Providers

Providers fall into three tiers: first-party labs that build the models, cloud platforms that resell them with infrastructure guarantees, and third-party gateways that aggregate many models behind one API. The tier tells you where a headline low price actually comes from.

Gateway quotes are often the cheapest, but they can carry hidden constraints such as rate caps, uneven availability or no service-level agreement. The best-price count for each provider only includes models that have at least two paid channels, so it reflects genuine competition rather than a provider being the sole host.