GenRelay vs Replicate: Pricing & API Comparison
Last verified: 2026-09-24.
TL;DR
- Replicate bills mostly by GPU-second / hardware time for open-weight models (SDXL, Flux Dev, Flux Schnell, WAN), which is cheaper for high-volume batch jobs but means your cost varies with model runtime and cold starts.
- GenRelay bills by fixed per-image or per-second output price, mostly for closed/frontier models (Nano Banana, GPT Image 2, Veo 3.1, Seedance 2.0) via one unified, OpenAI-compatible endpoint — no need to manage per-model GPU pricing or cold-start latency.
- If you need Flux or SDXL specifically, Replicate is the source. If you need Google/OpenAI-class frontier models behind a single API key with predictable per-call pricing, GenRelay is built for that.
Pricing table (image generation)
| Model | Provider | Price |
|---|
| Nano Banana Pro | GenRelay | $0.03 / image |
| Nano Banana 2 | GenRelay | $0.02 / image |
| GPT Image 2 | GenRelay | $0.02 / image |
| Gemini 3 Pro Image | GenRelay | $0.03 / image |
| Gemini 3.1 Flash Image | GenRelay | $0.02 / image |
| FLUX 1.1 Pro | Replicate | $0.04 / image |
| FLUX Dev | Replicate | $0.025 / image |
| FLUX Schnell | Replicate | $0.003 / image ($3 / 1,000) |
| Ideogram v3 Quality | Replicate | $0.09 / image |
| Recraft V3 | Replicate | $0.04 / image |
Pricing table (video generation)
| Model | Provider | Price |
|---|
| Seedance 2.0 Mini | GenRelay | $0.04 / second |
| Seedance 2.0 Fast | GenRelay | $0.06 / second |
| Veo 3.1 (8s clip) | GenRelay | $0.06 / generation ($0.0075/sec equivalent) |
| WAN 2.1 i2v (480p) | Replicate | $0.09 / second |
| WAN 2.1 i2v (720p) | Replicate | $0.25 / second |
Note: Replicate does not currently feature Kling, Veo, or Seedance as headline pricing-page models; availability varies by model page. GenRelay does not currently offer Flux or SDXL. These tables compare what's actually published on each pricing page as of the verification date.
API comparison
| GenRelay | Replicate |
|---|
| Billing | Prepaid USD balance, pay-as-you-go, no subscription | Pay-as-you-go, billed by hardware-second for most models |
| Free tier | $0.50 free credit on signup | Varies by model; no platform-wide free credit |
| API style | OpenAI-compatible REST, base URL genrelay.ai/v1 | Replicate-native REST, model-version based |
| SDKs | Python, JS, Go | Python, JS (community SDKs for others) |
| Model focus | Frontier closed models (Google, OpenAI, xAI, Zhipu) unified behind one endpoint | Broad catalog of open-weight + some closed models, run on-demand infra |
Who should use which
- Use Replicate if you need a specific open-weight model (Flux, SDXL) or want to self-host/fine-tune.
- Use GenRelay if you want one API key and one bill for the top closed frontier image/video models, with fixed per-call USD pricing and no infra/cold-start management.
Related
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