Our take
Pick AI21 if developers who will burn the $10 / 3-month credit while they open a first File Library, then add a card and pay the live per-token row on ai21.com/pricing — the public pricing HTML 403’d the day we fetched, so we do not invent a $/1M. Pick SambaNova if developers who will read a printed $/1M row (gpt-oss-120b $0.22 / $0.59) and open a first Playground, then stay on Developer pay-as-you-go — not
Best for
AI21 A file table you start at a public $
SambaNova A SambaCloud chat you start at a public $
Free plan
AI21 No free plan
SambaNova $0 · start exploring SambaNova Cloud. Add a payment method and purchase credits to run requests. Pay-as-you-go credits. Production models. Community support. No printed welcome-credit $ on the page we fetched — do not invent one
Lowest paid
AI21 Subsequent usage $0.10
SambaNova MiniMax-M3.1-Flash $0.03
Next step up
AI21
SambaNova gpt-oss-120b $0.22
Coding agent
AI21 Maestro / Agent Builder
SambaNova Agents
Runs where
AI21 Hosted
SambaNova Hosted
Watch out
AI21 The $10 credit expires in three months
SambaNova Free does not print a $0 inference allowance
Last checked
AI21 2026-10-23 · ai21.com/pricing
SambaNova 2026-10-23 · cloud.sambanova.ai/pricing
developers who will burn the $10 / 3-month credit while they open a first File Library, then add a card and pay the live per-token row on ai21.com/pricing — the public pricing HTML 403’d the day we fetched, so we do not invent a $/1M.
Read the AI21 pagedevelopers who will read a printed $/1M row (gpt-oss-120b $0.22 / $0.59) and open a first Playground, then stay on Developer pay-as-you-go — not Enterprise unless they need production rate limits / BYOC.
Read the SambaNova page
