aicost.ai
VC/PE Diligence Memo
2026-07-28
Pricing as of 2026-07-20
aicost.router-compare
Verdict
TWO-HORSE RACE
LiteLLM and Vercel AI Gateway land within 15 percent of each other on net monthly saving. Pick on what each gives up, not on the number.
Key figures
| Best net saving / mo |
$860 |
| Leader |
LiteLLM |
| Products surviving |
7 |
| Products considered |
7 |
| Leader fee / mo |
$0 |
| Runner-up |
Vercel AI Gateway |
| Runner-up net / mo |
$860 |
| What to do |
Compare LiteLLM and Vercel AI Gateway on capabilities, not price. |
Assessment
At $6,000 a month and no hard requirements, 7 of 7 captured products survive. LiteLLM leads on net monthly saving at $860, on a fee basis of no licence fee, self-hosted. Router pricing was captured 2026-07-26 and moves faster than model pricing, so re-check before any of this is quoted.
Questions for the founder
- Which of these requirements is genuinely hard, and which is a preference someone wrote down?
- If the winning product raised its fee 2 points, would it still win?
- Who operates this layer day to day, and is that time billable to the client?
- Does the client already hold a cloud agreement that one of these can be bought on?
- What does the shortlisted product give up, and who provides that instead?
Assumptions & method
- 40 percent of traffic eligible for a cheaper model *
- 60 percent saving on that eligible traffic *
- 4 engineering hours a month to operate the layer *
- Engineering time valued at $145 an hour *
- Product pricing and capabilities captured 2026-07-26 from primary sources.