Helicone
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.
Verified against: helicone.aihelicone.ai as of 2026-10-03
Quick verdict: Helicone is the pick when your team wants LLM observability and request routing from one vendor and will not benefit from trace trees or a full evaluation platform - it is a proxy-layer log with a gateway attached, which is exactly why it installs in one line. It is the cheapest way to get started here in absolute terms and the narrowest in scope, and it now belongs to Mintlify, which is worth weighing if you are deciding where a five-year observability relationship should sit. Pick Langfuse or Arize AX for real tracing and evaluation at a similar price, or LangSmith when the platform around the traces is the point.
- Our rating: 3.8/5
- Strongest dimension: Usability (5/5, research only)
- Weakest dimension: Localization (2/5, research only)
- Pricing: Free plan · $79/mo (Pro)
- Verification: Research-only pass over official sources, last checked 2026-10-03. Sources: helicone.ai, helicone.ai
Helicone pricing details
- Free plan available
- 7-day free trial on Pro and Team
- paid plans from $79/mo (Pro)
- hobby $0 (10,000 requests/mo, 1 GB storage, 1 seat, 1 organization, 7-day retention, 10 logs/min ingest) · Pro $79/mo (unlimited seats, HQL, 1-month retention, 1,000 logs/min, 60 API calls/min) · Team $799/mo (5 organizations, SOC-2 and HIPAA, 3-month retention, 15,000 logs/min) · Enterprise custom (MSA, SAML SSO, on-prem)
- 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
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
In our index: Hobby $0 (10,000 requests/mo, 1 GB, 1 seat, 7-day retention) · Pro $79/mo (unlimited seats, HQL, 1-month retention, 1,000 logs/min) · Team $799/mo (5 organizations, SOC-2 & HIPAA, 3-month retention) · Enterprise custom · usage-based pricing on all paid tiers
How Helicone scores across our 6 index dimensions
- Functionality: 3/5 (research only)
- Usability: 5/5 (research only)
- Stability: 3/5 (research only)
- Collaboration: 4/5 (research only)
- Localization: 2/5 (research only)
- Value: 4/5 (research only)
Score rationale: The easiest to adopt in the cluster - a one-line integration, the clearest interface of the five, and a request-based model that reads like a hosting bill. It is also the narrowest: request logs rather than full trace trees, evaluation and experiments marked limited in its own competitive table, 7-day retention even on Pro, and the vendor has joined Mintlify, which puts its roadmap behind a larger company.
What Helicone does well
- 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
Where Helicone falls short
- 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
- The company has joined Mintlify, so roadmap and support now sit inside a larger vendor
How Helicone compares to other LLM Observability tools
Our index tracks 5 LLM Observability tools. Helicone sits at 3.8/5, with 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. Here are the 4 closest alternatives we hold pricing and scoring evidence for.
- LangSmith — 4.4/5 · Free plan · $39/seat/mo (Plus)
LangSmith is the observability and evaluation platform from the LangChain team: $0/seat with 5K base traces a month, Plus at $39/seat with 10K, then pay-as-you-go at $1.00 per LangChain Standard Unit. - Langfuse — 4.3/5 · Free plan · $29/mo (Core)
Langfuse is the open-source-first LLM observability platform: free Hobby with 50K units a month, Core at $29/mo for 100K units and 90-day retention, Pro at $199/mo with three-year retention, Enterprise at $2,499/mo. - Braintrust — 4.2/5 · Free plan · $249/mo (Pro)
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. - Arize AX — 4.0/5 · Free plan · $50/mo (AX Pro)
Arize AX is the cheapest paid step in the cluster at $50/mo, with a $0 Free tier (25K spans, 1 GB, 15-day retention) and a free open-source sibling in Arize Phoenix for fully local tracing.
Frequently asked questions about Helicone
How much does Helicone cost?
Free plan available; 7-day free trial on Pro and Team; paid plans from $79/mo (Pro); hobby $0 (10,000 requests/mo, 1 GB storage, 1 seat, 1 organization, 7-day retention, 10 logs/min ingest) · Pro $79/mo (unlimited seats, HQL, 1-month retention, 1,000 logs/min, 60 API calls/min) · Team $799/mo (5 organizations, SOC-2 and HIPAA, 3-month retention, 15,000 logs/min) · Enterprise custom (MSA, SAML SSO, on-prem); 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. Billing detail: 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. Figures verified 2026-10-03.
Does Helicone have a free plan?
Yes. Helicone has a free tier; paid plans start at $79/mo (Pro).
What is Helicone rated in our index?
Helicone sits at 3.8/5 in our index, strongest on usability (5/5, research only) and weakest on localization (2/5, research only). Helicone is the pick when your team wants LLM observability and request routing from one vendor and will not benefit from trace trees or a full evaluation platform - it is a proxy-layer log with a gateway attached, which is exactly why it installs in one line. It is the cheapest way to get started here in absolute terms and the narrowest in scope, and it now belongs to Mintlify, which is worth weighing if you are deciding where a five-year observability relationship should sit. Pick Langfuse or Arize AX for real tracing and evaluation at a similar price, or LangSmith when the platform around the traces is the point.
What are the drawbacks of Helicone?
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 The company has joined Mintlify, so roadmap and support now sit inside a larger vendor.
What does Helicone do well?
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.
How was Helicone verified?
Research-only pass over official sources, last checked 2026-10-03. Sources: helicone.ai, helicone.ai.
What are the alternatives to Helicone?
We track LangSmith, Langfuse, Braintrust, Arize AX as the closest alternatives in our LLM Observability index, and 4 head-to-head comparisons against Helicone are available.