Price checkMonthly
Free TierFreePaid (Pay-As-You-Go)CustomEnterpriseCustom
See all 3 plans

All Vercel AI SDK Plans & Pricing

Plan Monthly Annual Best For
View all features by plan (compare side-by-side)

Free Tier

  • $5/month included AI Gateway Credits
  • Access to hundreds of models (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Mistral, and more)
  • Zero per-token markup
  • Observability and spend monitoring
  • Bring Your Own Key (BYOK) support
  • Automatic retries and managed fallback
  • Load balancing
  • Embedding support

Paid (Pay-As-You-Go)

  • Provider list price with zero markup (including BYOK)
  • No lock-in or monthly commitment
  • Auto top-up when balance falls below threshold
  • Custom Reporting add-on: $0.075/1K writes, $5/1K queries
  • Team-wide Provider Allowlist add-on: $0.10/1K successful requests (Pro/Enterprise)
  • Team-wide Zero Data Retention (ZDR) add-on: $0.10/1K requests (Pro/Enterprise)
  • Per-request ZDR and provider filtering at no extra cost

Enterprise

  • Everything in paid tier
  • SSO and SAML
  • Private VPC connectivity
  • Managed WAF
  • Custom SLAs
  • Dedicated support
  • Multi-region deployment
Try Vercel AI SDK Free
Compare Vercel AI SDK with alternativesAdjust seats, lock a tier, add up to 2 more products side-by-side. Shareable URL.
Quick Answer
Last verified:
Medium confidence

Vercel AI SDK costs Free to $5 per per month (Vercel plan) as of July 2026, with 3 plans available including a free tier. Plan: Free Tier (free). Enterprise pricing is available on request. Pricing depends on your chosen tier, contract length, and negotiated discounts.

Use the interactive pricing calculator to estimate your exact cost based on team size and requirements.

  • Free tier: Yes

Vercel AI SDK offers 3 pricing tiers: Free Tier, Paid (Pay-As-You-Go), Enterprise. The Paid (Pay-As-You-Go) plan is teams and production workloads needing full access to all models at cost.

Compared to other llm api providers software, Vercel AI SDK is positioned at the budget-friendly price point.

  • 16 documented hidden costs beyond list price
  • Contracts auto-renew — Termination of a subscription plan takes effect on the date the plan would otherwise have been renewed; written notice must be provided at least sixty (60) calendar days before the expiration of the then-current subscription term to prevent renewal.
  • G2 rating: 4.5 out of 5 from 46 reviews (as of Jul 2026)
Last verified: | Sources: 1 pricing pages and reviews

How much does Vercel AI SDK cost?

Vercel AI SDK offers 3 pricing plans, starting with a free tier and scaling to custom enterprise pricing. Plans include Free Tier (free), Paid (Pay-As-You-Go) (custom pricing), Enterprise (custom pricing).

Vercel AI SDK Pricing Overview

Vercel AI SDK has 3 pricing plans, including a free tier. Paid plans range from $0 to $5/per month (Vercel plan). The Free Tier plan is free and is best for individual developers and small projects experimenting with llms through a unified gateway. The Paid (Pay-As-You-Go) plan requires contacting sales for a custom quote and is designed for teams and production workloads needing full access to all models at cost. The Enterprise plan requires contacting sales for a custom quote and is designed for enterprises with strict compliance, security, and scale requirements.

Vercel AI SDK contracts auto-renew.

There are at least 16 documented hidden costs beyond Vercel AI SDK's list price, including implementation, training, and add-on fees.

This pricing was last verified in June 9, 2026 from 1 independent source.

Try Vercel AI SDK Free

Vercel AI Gateway is free to start — every Vercel team account receives $5/month in included AI Gateway Credits from the date of first use. There is no fixed monthly fee for the gateway itself; beyond the free credits, usage is pay-as-you-go at the underlying provider's list price with zero markup from Vercel.

The gateway provides a single unified API endpoint to access hundreds of models from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Mistral, xAI, and more. Features included at no extra charge include observability, spend monitoring, automatic retries, load balancing, managed fallback, and Bring Your Own Key (BYOK). Optional add-ons such as Custom Reporting and team-wide Zero Data Retention incur small per-request surcharges.

Vercel AI Gateway is a feature within the broader Vercel platform. The Vercel Pro platform plan costs $20/user/month and unlocks additional gateway capabilities (team-wide Provider Allowlist, team-wide ZDR). Enterprise plans are priced by sales.

How Vercel AI SDK Pricing Compares

Compare Vercel AI SDK pricing against top alternatives in LLM API Providers.

Google Gemini API $0-$18.0/per million tokens Compare → Together AI $0.03-$9.95/per million tokens / hour Compare → Amazon Bedrock $0.07-$75/per million tokens Compare →

Compare Vercel AI SDK vs Alternatives

Before committing to Vercel AI SDK, compare pricing with these 3 alternatives in the same category.

VSGoogle Gemini API
Free

Prototyping and evaluation

Full comparison
VSTogether AI
From $0.03/per million tokens / hour

Variable-volume API usage

Full comparison
VSAmazon Bedrock
From $0.07/per million tokens

AWS-native deployments needing multi-model routing

Full comparison

All Vercel AI SDK alternatives & migration guides

What Companies Actually Pay for Vercel AI SDK

Review scores
G2 4.5out of 5 (46)
Third-party review aggregates, as of Jul 2026
Top pricing complaints
Insufficient documentation and limited featuresComplex implementation and integration issuesCustomer service and supportPlatform functionality issues

How Vercel AI SDK Pricing Compares

Software Starting Price Top Price
Vercel AI SDK Free $5/per month (Vercel plan)
Amazon Bedrock $0.07/per million tokens $75/per million tokens
Anyscale $0.15/per million tokens $5/per million tokens
Baidu ERNIE API $0.1/per million tokens $10/per million tokens
Cerebras Inference API $0.1/per million tokens $6/per million tokens
Claude API $0.03/per million tokens $75/per million tokens

Detailed pricing comparisons:

Browse all LLM API Providers pricing →

16 Vercel AI SDK Hidden Costs Beyond the List Price

Beyond the listed price, Vercel AI SDK has at least 16 documented hidden costs that can significantly increase total cost of ownership.

Watch for 16 hidden costs
  • Token Overhead
    high 1 source
    industry "Token Overhead: Beyond the user's direct query, every API call includes "system instructions, conversation history, RAG documents, and function definitions" as input, all of which consume tokens and contribute to cost."
  • Varying Tokenization Efficiency
    medium 1 source
    industry "Varying Tokenization Efficiency: Different providers and even different content types (text, JSON, YAML, tool definitions) tokenize the same content differently, leading to varied actual costs."
  • Latency, Throughput, and Retries
    high 1 source
    industry "For example, an AI agent might call an LLM 50 times for a single customer interaction, with retries for timeouts or errors adding to the bill."
  • Embeddings, Logging, and Rate-Limit Management 20% to 40%
    high 1 source
    industry "Embeddings, Logging, and Rate-Limit Management: These backend operations, often necessary for robust AI applications, contribute to the 20-40% "hidden costs" on top of raw API fees."
  • API Call Multipliers up to 10 times more
    critical 1 source
    industry "API Call Multipliers: API calls can cost up to 10 times more than regular tokens, and Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) calls, which pull from internal documents, incur extra charges."
  • Usage-based billing spikes
    high 1 source
    industry "This is primarily due to billing by the millisecond for serverless function execution, especially for long-running AI streams (e.g., 30-60 seconds for multi-step agent responses or heavy Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) pipelines)."
  • Data egress fees $0.15 per GB
    medium 1 source
    industry "Data egress fees: Transferring RAG data incurs a charge of approximately $0.15 per GB."
  • Concurrency caps
    high 1 source
    industry "Exceeding these caps can lead to throttled requests or necessitate upgrading to more expensive tiers."
  • Function timeouts
    critical 1 source
    industry "Long-running AI agents or workflows that exceed these limits will fail, potentially requiring re-architecting or migration to more flexible infrastructure."
  • No native GPU support
    high 1 source
    industry "No native GPU support: Vercel does not offer native GPU instances, meaning heavy model inference must run off-platform, adding to infrastructure complexity and costs."
  • Serverless Execution Time hundreds or thousands of dollars
    high 1 source
    industry "This can cause predictable $20/month bills to "spike wildly" into hundreds or thousands of dollars."
  • Token-based Pricing Nuances $1,750 per month for 100,000 calls
    high 1 source
    industry "For instance, a 10,000-token system prompt at $1.75 per million input tokens could cost $0.0175 per call, accumulating to $1,750 per month for 100,000 calls, even before user messages or responses."
  • AI Implementation Overhead 60-70%
    high 1 source
    industry "Beyond Token Costs: A significant portion of AI implementation spending, estimated at 60-70%, goes towards integration, engineering, and governance overhead, with token costs representing only 30-40% of the total."
  • Vercel Infrastructure Costs for AI $0.15/GB
    high 1 source
    industry "Key cost drivers include per-millisecond function duration for long-streaming AI responses, a $0.15/GB egress fee for Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) data transfer, and concurrency caps (around 30,000) that can throttle bursty traffic."
  • Vercel AI Gateway Fallback and Reporting Charges $0.075 per 1,000
    medium 1 source
    industry "If a request with user credentials fails, the AI Gateway may retry it with system credentials, and that fallback usage is charged against the user's Vercel credits."
  • Unexpected Vercel Bills $800
    critical 1 source
    industry "Unexpected Bills: Buyers have reported significant unexpected Vercel bills, with one instance citing an $800 bill for a side project after just two weeks of AI-assisted development."
Tip

Ask your Vercel AI SDK sales rep about these costs upfront. Getting them in writing before signing can save you from surprise charges later.

Full hidden costs breakdown →

Intelligence sourced from 2 independent sources
industry G2 B2B reviews
Key claims include inline source attribution. Data verified against multiple independent sources. 17 source citations total.

Vercel AI SDK Contract Terms

Vercel AI SDK contracts auto-renew. Changes require Termination of a subscription plan takes effect on the date the plan would otherwise have been renewed; written notice must be provided at least sixty (60) calendar days before the expiration of the then-current subscription term to prevent renewal.. These terms are sourced from verified buyer experiences.

Contract Terms
Auto-Renewal Yes
Cancellation Notice Termination of a subscription plan takes effect on the date the plan would otherwise have been renewed; written notice must be provided at least sixty (60) calendar days before the expiration of the then-current subscription term to prevent renewal.
Minimum Commitment The Pro plan starts at $20 per developer seat per month, plus usage-based overages. Enterprise plans typically start in the five-figure range annually (e.g., ~$25,000+/year). Vercel AI Gateway credits can be purchased with no obligation to renew.
Based on 1 verified source

Vercel AI SDK Price History

Pricing changes CostBench has tracked for Vercel AI SDK, verified across 2 snapshots going back to 2026Q2.

  1. Vercel AI SDK price decrease

    Highest tier decreased from $20 to $0/month

    -100%

  2. Vercel AI SDK tier renamed

    "Hobby (Free)" renamed to "Free Tier"

  3. Vercel AI SDK tier renamed

    "Pro" renamed to "Paid (Pay-As-You-Go)"

View Vercel AI SDK's full price history →

Vercel AI SDK Pricing FAQ

01 How much does Vercel AI Gateway cost?

Vercel AI Gateway has no fixed monthly fee. Every team account gets $5/month in free AI Gateway Credits. Once you purchase additional credits, you pay provider list price with zero markup from Vercel. Optional add-ons cost extra: Custom Reporting ($0.075/1K writes, $5/1K queries) and team-wide Provider Allowlist or Zero Data Retention ($0.10/1K requests each).

02 Does Vercel AI Gateway charge a markup on tokens?

No. Vercel AI Gateway passes through provider pricing at cost with zero markup — including when you bring your own API key (BYOK). You pay the model provider's current list rates, deducted from your AI Gateway Credits balance.

03 What is the $5 free credit on Vercel AI Gateway?

Every Vercel team account receives $5/month in included AI Gateway Credits, starting from the date of your first request. This free credit refreshes monthly. Once you purchase additional credits, your account transitions to the paid tier and the monthly free credit no longer applies.

04 What AI providers does Vercel AI Gateway support?

Vercel AI Gateway supports hundreds of models across providers including OpenAI, Anthropic, Google (Gemini), Mistral, xAI (Grok), and many others. You can browse the full model list at vercel.com/ai-gateway/models.

05 What add-on features cost extra on Vercel AI Gateway?

Three optional add-ons incur surcharges beyond per-token rates: Custom Reporting ($0.075 per 1,000 tag/user ID writes; $5 per 1,000 reporting queries); team-wide Provider Allowlist ($0.10 per 1,000 successful requests, Pro/Enterprise only); and team-wide Zero Data Retention ($0.10 per 1,000 requests, Pro/Enterprise only). Per-request ZDR and provider filtering are free.

06 Do I need a paid Vercel plan to use AI Gateway?

No. AI Gateway is available on all Vercel plans including the free Hobby plan. However, certain add-on capabilities — team-wide Provider Allowlist and team-wide Zero Data Retention — require a Pro or Enterprise plan.

Is this pricing incorrect? — we'll verify and update it.