Baseten vs Modal (2026): Pricing, Features & Which to Choose

Who comes out ahead

Based only on the facts in our directory. The right pick still depends on the job you need done.

Lower starting price
Not comparable
Not comparable: Baseten does not list a price
Free plan
Tie
Both have one
Higher rating
Modal
4.1 against 4.5
Same job?
Yes
Both are AI Infrastructure & Agent Tooling tools

Side by side

Compared on	Baseten	Modal
Our rating	4.1	4.5Better
Starts at	Free	Free
Free plan	Yes	Yes
Category	AI Infrastructure & Agent Tooling	AI Infrastructure & Agent Tooling
Plans	Free	Free
Key features	Managed infrastructure for deploying custom and fine-tuned ML models to production Model-agnostic: supports open-weight models, custom models, and multi-model pipelines Automatic GPU provisioning and autoscaling handled by the platform Free trial credit for new accounts before usage-based billing begins Backed by Y Combinator with a developer-first deployment workflow	Serverless GPU inference with OpenAI-compatible endpoints Fine-tuning, LoRA and reinforcement learning on GPUs with fast start times Sandboxes for coding agents and untrusted code Multi-node GPU clusters with RDMA Batch jobs and HTTPS gateways that scale to zero
Pros	Removes the need to hire a dedicated ML infrastructure team for model serving Model-agnostic design avoids lock-in to one specific model provider Free trial credit lets teams test real production workloads before committing	$30 of free compute each month on the Starter plan No charge for idle machines Startup and academic credit programs
Cons	Usage-based compute pricing requires monitoring at high-traffic production volumes Best suited for teams already running custom or fine-tuned models, not off-the-shelf API use Competes with both hyperscaler managed-inference options and other MLOps platforms	Per-second pricing needs estimating for real workloads Shared Endpoint tokens are billed from the first request Scale figures are the company's own
Company	Baseten, founded 2019	Modal Labs

Prices come from each vendor's pricing page, last checked 20261012. Check the vendor before you buy.

FAQ

Questions people ask

Is Baseten better than Modal?

In our reviews Baseten scores 4.1 and Modal scores 4.5. The better pick depends on the job. Baseten: Model deployment infrastructure that lets teams ship custom AI models to production without managing GPUs. Modal: Serverless cloud platform for running AI workloads, with GPU inference, fine-tuning and training, sandboxes for agents, batch jobs and multi-node clusters, billed per second with $30 of free compute a month.

Which is cheaper, Baseten or Modal?

Baseten: free. Modal: free.

Do Baseten and Modal have free plans?

Yes, both have a free plan.

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