq website ↗

OpenAI API

Free Tier (Trial)
$5 free credit for new accounts. Rate-limited.
Free
Pay-as-you-go
No monthly min. Per-token pricing by model.
$0 base (usage-based)
Usage Tiers (1-5)
Automatic tier promotion based on cumulative spend. Higher tiers = higher rate limits + new model access.
$0 base (usage-based)
Enterprise
Custom. Priority access, SLA, dedicated capacity.
Custom
OpenAI Platform ↗

Free-tier quotas head-to-head

Comparing free-tier on Groq vs free-tier on OpenAI API.

MetricGroqOpenAI API
No overlapping quota metrics for these tiers.

Features

Groq · 7 features

  • Audio Transcription — Whisper endpoint.
  • Batch API — 50% discount.
  • Chat Completions (OpenAI-compat) — Standard /v1/chat/completions endpoint.
  • Function Calling
  • JSON Mode — Enforce JSON output format.
  • Prompt Caching — 50% discount on cached input.
  • Streaming — SSE streaming for chat.

OpenAI API · 12 features

  • Assistants API — Stateful assistants with tools, threads, file search.
  • Batch API — 50% discount for async processing within 24h.
  • Chat Completions API — Classic /v1/chat/completions endpoint.
  • Files API — Upload docs for retrieval, fine-tuning, batch.
  • Fine-Tuning — Supervised + DPO fine-tuning for GPT-4o, GPT-4.1, GPT-4o-mini.
  • Function Calling — JSON-schema tool calling; parallel calls supported.
  • Moderation — Safety classifier API (free).
  • Prompt Caching — Auto-cache repeated prefixes; 50% cheaper cached hits.
  • Realtime API — WebSocket streaming voice + text with low latency.
  • Responses API — Stateful conversational API.
  • Structured Outputs — Enforced JSON schema compliance.
  • Vision — Image input for GPT models.

Developer interfaces

KindGroqOpenAI API
SDKgroq-python, groq-sdk (Node)openai-dotnet, openai-go, openai-node, openai-python
RESTGroq API (OpenAI-compat)OpenAI REST API
MCP—OpenAI MCP
OTHER—Realtime API (WebSocket)

Key takeaways

  • Both Groq and OpenAI API offer a free tier — Groq ("Free Tier") and OpenAI API ("Free Tier (Trial)") — with no credit card required to start.
  • OpenAI API has a broader documented feature set (12 features) vs. Groq (7 features) in Staxly's catalog.
  • Developer integrations differ: only OpenAI API offers MCP/OTHER.
Staxly is an independent catalog of developer platforms. Some links to Groq and OpenAI API may be affiliate links — Staxly may earn a commission if you sign up through them, at no extra cost to you. Pricing is verified against vendor pages at publication time — reconfirm before buying.

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