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Software Development · head to head

Baseten vs Val Town

Baseten logo

Baseten

Software Development

Inference is everything

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Val Town logo

Val Town

Software Development

The deployment platform for internal tools

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: Baseten pro and Enterprise pricing not published; requires contacting sales; Val Town the free tier limits scheduled crons to 15 minute intervals and functions to a 1 minute wall clock time per run; only the $21 per month Pro tier reduces the cron interval to 1 minute, as of August 2026.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 29 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Baseten and Val Town actually diverge.

Attributes where Baseten and Val Town differ
AttributeBasetenVal Town
Pricing modelusage-basedfreemium

Identical on both: starting price (Free), free tier (Yes), platforms (Web), user rating (Not yet rated), category (Software Development).

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

Baseten

  • Custom model deploymentnot Val Town
  • Fine-tuned LLM hostingnot Val Town
  • Inference API scalingnot Val Town

Val Town

  • Alert systems - Send Slack notifications when significant deals closenot Baseten
  • Webhook handling - Receive and process webhooks with instant deploymentnot Baseten
  • Scheduled automation - Run crons and automated tasks on a set schedulenot Baseten
  • Quick experiments - Build and host prototype projects instantlynot Baseten
  • API development - Create and deploy APIs without infrastructure setupnot Baseten

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

Baseten

  • Pro and Enterprise pricing not published; requires contacting sales
  • Pricing varies significantly by compute type and model

Val Town

  • The free tier limits scheduled crons to 15 minute intervals and functions to a 1 minute wall clock time per run; only the $21 per month Pro tier reduces the cron interval to 1 minute, as of August 2026.

Pricing, plan by plan

Baseten

Free
  • BasicFree
    • Pay-as-you-go deployments
    • Dedicated model APIs
    • SOC 2 Type II and HIPAA compliance
  • Pro$null/month
    • Priority GPU access
    • Unlimited autoscaling
    • Volume discounts available
  • Enterprise$null/month
    • Self-hosted options
    • Custom SLAs
    • Data residency control

Val Town

Free
  • FreeFree
    • Unlimited public vals
    • 100,000 runs per day
    • 15-minute cron intervals
  • Pro$21/month
    • $10 monthly AI credits
    • 1-minute cron intervals
    • 2,000 private vals
  • Business$167/month
    • All Pro features
    • $100 AI credits
    • Unlimited custom domains
  • Enterprise$null/custom
    • Flexible AI credits
    • No core feature limits
    • Log export

Which should you pick?

Choose Baseten if

  • You want to start without paying.
Baseten review

Choose Val Town if

  • You want to start without paying.
Val Town review

Questions people ask

Is Baseten or Val Town better?
Neither clearly leads. Baseten starts at Free and Val Town at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Baseten or Val Town?
Baseten starts at Free and Val Town at Free.
Does Baseten or Val Town run on more platforms?
Both run on Web, so platform support will not decide this one for you.
Can I use Baseten for free?
Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.
What is Baseten best used for?
Baseten is most often used for custom model deployment, fine-tuned llm hosting, inference api scaling. Of those, custom model deployment and fine-tuned llm hosting are not what Val Town is typically brought in for.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Baseten: Does Baseten have a free tier?

Yes, Baseten's Basic plan is free with a pay-as-you-go model for dedicated deployments and model APIs.

Source
Val Town: How much does Val Town cost?

Val Town offers a free tier with 100,000 runs per day. Pro costs $21 per month with 1 million runs daily. Business starts at $167 per month with 5 million daily runs. Enterprise plans with custom pricing are available for advanced needs.

Source
Baseten: How are GPU instances priced on Baseten?

GPU instances are priced per minute: T4 at $0.01052/min, H100 at $0.10833/min, and B200 at $0.16633/min. CPU instances range from $0.00058 to $0.01382 per minute.

Source
Val Town: Is there a free plan?

Yes. The free tier includes unlimited public vals, 100,000 runs per day, 15-minute cron intervals, and 3-day log retention with no payment required.

Source
Baseten: What are Model API costs on Baseten?

Model API pricing varies by model: DeepSeek V4 Flash costs $0.13 per million input tokens and $0.028 per million output tokens; GLM-5.3-Flash costs $0.15 and $0.03 respectively.

Source
Val Town: What's the difference between Pro and Business plans?

Pro includes $10 monthly AI credits, 1-minute cron intervals, 2,000 private vals, and 1 million runs per day at $21/month. Business adds $100 AI credits, unlimited custom domains, 5 million daily runs, and team accounts for $167/month.

Source
Baseten: Does Baseten charge for idle compute time?

No, Baseten does not charge for idle time; billing only covers active compute usage on deployments.

Source
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