Compact Llama instruction model for fast chat and local deployment
Llama 3.1 8B by meta is offered by 4 providers on this page. Its reference price is $0.22 per 1M tokens. The lowest paid channel is Helicone at $0.05 / $0.08 per 1M, about 4.4× below the reference price. That channel is a third-party gateway, so confirm its availability and rate limits before depending on it.
The context window is 128,000 tokens at the reference host, but hosts report different limits, from 128,000 to 131,072, so the usable window depends on the provider you pick. It supports tool use and structured output. The weights are open, so it can also be self-hosted or served through a gateway of your choice. Providers report the capability flags inconsistently, so verify a specific feature against the host you plan to use. Its training knowledge cuts off at 2023-12.
| Provider | Tier | Input | Output | Cache read | Cache write | Context | Output limit | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Helicone | Gateway | $0.05 | $0.08 | — | — | 131,072 ⚠ | 32,678 | |
| Groq | Cloud | $0.05 | $0.08 | — | — | 131,072 ⚠ | 131,072 | |
| CoreWeave meta-llama/Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct | Cloud | $0.22 | $0.22 | $0.22 | — | 131,072 ⚠ | 131,072 | |
| Merge Gateway meta/llama-3.1-8b-instruct | Gateway | $0.22 | $0.22 | — | — | 128,000 | 2,048 |
Sorted by blended price (input×0.75 + output×0.25) asc. The official channel always shows regardless of rank. Whether a gateway's low price is actually usable can't be verified.