OpenAI API vs Together AI: pricing, quotas & features (2025)
Frontier models: GPT-5, o-series reasoning, image, audio, embeddings
vs. Open-source LLM infra — inference + fine-tuning + dedicated GPUs + image/video/audio
Data sourced from vendor documentation · Last updated May 2026
Summary
OpenAI API and Together AI 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. Together AI has a broader documented feature set (14 vs 12 features). The right choice depends on your existing stack, team experience, and feature requirements. All pricing and quota data below is sourced from OpenAI API and Together AI's official documentation — not generated by AI or estimated.
OpenAI API vs Together AI: Comparativa de precios, cuotas y características (2025)
En esta comparativa analizamos OpenAI API y Together AI 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.
OpenAI API es una plataforma de 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 en Staxly documenta 12 características y 7 interfazes para desarrolladores.
Together AI pertenece a la categoría ai-api — Open-source LLM infra — inference + fine-tuning + dedicated GPUs + image/video/audio. Ofrece 5 tiers de precio: Pay-as-you-go gratuito, Dedicated Endpoints gratuito, Batch API (50% off) gratuito, Reserved GPU Clusters gratuito. Su catálogo documenta 14 características y 6 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
OpenAI API
Together AI
Free-tier quotas head-to-head
Comparing free-tier on OpenAI API vs payg on Together AI.
| Metric | OpenAI API | Together AI |
|---|---|---|
| No overlapping quota metrics for these tiers. | ||
Features
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.
Together AI · 14 features
- Audio (ASR + TTS) — Whisper Large v3 + Cartesia Sonic-3.
- Batch API — 50% discount for async processing.
- Code Interpreter — LLM with integrated code execution.
- Code Sandbox — Secure Python execution environment.
- Dedicated Endpoints — Single-tenant GPU endpoints for consistent latency.
- Embeddings — BGE + nomic + mxbai embedding models.
- Fine-Tuning — LoRA + full fine-tune + DPO on Llama, Qwen, Mistral.
- Image Generation — FLUX.2, SD3, Ideogram, etc.
- OpenAI-Compat API — Drop-in OpenAI SDK replacement.
- Private Deploy — Dedicated tenant + VPC.
- Reranker — Rerank model for RAG retrieval refinement.
- Reserved Clusters — Discounted GPU clusters for committed use.
- Serverless Inference — 200+ open models. OpenAI-compatible API.
- Video Generation — Veo 3.0, Kling 2.1, Vidu 2.0.
Developer interfaces
| Kind | OpenAI API | Together AI |
|---|---|---|
| CLI | — | Together CLI |
| SDK | openai-dotnet, openai-go, openai-node, openai-python | together-js, together-python |
| REST | OpenAI REST API | Code Sandbox / Interpreter, Dedicated Endpoints, Together REST API (OpenAI-compat) |
| MCP | OpenAI MCP | — |
| OTHER | Realtime API (WebSocket) | — |
Key takeaways
- Both OpenAI API and Together AI offer a free tier — OpenAI API ("Free Tier (Trial)") and Together AI ("Pay-as-you-go") — with no credit card required to start.
- Together AI has a broader documented feature set (14 features) vs. OpenAI API (12 features) in Staxly's catalog.
- Developer integrations differ: only OpenAI API offers MCP/OTHER; only Together AI offers CLI.
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