Braintrust pricing

About

Braintrust (braintrust.dev, legally Braintrust Data, Inc.) is an LLM evaluation, experimentation and observability platform. Engineering and product teams use it to log LLM traces, run systematic “evals” (scored experiments) against datasets, iterate on prompts in a playground, and monitor quality in production. The pitch is that disciplined evals turn a flaky AI feature into a shippable one — Braintrust cites teams moving accuracy from below 40% to over 80% in a few weeks.

The company was founded by Ankur Goyal (previously founder of ML-data startup Impira, and an early engineer/VP at MemSQL, now SingleStore). In October 2024 it raised a $36M Series A led by a16z’s Martin Casado (total funding ~$45M, reported ~$150M valuation), with operator-angels including Greg Brockman (OpenAI), Guillermo Rauch (Vercel), Simon Last (Notion), Arthur Mensch (Mistral) and Bryan Helmig (Zapier), plus Datadog and Databricks Ventures. Braintrust is used inside OpenAI, Notion, Stripe, Vercel, Airtable and Instacart.

Note: this is the AI evals company, not the unrelated “Braintrust” freelance talent network (usebraintrust.com / BTRST token).

Pricing summary : How Braintrust’s pricing model works

Braintrust charges a flat monthly platform fee per workspace — $0 (Starter), $249 (Pro), or custom (Enterprise) — that bundles a generous allotment of usage, then bills metered overages on three independent meters once you exceed the bundle:

1. Token credits for the AI-powered Topics/Loop pipeline: $10 included on Starter, $249 on Pro, then $0.06 per million input tokens and $0.40 per million output tokens on every tier.
2. Processed data (total GB ingested across logs, experiments and datasets): 1 GB / 5 GB included, then $4/GB (Starter) or $3/GB (Pro).
3. Scores (each recorded evaluation result counts as one): 10K / 50K included, then $2.50 per 1,000 (Starter) or $1.50 per 1,000 (Pro).

This is a textbook hybrid subscription-plus-usage model: a fixed platform fee that bundles usage, with metered overage beyond it.

What makes this different: unlike most LLM-observability rivals, Braintrust charges nothing per seat — every tier, including the free one, has unlimited users, projects, experiments and datasets. Cost scales with how much AI traffic and evaluation you run, not with team size. The flat $249 Pro fee (rather than a usage-only ramp) gives small teams a predictable ceiling before any overage kicks in.

Pricing by product

Sales motions across products: self-serve / PLG for Starter and Pro (sign up, no credit card, upgrade in-product), sales-led for Enterprise (custom quote, security review, deployment choice).

Hidden costs : What Braintrust users actually pay

The headline $249 looks cheap, but the three overage meters are where bills grow. The biggest surprise factor is processed data: it counts every byte of inputs, outputs, prompts, metadata, traces, spans and attachments — so verbose multi-step agents and large RAG contexts burn the GB allowance fast. Scores scale with how aggressively you sample production traffic for evals (the on-site calculator defaults to scoring ~15% of traffic). Token credits cover the platform’s own AI features (Topics/Loop), separate from your model bills.

A rough Pro-tier month for an AI-native team running real eval coverage (illustrative estimates, not official):

On-demand overage must be enabled; otherwise Starter simply pauses the Topics pipeline at the credit limit and caps usage rather than charging you. Enterprise pricing (custom retention, S3 export, on-prem, BAA/SLA) is unpublished and quote-only.

Want to estimate your own Braintrust bill? Use the Braintrust pricing calculator to model your costs based on usage patterns.

Pricing evolution : Braintrust pricing history and changes

Cadence

Tracked range: Jan 2025–present, from 17 Wayback snapshots of braintrust.dev/pricing. The flat $249 Pro fee has held since launch; what changed was the dimensions (seats removed, token credits added).

Notable changes

• 2025 Q1 — Earliest model: free Builder (1,000 spans/week, ≤5 users) + custom Enterprise + free Open-source/.edu tier; self-serve pricing advertised as “coming soon.”
• ~Apr 2025 — Self-serve Free + Pro ($249/mo) launch. Switched the value metric to processed data (GB) and scores, with $3/GB and $1.50/1K overages on Pro. Free and Pro still capped at 5 users.
• ~Aug 2025 — Seat caps dropped to unlimited on Free and Pro; Pro gains unlimited trace spans. Braintrust commits to monetizing volume, not headcount.
• ~Mar 2026 — “Starter” rebrand + token credits. Free renamed Starter; a token-credit meter ($10 / $249 included, then $0.06/$0.40 per Mtok) added for the AI-powered Topics/Loop pipeline; transparent on-demand overage published.

What’s unique : Braintrust’s distinctive pricing mechanics

1. Zero per-seat pricing — unlimited users on every tier. This is the headline differentiator in a category (LangSmith, Arize, Humanloop) where most rivals charge per seat. Braintrust deliberately removed its early 5-user caps in mid-2025, betting that frictionless team sprawl drives more logged data and evals, which is what it actually bills for.

2. Three independent usage meters, not one. Cost is a function of token credits (its own AI features), processed data (GB ingested), and scores (eval results) — each with its own included bundle and overage rate that improves on Pro. Buyers tune cost by sampling rate and trace verbosity rather than user count.

3. Flat fee as a predictability ceiling. The $249 Pro fee is a fixed, knowable number that bundles meaningful usage before any overage. Combined with spend alerts and a “pause-not-bill” default on Starter, it positions Braintrust against the bill-shock reputation of pure pay-as-you-go observability tools.

Strengths & weaknesses

Billing UX : Braintrust billing controls and transparency

• Billing controls — On-demand overage is opt-in. Without it, Starter pauses the Topics pipeline at the credit limit rather than charging; with it enabled, excess usage is billed on the invoice. No long-term commit is required.
• Usage visibility — A billing dashboard shows usage charts and detailed reports across all three meters. Starter and Pro can set custom spend alerts; Starter also gets automatic notifications at 80%, 90% and 100% of included limits.
• Payment options — Self-serve Starter/Pro are credit-card, monthly. Enterprise is invoiced under a custom contract (DPA click-through on Pro; custom DPA/BAA on Enterprise).

Strategic wins : Why Braintrust’s pricing decisions worked

1. Killing per-seat pricing to fuel land-and-expand

By removing seat caps in 2025, Braintrust let entire eng+product orgs onto the platform without a budget conversation — every new user generates more logs and evals, which is the metered revenue base. This is a textbook value-metric realignment: bill the thing that grows with value, not the thing that creates adoption friction. See how AI companies are shifting from per-user licenses.

2. A flat fee that tames bill-shock fear

A predictable $249 Pro fee with a generous bundle, plus opt-in overage and spend alerts, directly answers the cost-unpredictability and bill-shock anxiety that dogs pure usage-based observability tools. Buyers get a known floor and explicit controls before any variable spend.

3. Picking value metrics aligned to the eval workflow

Data ingested and scores recorded both rise with how seriously a team invests in evaluation — the exact behavior Braintrust wants to encourage. Tying price to evals run is a clean example of choosing the right usage metric.

Areas to improve : Gaps in Braintrust’s pricing approach

1. Three meters are hard to forecast

Token credits, processed data and scores each have their own bundle and rate, and “processed data” counts every byte of traces — so a team can’t easily predict its bill without the on-site calculator. A single blended unit or clearer per-trace cost guidance would reduce friction. See bill shock and cost unpredictability.

2. Short retention forces an early Enterprise jump

14-day (Starter) and 30-day (Pro) default retention is tight for teams that need historical eval comparisons or audit trails, pushing them to quote-only Enterprise sooner than the usage meters otherwise would. A paid retention add-on on Pro would soften that cliff.

3. Enterprise is a black box

On-prem, S3 export, BAA, SLAs and custom retention are all gated behind “contact us” with no published anchor. For a company selling transparency in AI, a more transparent Enterprise starting point would reinforce the brand.

Key takeaways

1. No per-seat fees is the defining choice. Unlimited users on every tier — including free — removes adoption friction and is rare among LLM-observability rivals that charge per seat.
2. Cost rides three meters, not one. Token credits, processed data and scores each bill independently, so spend tracks AI traffic and eval intensity, not headcount.
3. The flat $249 Pro fee is a predictability anchor. It bundles real usage before overage and pairs with spend alerts and a pause-not-bill default to fight bill-shock.
4. The value metric evolved deliberately. Braintrust moved from spans/seats (2025) to processed-data + scores + token credits (2026), aligning price ever more tightly to evaluation volume.
5. Retention and Enterprise opacity are the soft spots. Tight default retention and a fully quote-only Enterprise tier are the main friction points in an otherwise transparent model.

UBP implications

1. Decouple adoption from monetization. Braintrust shows you can give away seats to maximize logged usage and still monetize cleanly on consumption — a strong pattern for developer-tool UBP.
2. A flat-fee floor de-risks consumption pricing. Bundling generous usage into a predictable subscription, then metering only the overage, is an effective way to sell usage-based pricing to budget-conscious buyers.
3. Match the meter to the desired behavior. Billing on evals run and data ingested rewards exactly the discipline the product wants to instill — a clean illustration of aligning the value metric with customer success in the LLM-observability space.

Sources

• Braintrust pricing page (accessed 2026-06-09)
• Braintrust pricing FAQ (accessed 2026-06-09)
• Announcing our $36M Series A — Braintrust blog (Oct 8, 2024; accessed 2026-06-09)
• Investing in Braintrust — Andreessen Horowitz (accessed 2026-06-09)
• Internet Archive Wayback Machine snapshots of braintrust.dev/pricing, Jan 2025–Jun 2026, 17 captures (accessed 2026-06-09)

Bottom line

Braintrust is the a16z-backed LLM evaluation and observability platform used inside OpenAI, Notion, Stripe and Vercel. Its pricing — free Starter, flat $249/mo Pro, custom Enterprise, with unlimited users on every tier and usage overages on token credits, processed data and scores — is a deliberate land-and-expand play: give away seats, monetize evaluation volume. The trade-off is a three-meter bill that needs the on-site calculator to forecast, plus tight retention and an opaque Enterprise tier.

Want to compare Braintrust against other LLM-observability and MLOps companies? Browse the pricing blueprint.

Pricing timeline : Major events on a vertical axis

Each milestone below corresponds to a public pricing change, product launch, or material adjustment. Major events use a filled marker; minor adjustments use a faded one.

Pricing verified — credits + overage model

Jun 2026

Verified live: Starter $0, Pro $249/mo, Enterprise custom; token credits ($0.06/Mtok in, $0.40/Mtok out), processed-data ($4/$3 per GB) and score ($2.50/$1.50 per 1K) overages. Unlimited users on all tiers.

'Starter' rebrand + token credits + Topics/Loop

Mar 2026

Free was renamed 'Starter', and a token-credit meter was added for the Topics/Loop AI pipeline ($10 / $249 credits included, then $0.06/Mtok input, $0.40/Mtok output). Starter data overage set at $4/GB; scores $2.50/1K.

Seats go unlimited on Free and Pro

Aug 2025

The 5-user caps on Free and Pro were removed — every tier now advertises unlimited users, projects and experiments. Pro added unlimited trace spans; included quotas (1 GB / 5 GB data, 10K / 50K scores) held.

Self-serve Free + Pro ($249/mo) launches

Apr 2025

Braintrust shipped self-serve pricing: Free ($0, 1 GB data, 10K scores, 14-day retention, 5 users) and Pro ($249/mo, 5 GB then $3/GB, 50K scores then $1.50/1K, 5 users), alongside custom Enterprise.

Builder + Enterprise; self-serve 'coming soon'

Jan 2025

Earliest captured model: a free Builder tier (1,000 spans/week, up to 5 users) plus custom Enterprise and a free Open-source/.edu tier. The pricing page stated self-serve pricing was 'coming soon'.