> Databricks
Databricks Foundation Model Serving prices inference in Databricks Units (DBUs) on a pay-as-you-go basis with per-second granularity, no up-front cost and no published monthly platform floor. Per-model DBU rates per 1M tokens are public: Llama 3.3 70B at 7.143 input / 21.429 output, GPT-OSS-20B at 1.000 / 4.286, Llama 3.1 8B at 2.143 / 6.429, and Kimi K3 at 42.857 / 214.286 with a 4.286 cache-read rate. Databricks states the DBU price on the Serverless Real-time Inference SKU is $0.07 per DBU in the base region (us-east-1 for AWS, us-central1 for GCP, eastus for Azure), and the page offers a 14-day free trial without disclosing a fixed credit amount.
// pros
- Per-model DBU rates and cache-read rates are published per 1M tokens, and a Priority Pay-Per-Token tier (GLM-5.2 at 35.000 / 110.000 DBU) is priced separately for latency-sensitive work
- Provisioned Throughput publishes both on-demand hourly DBU rates (for example 85.714 DBU/hour for Llama 3.3 70B) and discounted 1-month (142.857) and 3-month (121.429) reservations for GLM-5.2
- Scale-to-zero on Provisioned Throughput endpoints is documented: endpoints idle after 30 minutes of no requests and are not charged while idle, and partial hours are billed as fractions
- Base-region DBU price is stated explicitly at $0.07/DBU, with regional variation only on the Serverless Real-time Inference SKU, so cost modelling is possible without a sales call
- Data residency is priced openly: models marked with the residency flag are charged a 10% higher DBU rate, and function calling bills its injected tokens at standard Foundation Model Serving rates
// cons
- The free trial credit amount is not published; the FAQ says eligibility, credit amount and expiry are solely determined by Databricks after account creation
- Trial-to-paid conversion is automatic: at the end of the trial you are subscribed to the plan in use and may need a payment method on file
- Storage, networking and data transfer sit outside Databricks pricing and are billed by the cloud provider, and Azure Databricks rates are set by Microsoft rather than Databricks
- Three-month provisioned reservations convert-only (no on-demand option listed for GLM-5.2), so committing early is the only way to get that model at a discount
Choose it when the inference workload already lives on lakehouse data and you want per-token cost transparency with an option to graduate to provisioned throughput or a committed-use contract for volume discounts. For pure chat-style traffic with no lakehouse dependency, compare the DBU-derived effective token price against a specialist inference API before committing.
written by Mike Fleming, Uprouter editorial · verified against official sources September 16, 2026
No free tier
This provider does not offer a free tier as of our last verification (Sep 16, 2026). The cheapest way to try it is pay-as-you-go — input from Free per 1M tokens. If the provider adds a free tier, submit a correction and we’ll re-verify.
| Plan | Type | Monthly | Input /1M | Output /1M | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pay-as-you-go | payg | — | Free | Free | Cheapest tracked model rate (OpenRouter-normalized). |
| Llama 3.1 8B PAYG | payg | — | $0.150 | $0.450 | Estimated rates based on 2.143 DBU input / 6.429 DBU output per 1M tokens ($0.07/DBU). |
Pricing normalized from public sources — always verify with the provider.
// model prices
| Model | Input /1M | Output /1M | Context |
|---|---|---|---|
| Meta: Llama 3.1 405B Instruct | Free | Free | 131k |
| Meta-Llama-3.1-70B-Instruct | Free | Free | 131k |
| Mistral: Mixtral 8x7B Instruct | Free | Free | 33k |
| Databricks: DBRX Instruct | $0.0000 | $0.0000 | 33k |
$ Does Databricks have a free tier?
No. Databricks does not offer a meaningful free tier — entry requires payment (pay-as-you-go or a plan). We mark this explicitly rather than showing a misleading zero.
$ How much does Databricks cost per 1M tokens?
The cheapest model we track at Databricks is Free per 1M input tokens and Free per 1M output tokens. This is normalized from Databricks's published pricing — verify with the provider before purchasing, since prices change frequently.
$ Is Databricks safe to use?
Uprouter rates Databricks as low risk. Risk level: moderate. Pricing mechanics are transparent (per-second PAYG, published DBU rates, $0.07/DBU base region, scale-to-zero), and the master cloud services agreement governs use, but the trial converts automatically into a paid subscription and the free credit amount is at Databricks' discretion. Residency-conscious buyers should note that in-geo endpoints for select models cost 10% more DBUs, and data movement charges remain with the underlying cloud provider. 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.
No published reviews yet — be the first.
// 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 level: moderate. Pricing mechanics are transparent (per-second PAYG, published DBU rates, $0.07/DBU base region, scale-to-zero), and the master cloud services agreement governs use, but the trial converts automatically into a paid subscription and the free credit amount is at Databricks' discretion. Residency-conscious buyers should note that in-geo endpoints for select models cost 10% more DBUs, and data movement charges remain with the underlying cloud provider.
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
# Databricks's own API — get a key from their dashboard
curl https://www.databricks.com/chat/completions \
-H "Authorization: Bearer THEIR_API_KEY" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{
"model": "databricks/dbrx-instruct",
"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.