Baseten vs Modal: Token Pricing, Speed & Intelligence
Full comparison of Baseten and Modal — live token pricing, latency, throughput, context window, strengths, weaknesses, and best use cases. Rates sourced from public APIs — verify before use.
Baseten
Inference infrastructure for production ML — GLM, DeepSeek V4, Kimi K3, Nemotron, Muse
Baseten is a production ML inference platform offering dedicated and serverless GPU deployments for open-weight models. The catalog includes GLM-5.3, GLM-5.2, DeepSeek V4.1 Flash, DeepSeek V4 Pro 0813, Kimi K3, Nemotron 3.5 Super VL, NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra, GPT OSS 120B, and Muse Spark Open. Baseten is designed for teams that need reliable, low-latency inference with custom deployment options. Pricing is published at baseten.co/pricing.
Modal
Managed inference API — 10 shared-endpoint models with per-token pricing
Modal Shared Endpoints serve a fixed catalog of models from Modal-managed pools. Modal manages the hardware and autoscaling, and usage is billed per token. Shared Endpoints have model-specific concurrency limits on concurrent in-flight requests. Prices are published rates from modal.com/docs/guide/supported-models.md, re-read 2026-10-31.
Key metric comparison
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Live token pricing
Strengths and weaknesses
Baseten
Modal
Key differentiators
Production ML inference infrastructure with dedicated GPU deployments — GLM-5.3, DeepSeek V4.1, Kimi K3, and Nemotron with Fast variants for throughput-optimised workloads.
Modal Shared Endpoints provide managed per-token inference on a fixed 10-model catalog with published cached-input pricing and no infrastructure to manage.
Frequently asked questions
Baseten FAQs
What is Baseten?
Baseten is a production ML inference platform offering dedicated and serverless GPU deployments for open-weight models including GLM-5.3, DeepSeek V4.1 Flash, Kimi K3, Nemotron, and Muse Spark Open. See baseten.co/pricing for current rates.
What models does Baseten offer?
Baseten's catalog includes GLM-5.3, GLM-5.3 Fast, GLM-5.3-Flash, GLM-5.2, GLM-5.2 Fast, DeepSeek V4.1 Flash, DeepSeek V4.1 Flash Fast, DeepSeek V4 Pro 0813, Kimi K3, Nemotron 3.5 Super VL, NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra, GPT OSS 120B, and Muse Spark Open. See baseten.co/pricing for current rates.
How much does Baseten cost?
As of October 2026: GLM-5.3 $1.40/$4.40, GLM-5.3 Fast $2.10/$6.60, GLM-5.3-Flash $0.15/$0.50, DeepSeek V4.1 Flash $0.30/$1.20, DeepSeek V4 Pro 0813 $1.32/$3.96, Kimi K3 $3.00/$15.00, Nemotron 3.5 Super VL $0.20/$0.50, GPT OSS 120B $0.10/$0.50. See baseten.co/pricing for current rates.
Modal FAQs
What models does Modal offer on Shared Endpoints?
Modal Shared Endpoints currently serve 10 models: GLM 5.3 Flash NVFP4, DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017, DeepSeek V4.1 Flash, GLM 5.3 Flash, Muse Spark Open, GLM 5.3, Inkling NVFP4, Qwen3.8-Max, Qwen3.8-Max VL, and Kimi K3. Use the model table above for per-model pricing and capability details. Source: Modal's published Shared Endpoints catalog, re-read 2026-10-31.
How much does Modal charge per 1M tokens?
Modal Shared Endpoints input prices range from $0.15/1M (GLM 5.3 Flash NVFP4) to $3.00/1M (Kimi K3). All models include cached-input pricing. See the model table for full per-model rates.
Does Modal offer prompt caching?
Yes. All 10 models in the Modal Shared Endpoints catalog have published cached-input pricing, ranging from $0.005/1M (DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017) to $0.30/1M (Kimi K3). Depending on the model, the cached-input rate is 77.5% to 98% below the standard input rate. Source: Modal's published Shared Endpoints rates, re-read 2026-10-31.
Provider resources
Baseten — Inference infrastructure for production ML — GLM, DeepSeek V4, Kimi K3, Nemotron, Muse
Baseten is a production ML inference platform offering dedicated and serverless GPU deployments for open-weight models. The catalog includes GLM-5.3, GLM-5.2, DeepSeek V4.1 Flash, DeepSeek V4 Pro 0813, Kimi K3, Nemotron 3.5 Super VL, NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra, GPT OSS 120B, and Muse Spark Open. Baseten is designed for teams that need reliable, low-latency inference with custom deployment options. Pricing is published at baseten.co/pricing.
Production ML inference infrastructure with dedicated GPU deployments — GLM-5.3, DeepSeek V4.1, Kimi K3, and Nemotron with Fast variants for throughput-optimised workloads.
Modal — Managed inference API — 10 shared-endpoint models with per-token pricing
Modal Shared Endpoints serve a fixed catalog of models from Modal-managed pools. Modal manages the hardware and autoscaling, and usage is billed per token. Shared Endpoints have model-specific concurrency limits on concurrent in-flight requests. Prices are published rates from modal.com/docs/guide/supported-models.md, re-read 2026-10-31.
Modal Shared Endpoints provide managed per-token inference on a fixed 10-model catalog with published cached-input pricing and no infrastructure to manage.
Key strengths compared
Baseten
- Dedicated GPU deployments for production reliability and consistent latency
- GLM-5.3, GLM-5.2, DeepSeek V4.1 Flash/Pro, Kimi K3, Nemotron, Muse Spark Open
- Fast and Fast variants for throughput-optimised inference
- Smaller catalog than Together AI or Fireworks
- Less documentation for new users than major providers
Modal
- Managed hardware and autoscaling — no infrastructure to operate
- Published per-token rates including cached-input pricing
- OpenAI-style per-token billing across all 10 models
- Small fixed catalog of 10 models
- Model-specific concurrency limits on shared pools
Key weaknesses compared
Baseten
- Smaller catalog than Together AI or Fireworks
- Less documentation for new users than major providers
- Dedicated deployments require more setup than pure serverless
Modal
- Small fixed catalog of 10 models
- Model-specific concurrency limits on shared pools
- Prices are published rates re-read 2026-10-31, not continuously collected
Provider category context
Baseten is a inference api, founded in 2019. Modal is a inference api. Both are inference api providers — the comparison is primarily about pricing, model selection, and feature differentiation within the same tier.
How to choose between them
Both Baseten and Modal host open-weight models. The key differentiators are latency, throughput, and which specific model versions each provider offers. Check the speed metrics above — inference API providers often differ significantly on tokens-per-second for the same model. Pricing is typically competitive between them; availability of specific model versions (e.g., Llama 3.1 405B, DeepSeek V3) may be the deciding factor.