> Baichuan
Baichuan's open platform sells Baichuan4-family and M-series models with billing quoted per 1,000 tokens and 32K context on most SKUs: Baichuan4-Turbo at 0.015 CNY per 1K tokens with input and output combined, Baichuan4-Air at 0.00098 CNY per 1K, Baichuan4 at 0.1 CNY per 1K, and the medical M3-Plus and M3 models split input and output (0.005 / 0.009 and 0.01 / 0.03 CNY per 1K tokens). Search enhancement is metered separately at 0.03 CNY per call, and Baichuan2-53B has a documented off-peak window at half price. New accounts are described as receiving an 80 CNY gift balance valid for 3 months.
// pros
- Combined input-plus-output rates make per-call cost trivially estimable: 0.015 CNY per 1K tokens for Baichuan4-Turbo and 0.00098 CNY per 1K for Baichuan4-Air, both with a stated 32K context.
- A documented off-peak discount exists: Baichuan2-53B is priced at 0.01 CNY per 1K tokens from 00:00 to 08:00 and 0.02 CNY per 1K for the rest of the day.
- Exact rate limits per verification state are published in the API reference: 120 rpm for verified accounts, 12 rpm with a 300-request-per-day ceiling for unverified accounts.
- Ancillary costs are itemised rather than bundled - Baichuan-Text-Embedding at 0.0005 CNY per 1K tokens, knowledge-base file storage at 1.5 CNY per GB per day with a 5 GB per-user limit, search enhancement at 0.03 CNY per call, and the Assistants API labelled limited-time free.
- The Hai Na Bai Chuan programme gives organisations serving medical professionals free access to the Baichuan-M3 Plus API under published eligibility and attribution conditions.
// cons
- The gift-credit statement on the official price page is dated by cohort: the 80 CNY balance with 3-month validity applies to accounts registered after the afternoon of 22 May 2024, and earlier verified accounts received 40 CNY, so entitlement depends on registration date rather than current terms.
- Search is billed per call and on the M3-Plus and M2-Plus models the conversation automatically triggers a separately billed medical search at 0.03 CNY per call.
- Response length is capped at 2,048 tokens per request (max_tokens range [1,2048]) in the API reference, limiting long-form generation without client-side chunking.
- The free medical API is narrow by design: eligibility is limited to organisations serving medical practitioners, usage is restricted to clinical decision support and medical education, data-production use is prohibited, and products must display Powered by Baichuan attribution.
A reasonable fit for Chinese-language enterprise workloads where flat per-1K pricing plus search add-ons are easy to model, and for medical organisations that qualify for the free M3 Plus programme. Verify your account verification state first, because unverified keys are capped at 300 requests per day, and pair it with another provider when you need outputs longer than 2,048 tokens.
written by Mike Fleming, Uprouter editorial · verified against official sources September 16, 2026
Value taken from the provider’s own published free-tier terms, expressed in USD.
note: Official prices page states new accounts registered after the afternoon of 22 May 2024 receive an 80 CNY gift balance (equivalent to 10M Baichuan2-Turbo tokens) valid 3 months; converted at roughly 7.1 CNY/USD, so the USD figure is an estimate of a CNY grant.
| Plan | Type | Monthly | Input /1M | Output /1M | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Baichuan-Text-Embedding | payg | — | $0.060 | Free | Converted from 0.0005元/1K tokens (approx 1/8.3 USD conversion). |
Pricing normalized from public sources — always verify with the provider.
$ Does Baichuan have a free tier?
Yes — Baichuan offers a free tier that we value at roughly $11.20 in free credits. Always confirm current limits on Baichuan's official pricing page — free tiers change without notice.
$ How much does Baichuan cost per 1M tokens?
Baichuan does not publish simple per-1M-token pricing (it may bill per request, per output, or via a subscription plan). Check their official pricing page for exact figures.
$ Is Baichuan safe to use?
Uprouter rates Baichuan as medium risk. Risk: medium. The price list is public and granular, including off-peak windows, per-call search fees and a published free tier statement (80 CNY gift balance, 3 months), so cost expectations are checkable on the official pages. The caveats are account-state and platform dependency: free credit is tied to a 2024 registration cohort, unverified accounts face a 300-request daily ceiling, and long responses are capped at 2,048 tokens, all of which are stated by Baichuan itself rather than inferred. Risk ratings are editorial, evidence-based, and never influenced by affiliate relationships.
Raw community sentiment, shown unblended. Votes never feed into objective data fields like price, risk, or status — and never into sort order.
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// more_informationprice history · live status · risk & confidence · code snippets
price_history
No recorded changes yet.
live_status
current: unknownNo probes recorded yet.
Uprouter runs its own probes; best-effort, not a guarantee. Probe results depend on our network location and cadence — for production, always use the provider’s own status page.
risk_&_confidence
Risk: medium. The price list is public and granular, including off-peak windows, per-call search fees and a published free tier statement (80 CNY gift balance, 3 months), so cost expectations are checkable on the official pages. The caveats are account-state and platform dependency: free credit is tied to a 2024 registration cohort, unverified accounts face a 300-request daily ceiling, and long responses are capped at 2,048 tokens, all of which are stated by Baichuan itself rather than inferred.
Confidence reflects how much verifiable evidence (official docs, probe history, community reports) backs this entry. Risk is our editorial assessment of operator reliability and terms — not financial advice.
code_snippets
# Baichuan's own API — get a key from their dashboard
curl https://www.baichuan-ai.com/chat/completions \
-H "Authorization: Bearer THEIR_API_KEY" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{
"model": "MODEL_NAME",
"messages": [{ "role": "user", "content": "Hello" }]
}'Direct to the provider — Uprouter receives nothing; verify their current pricing before purchasing.
Ranked by neutral similarity signals only — live status, free-tier shape and free-credit proximity. Commercial relationships never influence this list.