Braintrust vs Helicone 2026: Scored Evaluations Against Request Logs
Quick verdict: Braintrust is our overall pick for braintrust vs helicone.
- Best overall: Braintrust (4.2/5)
- Best free: Helicone
- Best for teams: Braintrust
- Pricing last checked: 2026-10-03
Braintrust prices scored outputs (10K free, then $2.50/1K; Pro $249/mo for 50K at $1.50/1K); Helicone prices requests (10K free, then Pro at $79/mo with usage on top).
| Tool | Rating | Pricing | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Braintrust Best overall Best for teams | 4.2/5 | Free $249/mo (Pro) | Braintrust is the observability and eval platform with the most explicit score pricing in … |
| Helicone Best free | 3.8/5 | Free $79/mo (Pro) | Helicone is the request-level observability and gateway layer priced per request: Hobby fr… |
Bottom line: Braintrust when the question is whether your outputs are getting better, because scoring, experiments and datasets are the product. Helicone when the question is what is being sent, to which provider, at what latency and cost, and you want caching and fallbacks in the same tool. Braintrust is roughly three times the price of Helicone Pro and considerably deeper. Pick Langfuse for a cheaper platform option, or Arize AX if unlimited evals at $50 is the deciding factor.
Pricing and details
Braintrust · 4.2/5
Free plan available · $249/mo (Pro)
Scored outputs are the billing unit (LLM-as-a-judge, autoevals, custom scorers) alongside processed data and model credits; retention beyond 30 days is billed at $0.50/GB/mo up to 180 days on Pro
No published annual rate; Pro offers 6-12 months free for qualifying startups
Braintrust is the observability and eval platform with the most explicit score pricing in the cluster: Starter is $0 with 10K scores a month, Pro jumps to $249/mo with 50K scores plus cheaper per-1K rates.
Score breakdown
Pros
- The most explicit pricing in the cluster: scores are named as the billing unit with rates ($2.50/1K on Starter, $1.50/1K on Pro), processed data and model credits are listed line by line
- Starter is genuinely free with unlimited users, projects, datasets, playgrounds and experiments - no card required
- Retention is priced rather than hidden: 14 days included on Starter, 30 on Pro, then $0.50/GB/mo up to 180 days
- 6-12 months free for qualifying startups, and an open research program with published foundations
Cons
- The Starter-to-Pro step is $0 to $249/mo, so a team that crosses 10K scored outputs a month faces a large step rather than a gradual bill
- Custom charts, environments, priority support and RBAC are Pro-only, so the free tier is genuinely basic
- No S3 data export or custom retention policies until Enterprise
Pricing verified 2026-10-03
Helicone · 3.8/5
Free plan available · $79/mo (Pro)
Requests are the billing unit and usage-based pricing applies on top of every paid tier; storage beyond 1 GB is usage-billed, and Helicone announced it has joined Mintlify
No published annual rate; published discounts are 50% off year one for startups under 2 years old and under $5M raised, org-size-based non-profit discounts, a $100 first-year credit for open-source companies and free plans for students
Helicone is the request-level observability and gateway layer priced per request: Hobby free with 10,000 requests a month, Pro at $79/mo, Team at $799/mo, and usage-based pricing on top.
Score breakdown
Pros
- The easiest adoption story in the cluster - a one-line integration, the clearest interface of the five, and no framework lock-in since it sits at the request layer
- Straightforward request-based pricing with a published calculator: 10K free requests, then usage-based billing on every paid tier
- Caching, rate limits, automatic fallbacks and a gateway ship in the same product, so observability and routing are one purchase
- Real discount programs: 50% off year one for startups under 2 years old and under $5M raised, org-size non-profit discounts, a $100 credit for open-source companies, free for students
Cons
- Narrowest scope: its own pricing page rates its tracing, UI, experiments and evaluation as limited or average against the other four
- 7-day retention on Hobby and only 1 month on Pro, with 3 months on the $799 Team plan
- Ingest ceilings are low by comparison - 10 logs/min on Hobby against 1,000 on Pro and 30,000 on Enterprise
Pricing verified 2026-10-03
Frequently asked questions
Which is better overall, Braintrust or Helicone?
Braintrust is our overall pick (4.2/5 vs 3.8/5). Braintrust prices scored outputs (10K free, then $2.50/1K; Pro $249/mo for 50K at $1.50/1K); Helicone prices requests (10K free, then Pro at $79/mo with usage on top).
Do Braintrust and Helicone offer free plans?
Braintrust and Helicone have a free tier. Braintrust paid plans start at $249/mo (Pro); Helicone paid plans start at $79/mo (Pro).
What does Braintrust cost?
$249/mo (Pro) — Scored outputs are the billing unit (LLM-as-a-judge, autoevals, custom scorers) alongside processed data and model credits; retention beyond 30 days is billed at $0.50/GB/mo up to 180 days on Pro. Prices were last verified on 2026-10-03.