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Guild.ai vs Helicone

Two fact sheets from our own research, side by side — pricing, platforms, API access and status re-checked by us rather than quoted from the vendors.

The short answer

Free plan
Helicone has one; Guild.ai prices on request
Public API
Both have one
Higher Trust score
Guild.ai — 90 vs 80 for Helicone
Best fit
Guild.ai: Engineering teams already running multiple AI agents across different frameworks who need centralized cost and behavior visibility · Helicone: Developers who want cost, latency and usage logs for LLM calls with minimal code changes
Status
Both up at our last check — Guild.ai Oct 15, 2026, Helicone Oct 29, 2026

From our own records as of each tool's last check. Anything we have not confirmed is left out rather than guessed. How we verify

Side by side

FactGuild.aiHelicone
CategoryLLM Observability & EvaluationLLM Observability & Evaluation
Pricing modelContactFreemium
Starts at—$79/mo
Public APIYesYes
Trust score90 / 10080 / 100
PlatformsWeb, APIWeb, API
CompanyGuild.aiHelicone, Inc.
Launched20262023
Last verifiedOct 15, 2026Oct 29, 2026

What our research says

Guild.ai

Guild targets a real gap: once a team has more than a couple of agents in production across different frameworks, nobody has one place to see cost, behavior, and risk. Backing from a $44 million Series A and leadership with enterprise engineering credentials support the pitch, but it's brand new, so there's no independent track record yet on how well the governance features hold up at scale.

Pros

  • Works across multiple agent frameworks instead of locking you into one
  • Combines cost tracking, security approval gates, and performance tracing in one layer
  • Backed by a substantial funding round and experienced engineering leadership
  • Free trial and a no-signup cost-estimation tool lower the barrier to a first look

Cons

  • No pricing is published, so total cost is unknown until you talk to sales
  • Just out of stealth in 2026, so there's no long independent track record
  • Value depends on already having multiple agents in production — little benefit for teams just starting out

Helicone

Helicone is a quick way to get request logs, cost tracking and caching on top of LLM calls with a one-line base-URL change, and the open-source code means you can run it yourself. Its ownership has changed twice in 2026 and the public changelog has been quiet since late 2025, so teams choosing a long-term observability platform should weigh that against more actively developed options.

Pros

  • Proxy or gateway integration takes one line of configuration
  • Free tier with 10,000 requests a month and an open-source self-host option
  • Built-in caching, rate limits and automatic provider fallbacks
  • Session view for multi-step agent traces and HQL for custom queries

Cons

  • Free plan keeps data for only 7 days and Pro for one month
  • Usage-based charges on top of the plan fee make bills harder to predict
  • Ownership uncertainty: acquired by Mintlify in March 2026, then announced as separated again with no details

Which one fits

Choose Guild.ai if you need

  • Engineering teams already running multiple AI agents across different frameworks who need centralized cost and behavior visibility
  • Organizations needing credential-scoped approval gates before agents can take sensitive actions

Choose Helicone if you need

  • Developers who want cost, latency and usage logs for LLM calls with minimal code changes
  • Teams that need a gateway with caching and provider fallback alongside logging
  • Companies that prefer an Apache-2.0 tool they can self-host

Guild.ai vs Helicone: the questions people ask

Is Guild.ai cheaper than Helicone?

Helicone starts at $79/mo; Guild.ai prices on request, so a quote is the only way to compare.

Does Guild.ai or Helicone have a free tier?

Helicone has a free tier; Guild.ai prices on request.

Which has a public API, Guild.ai or Helicone?

Both ship a public API, so either can be built on; the fact table above shows the platforms each one runs on.

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