Helicone

What is Helicone?

Helicone is an open-source platform for monitoring and routing LLM traffic. You change one line, usually the base URL in your OpenAI SDK, and every request is logged with its cost, latency and errors. The AI Gateway adds a single OpenAI-compatible endpoint for more than 100 providers, with automatic fallbacks, load balancing and credits that carry 0% markup, or you can bring your own provider keys and use observability only. Sessions group multi-step workflows, custom properties segment spend by user, feature or app version, and prompt management, caching and custom rate limits are included. Pricing on the website lists a free tier of 10,000 requests, a Pro plan at $79 per month and a Team plan at $799 per month, with usage-based charges on top. Discounts exist for startups, non-profits, open-source companies and students. Developers building production AI apps use it to debug failures, watch costs and avoid provider outages.

Use cases

• Log and search LLM requests
• Track LLM cost by user or feature
• Route requests across providers with fallbacks
• Debug multi-step agent sessions
• Manage and version prompts
• Cache responses to cut spend

Who it's for

• AI engineers
• LLM app developers
• Startups
• Platform teams

Why use Helicone

• A one-line change gets every call logged, so you see cost, latency and failures without rebuilding your app.
• Credits carry 0% markup, so you pay what providers charge while using a single API for many models.
• Fallbacks and load balancing keep an application running when a provider fails or hits a rate limit.
• Segmenting by user, feature or custom property helps you find which part of an app caused a cost spike.
• The open-source codebase and a free tier make it easy to start before paying.

Helicone features

• One-line integration by changing the base URL
• AI Gateway with an OpenAI-compatible API for 100+ providers
• Automatic fallbacks and load balancing
• Request logging with cost, latency and errors
• Sessions for multi-step workflows
• Custom properties to segment requests
• Prompt management without redeploying
• Response caching and custom rate limits
• HQL query language on Pro
• SOC-2 and HIPAA compliance on Team

Helicone integrations

• OpenAI
• Anthropic
• Google
• OpenRouter
• LangSmith

How to get started with Helicone

1. Create a Helicone account and generate an API key.
2. Point your OpenAI SDK at the Helicone gateway URL, or add the proxy base URL and headers to an existing provider setup.
3. Add session and custom property headers so requests are grouped by workflow, user or feature.
4. Open the dashboard to search requests, review costs and latency, manage prompts, and set caching or rate limits.

Helicone limitations

• The free tier covers 10,000 requests, 1 GB of storage, 1 seat and 1 organization
• Pro and Team plans add usage-based charges on top of the monthly fee
• Team caps at 5 organizations; on-prem deployment and bulk cloud discounts are listed separately
• The pricing page says details are to come after Helicone left Mintlify

Helicone pricing

Yes, Helicone has a free plan. Paid plans start at $79 per month, according to the official pricing page on 24 Oct 2026.

Helicone plans

• Free

  Free

  • 10,000 free requests
  • 1 GB storage
  • 1 seat, 1 organization

• Pro

  $79 per month

  usage-based pricing applies

  • For growing teams
  • HQL query language

• Team

  $799 per month

  usage-based pricing applies

  • For scaling companies
  • 5 organizations
  • SOC-2 and HIPAA compliance
  • Dedicated Slack channel

Plans as listed on the official pricing page on 24 Oct 2026. Prices can change and may vary by country or exclude tax. Check the official pricing page.

Helicone alternatives

The main Helicone alternatives listed on Debuly are Langfuse, OpenRouter, Portkey, LiteLLM, Arize Phoenix and FastRouter.ai. The table compares pricing and platforms; order is A–Z.

1. 

   Arize Phoenix

   Open-source tool for tracing, evaluating and experimenting on LLM apps and agents, free to self-host or run locally.

   Developer platformsAutomation and agents
   Open sourceVisit Arize Phoenix (official site)
2. FA

   FastRouter.ai

   AI gateway with one OpenAI-compatible API for 200+ models, with routing, fallbacks, caching and cost controls.

   Developer platforms
   FreemiumVisit FastRouter.ai (official site)
3. 

   Langfuse

   Open-source LLM observability and evaluation platform for tracing agents, managing prompts and scoring outputs.

   Developer platformsAutomation and agentsCoding
   FreemiumVisit Langfuse (official site)
4. 

   LiteLLM

   Open-source AI gateway and Python SDK that gives one OpenAI-format API to 100+ LLM providers, with keys, budgets and cost tracking.

   Developer platformsCodingAutomation and agents
   Open sourceVisit LiteLLM (official site)
5. 

   OpenRouter

   Unified OpenAI-compatible API for 500+ AI models with provider fallbacks, pay-as-you-go credits and a free tier

   Developer platformsChat assistantsAutomation and agents
   FreemiumVisit OpenRouter (official site)
6. 

   Portkey

   AI gateway with observability, guardrails, caching and prompt management for teams running LLM apps in production.

   Developer platformsAutomation and agents
   FreemiumVisit Portkey (official site)

Helicone FAQ

Sources & verification

Facts on this page come from the official sources below, each with the date we read it. Written by Debuly; the vendor did not review this page.

Image credits

• Logo: from helicone.ai · fetched 23 Oct 2026 · Vendor trademark, used only to identify the product; removed on request
• Cover: none collected yet, so a generated tile is shown.

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