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SambaNova Cloud

RDU-accelerated Llama 3 with very high tok/s

TL;DR

SambaNova Cloud — RDU-accelerated Llama 3 with very high tok/s. Free tier: Free developer tier with rate-limited access (10 RPM typical, varies by model). Frontier-scale 405B available on free tier — rare. API is OpenAI-compatible — point your SDK at https://api.sambanova.ai/v1.

Latency now
Uptime 24h
10
Free RPM
Free TPM
Get free API key → Read docs ↗ Pricing ↗

Free tier limits

  • 10 requests/min
No credit card required.

Models on free tier

  • Meta-Llama-3.3-70B-Instruct
  • Meta-Llama-3.1-405B-Instruct
  • Meta-Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct
  • DeepSeek-R1

Upgrade path

Higher rate-limit dev tiers and dedicated capacity (contact sales). Llama 3.1 405B priced at $5/1M tokens (input) on paid tier.

On-prem SambaNova systems, sovereign cloud, financial-services tier.

Endpoint

https://api.sambanova.ai/v1

OpenAI-compatible — works with the OpenAI SDK by overriding base_url.

Quick start
curl https://api.sambanova.ai/v1/chat/completions \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $SAMBANOVA_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "model": "Meta-Llama-3.3-70B-Instruct",
    "messages": [{"role": "user", "content": "Hello in 5 words"}]
  }'
When SambaNova Cloud is the right pick

Stay on free tier when

Trying Llama 3.1 405B for free. Apps where speed of large open models matters more than ecosystem.

Pick something else when

Closed models or vision; only Llama family + DeepSeek today.

FAQ
Is SambaNova Cloud's API really free?

Free developer tier with rate-limited access (10 RPM typical, varies by model). Frontier-scale 405B available on free tier — rare. No credit card is required to sign up.

What models can I call on SambaNova Cloud's free tier?

Most commonly used: Meta-Llama-3.3-70B-Instruct, Meta-Llama-3.1-405B-Instruct, Meta-Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct, DeepSeek-R1. The full current list is on SambaNova Cloud's docs page.

Is SambaNova Cloud OpenAI-compatible?

Yes — point the OpenAI SDK's base URL at `https://api.sambanova.ai/v1` and pass your SambaNova Cloud API key.

When should I upgrade from SambaNova Cloud's free tier?

Higher rate-limit dev tiers and dedicated capacity (contact sales). Llama 3.1 405B priced at $5/1M tokens (input) on paid tier. If your traffic is bursty or seasonal, the free tier may be enough; if you need a guaranteed SLA, upgrade.

See also
SambaNova Cloud vs Cerebras Inference

Side-by-side comparison.