fal.ai vs Together AI: Token Pricing, Speed & Intelligence

Full comparison of fal.ai and Together AI — live token pricing, latency, throughput, context window, strengths, weaknesses, and best use cases. Updated July 2026.

fal.ai

Fast serverless inference for image, video, and audio AI models

fal.ai is a serverless inference platform specialising in image, video, and audio generation models. Known for extremely fast cold starts and competitive pricing on FLUX, Stable Diffusion, and other generative models. Also offers H200 GPU compute for custom deployments.

Image generationVideo generationAudio modelsReal-time AI appsCreative tools

Open-weight hostHosts open weights

Together AI

Open-source model hosting with competitive inference pricing

Together AI specialises in hosting open-weight models including the full Llama family, Mixtral, and DeepSeek variants. They offer live pricing via their public API and support fine-tuning workflows. A popular choice for teams that want open-source flexibility without managing their own GPU infrastructure.

Open-sourceFine-tuningCodingChatCost-efficiency

Open-weight hostHosts open weights

Key metrics

Cheapest input ($/1M)

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Cheapest output ($/1M)

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Peak throughput

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Best latency (TTFT)

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Intelligence score

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Context window

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Live token pricing

Strengths & weaknesses

fal.ai

Fastest cold starts for image/video models

Competitive pricing on FLUX and Stable Diffusion

H200 GPU compute available

Serverless — no infrastructure management

Real-time streaming for video generation

Primarily focused on image/video/audio — less suited for text LLMs

Smaller text model catalog than dedicated LLM providers

Less enterprise support than larger platforms

Together AI

Largest selection of open-weight models

Fine-tuning support for custom model training

OpenAI-compatible API — easy migration

Competitive pricing on Llama 3.x models

Supports 405B parameter models

No proprietary frontier models

Throughput lower than Groq/Cerebras for speed-critical apps

Fine-tuning adds complexity vs. pure inference providers

Key differentiators

fal.ai

The fastest serverless platform for image and video generation — sub-second cold starts on FLUX and Stable Diffusion models, with H200 GPU compute for custom workloads.

Together AI

The broadest open-weight model catalog with fine-tuning support — ideal for teams that need model customisation without self-hosting.

Frequently asked questions

fal.ai FAQs

What models does fal.ai support?

fal.ai hosts FLUX, Stable Diffusion XL, Stable Video Diffusion, Whisper, and many other image, video, and audio models. It also supports text models like Llama via its serverless GPU platform.

How fast is fal.ai for image generation?

fal.ai is known for very fast cold starts — typically under 1 second for popular models like FLUX. This makes it one of the best choices for real-time image generation in production applications.

Does fal.ai offer GPU compute?

Yes. fal.ai offers H200 GPU compute for custom model deployments alongside its managed inference API. This makes it suitable for teams that need both managed inference and raw GPU access.

Together AI FAQs

What models does Together AI support?

Together AI hosts 100+ open-weight models including the full Llama 3.x family (8B, 70B, 405B), Mixtral, DeepSeek R1, Qwen, and many others. They also support custom fine-tuned model deployment.

How much does Together AI cost?

Llama 3.3 70B costs $0.88/1M tokens (input and output). Llama 3.1 405B is $3.50/1M tokens. Smaller models like Llama 3.2 11B Vision start at $0.18/1M tokens.

Does Together AI support fine-tuning?

Yes. Together AI offers supervised fine-tuning for Llama and other open-weight models. You can upload training data, run fine-tuning jobs, and deploy the resulting model via their inference API.

Provider resources

fal.ai

Provider page Website Pricing Docs

Together AI

Provider page Website Pricing Docs

fal.ai — Fast serverless inference for image, video, and audio AI models

The fastest serverless platform for image and video generation — sub-second cold starts on FLUX and Stable Diffusion models, with H200 GPU compute for custom workloads.

Together AI — Open-source model hosting with competitive inference pricing

The broadest open-weight model catalog with fine-tuning support — ideal for teams that need model customisation without self-hosting.

Key strengths compared

fal.ai

▸Fastest cold starts for image/video models
▸Competitive pricing on FLUX and Stable Diffusion
▸H200 GPU compute available

Together AI

▸Largest selection of open-weight models
▸Fine-tuning support for custom model training
▸OpenAI-compatible API — easy migration

Provider category context

fal.ai is a inference api, founded in 2022. Together AI is a inference api, founded in 2022. 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 fal.ai and Together AI 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.