Kong AI Gateway
Independent gateway · no token markup · hosted or self-host · checked Sep 23, 2026
What it costs on real workloads
| Model | Direct | Through it |
|---|---|---|
 Claude Sonnet 5 | $400.00 | $400.00vs $400.00 direct |
 GPT-6 Sol | $400.00 | $400.00vs $400.00 direct |
 Gemini 3.8 Flash | $150.00 | $150.00vs $150.00 direct |
 DeepSeek V4.1 Flash | $27.00 | $27.00vs $27.00 direct |
100M input and 20M output tokens a month, paying with gateway credits.
About Kong AI Gateway
Set of AI plugins on the Kong API gateway that add multi-provider routing, load balancing, semantic caching, guardrails and token rate limiting.
- Fee on tokens
- None
- Pricing model
- $100 a month per model proxied (Konnect Plus); no token fee
- Bring your own key
- No
- Entry plan
- Konnect Plus, $100/mo
- Hosting
- Hosted or self-host
Features stated: Fallbacks, Load balancing, Caching, Guardrails, Observability, Rate limits. Not stated: Budgets, Prompts, OpenAI-compatible, Bring your own key, Data residency, Private networking.
The terms, in their words
- Markup
- Priced per model proxied, not per token; no token markup mentioned.
- Free tier
- 30-day free trial with Enterprise functionality, $0, no credit card
- Providers
- OpenAI, Anthropic, Azure AI, Amazon Bedrock, Gemini, Vercel and others (count not stated)
- $100/month per model
- Custom, volume discounts available
- Enterprise functionality for free for 30 days
Source: konghq.com/pricing
Kong AI Gateway vsHeliconeLiteLLMVercel AI GatewayCloudflare AI GatewayRequestyEden AI
Sources: each gateway's own pricing page and docs, read by hand and fetched again every Monday. List prices: your contract may differ. Logos via logo.dev; trademarks belong to their owners.