# Helicone > Source: https://agentsindex.ai/helicone AI gateway for routing, caching, and LLM observability. Starting price Free Paid plans from **$79 a month** From [helicone.ai/pricing](https://www.helicone.ai/pricing), checked 24 October 2026 Paid plans in Agent tools and integrations **#34** cheapest of 43 **$30** median a month Cheapest $3, median $30 Priciest $650 - **33** cheaper - **0** same price - **9** pricier Pricier than 33 of the other 42 with a monthly price in agent tools and integrations. Vendor pricing pages as of 14 November 2026 n = 43 with a monthly price [All 95 in agent tools and integrations](https://agentsindex.ai/categories/agent-tools-and-integrations) - MCP server Not stated - API Not stated - Open source Yes - Self-host Yes - GitHub stars: 6.2k [Docs](https://docs.helicone.ai/) [GitHub](https://github.com/Helicone/helicone) [Visit Helicone](https://agentsindex.ai/go/helicone) [Compare](https://agentsindex.ai/compare?cat=agent-tools-and-integrations&products=helicone) What we checked - Pages last read: 24 October 2026 - Facts checked: 1 fact From 1 source - AI answers: Not named in any of 62 Buyer questions, November 2026 [How we check](https://agentsindex.ai/methodology) [Editorial policy](https://agentsindex.ai/editorial-policy#not-for-sale) ## At a glance - Category: [Agent tools and integrations](https://agentsindex.ai/categories/agent-tools-and-integrations) - Tags: Freemium, Free trial, HIPAA, Self-hosted ### Code - Last push: 10 October 2026 ### For developers - Works with: OpenAI, Anthropic, Azure, LiteLLM, Anyscale, Together AI and 3 more ## What is Helicone? Helicone is an AI gateway and observability platform for AI teams that routes LLM traffic, caches responses, enforces rate limits, and falls back when providers misbehave. It adds traces, sessions, user analytics, alerts, reports, and queryable logs with HQL, and it integrates with OpenAI, Anthropic, Azure, LiteLLM, OpenRouter, and Gemini. Plans run Hobby free, Pro $79/month, Team $799/month, and Enterprise custom. ## What it actually does Helicone is two products under one brand. The core is an LLM observability platform: one line of code (swap the base URL) logs every request going through OpenAI, Anthropic, and 100+ other providers, then gives you traces, per-user cost breakdowns, a query language over your logs (HQL), prompt versioning, and a playground. Layered on top is the AI Gateway: a single OpenAI-compatible endpoint (`ai-gateway.helicone.ai`) that lets you call 100+ models without holding separate provider keys, with automatic fallbacks and load-balancing across providers. Both are usable from the same account; the gateway is the newer, higher-growth part of the pitch. ## What it's good at The free tier is real, not a teaser: 10,000 requests/month with full observability and no credit card, confirmed on the current pricing page ([helicone.ai/pricing](https://helicone.ai/pricing)). The gateway's advertised 0% markup on provider tokens — you pay exactly what OpenAI/Anthropic charge — is a genuine differentiator against OpenRouter's 5.5% markup, per Helicone's own comparison table on their gateway docs ([docs.helicone.ai/gateway/overview](https://docs.helicone.ai/gateway/overview)); we haven't independently re-priced every model to confirm the OpenRouter figure, so treat the 5.5% specifically as Helicone's claim about a competitor. The core platform repository is healthy by any open-source measure: Apache-2.0, with steady commits, among them a same-day fix (16 September 2026) for a reported authorization vulnerability ([github.com/Helicone/helicone/pull/5816](https://github.com/Helicone/helicone/pull/5816)), which is a better signal of an actively-maintained security posture than most vendor 'security page' copy. ## Ownership changed in March 2026 Helicone was acquired by Mintlify (the AI-native docs platform) on 3 March 2026; the deal was announced on Helicone's own blog, which states the product will stay live 'in maintenance mode' — meaning security updates, new model support, and bug fixes continue, but the company is no longer operating as an independent, actively-growing startup ([helicone.ai/blog/joining-mintlify](https://helicone.ai/blog/joining-mintlify)). Y Combinator's company page also lists Helicone's status as 'Acquired' ([ycombinator.com/companies/helicone](https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/helicone)). In practice this has not shown up as a slowdown on GitHub — the main repo has 25+ merged PRs since the acquisition date and a security fix shipped 16 September 2026 — so 'maintenance mode' has held up as a description rather than a euphemism for abandonment, at least so far. ## The AI Gateway repository is not the same project as the platform, and it's gone quiet The tagline's 'AI gateway' component lives in a separate GitHub repository, Helicone/ai-gateway, not Helicone/helicone. Two things differ from the main platform: the license, and the pace of work. The gateway repo was relicensed from Apache-2.0 to GPL-3.0 on 21 November 2025 ([github.com/Helicone/ai-gateway/commit/9649b27bdc9fb0907d359e899894102a15f3a085](https://github.com/Helicone/ai-gateway/commit/9649b27bdc9fb0907d359e899894102a15f3a085)) — GPL-3.0 is copyleft, a materially different obligation for anyone embedding or modifying the self-hosted gateway than the permissive Apache-2.0 license the observability platform still carries. That relicensing commit is also the last commit in the repository: no code has landed since (repo `pushed_at` is 21 November 2025, per the GitHub API), an open feature PR from June 2026 sits unmerged ([github.com/Helicone/ai-gateway/pull/305](https://github.com/Helicone/ai-gateway/pull/305)), and the npm package's latest published version, 0.2.0-beta.30, is from July 2025 — it never even picked up the GPL relicense in a new release. The repo isn't archived and the cloud-hosted gateway endpoint (ai-gateway.helicone.ai) is live and still gets model additions through the main platform repo, so this reads as a component the team stopped actively developing in the open rather than a shut-down product — but a buyer evaluating the self-hosted, open-source gateway specifically should know it's frozen at a beta build from over a year ago under a license that changed after most of the code was written. ## Pricing Hobby (free): 10,000 requests/month, 1GB storage, 1 seat. Pro: $79/month, unlimited seats, alerts, reports, and HQL, plus usage-based charges above the included quota. Team: $799/month, adds SOC-2/HIPAA compliance docs, 5 organizations, a dedicated Slack channel. Enterprise is quote-based and adds SAML SSO, custom MSAs, and on-prem deployment. All four tiers and the usage-based calculator are published on the pricing page with a live cost estimator ([helicone.ai/pricing](https://helicone.ai/pricing), checked 24 September 2026). Startups under 2 years old with under $5M raised get 50% off the first year; open-source projects get a $100 credit; students get the paid tier free — all stated on the same page. Our take Check whether the Pro plan's usage-based pricing and the Team plan's 5-organization limit match your expected request volume and account structure. If you need SAML SSO, on-prem deployment, or a custom MSA, those are reserved for Enterprise. ## How much does Helicone cost? Prices excluding tax, as Helicone publishes them. - Hobby · Free · Kickstart your AI project. - 10,000 free requests - 1 GB storage - 1 seat, 1 organization - Pro · $79 a month · For growing teams. - Everything in Hobby - Unlimited seats - Alerts & reports - HQL (Query Language) - Usage-based pricing applies - 7-day free trial - Team · $799 a month - Everything in Pro - 5 organizations - SOC-2 & HIPAA compliance - Dedicated Slack channel - Usage-based pricing applies - Enterprise · Contact us · Custom-built packages. - Everything in Team - Custom MSA - SAML SSO - On-prem deployment - Bulk cloud discounts [![Helicone](https://agentsindex.ai/img/1024/screenshots/helicone/pricing.webp)](https://agentsindex.ai/img/1920/screenshots/helicone/pricing.webp) Pricing page, captured 24 October 2026 [helicone.ai/pricing](https://www.helicone.ai/pricing), checked 24 October 2026 ## What we checked on Helicone What it costs to start Yes ### What the price counts Priced as a flat monthly subscription per plan, 79 dollars for Pro and 799 for Team, with metered usage billed on top of each plan's included 10,000 requests and 1 GB storage; Enterprise is quote only. > Simple, predictable pricing Built to scale with you. Only pay for what you use. Page heading above the plan cards, which carry per-month prices and the footnote "* Usage-based pricing applies" [helicone.ai/pricing](https://www.helicone.ai/pricing) Checked 24 October 2026 ## Questions about Helicone - How much does Helicone cost?: Helicone has a free plan. From helicone.ai/pricing, checked 24 October 2026. - Is Helicone open source, and can you host it yourself?: It is open source. You can host it yourself. - What have we checked on Helicone?: 1 fact, under one heading: What it costs to start. - How do we check Helicone?: We hold 1 fact on Helicone, quoted from 1 page. Facts and price last checked 24 October 2026. Last change found 21 March 2026. [How we check every listing](https://agentsindex.ai/methodology) ## Sources and changes Last changed 21 March 2026 Sources 1 - Read 24 October 2026 · [helicone.ai](https://www.helicone.ai/pricing) /pricing Repository - Licence: Apache-2.0 - Stars: 6,224 - Last push: 10 October 2026 ## Similar in Agent tools and integrations [See all in Agent tools and integrations](https://agentsindex.ai/categories/agent-tools-and-integrations) - [ERIUS PHONE](https://agentsindex.ai/eriusphone) Isolated cloud Android phones rented by the month that keep an agent's apps and sign-ins between sessions. From about $44 a month - [TinyFish](https://agentsindex.ai/tinyfish) Web search, page fetching, cloud browsers and a web automation agent for AI agents, with search and fetch free. Free plan, then $0.002 per minute - [Smithery](https://agentsindex.ai/smithery) Public MCP server registry, now run by Arcade, listing direct vendor MCP URLs after its proxy shut down. 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What it does, how its pay-as-you-go pricing works, who it fits. ## Is Helicone yours? Free, and the page then carries the verified owner mark. You confirm it with an email at helicone.ai. [Claim this listing](https://agentsindex.ai/claim/helicone?from=owner-line) [Report an error](mailto:hello@agentsindex.ai?subject=Report%20an%20error%3A%20Helicone%20(helicone)&body=What%20is%20wrong%20on%20the%20page%2C%20and%20where%20on%20the%20product) if a fact is wrong.