Honest comparisons of the main LLM gateway and observability tools, using each vendor's own published pricing. I do not sell a competing gateway, so these pick a winner rather than steering you to one. Several of the best options are free.
Free forever tier, $49/month Production, and a free self-hosted open source build. Metered on recorded logs, not tokens. Good for most teams.
Free Hobby tier, $79/month Pro, $799 Team. Observability first and strong at it, which is a different job from enforcing a spending cap.
MIT licensed, free forever, production grade. The license costs nothing. Running it is the part worth pricing honestly.
Going direct is the right default for one app and one provider. Five honest triggers for adding a layer, and how many of the options are free.