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Baidu ERNIE API costs $0.10 to $10 per per million tokens as of April 2026, with 2 plans available. Pricing depends on your chosen tier, contract length, and negotiated discounts.

Use the interactive pricing calculator to estimate your exact cost based on team size and requirements.

  • Free tier: No free tier available

Baidu ERNIE API offers 2 pricing tiers: Pay-as-you-go (ERNIE 4.5, 4 Turbo, X1), Enterprise. The Enterprise plan is enterprise chinese-market deployments.

Compared to other llm api providers software, Baidu ERNIE API is positioned at the budget-friendly price point.

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How much does Baidu ERNIE API cost?

Baidu ERNIE API pricing starts at $0.10/per million tokens across 2 plans, with enterprise pricing available on request. Plans include Pay-as-you-go (ERNIE 4.5, 4 Turbo, X1) (custom pricing), Enterprise (custom pricing).

Baidu ERNIE API Pricing Overview

Baidu ERNIE API has 2 pricing plans ranging from $0.10 to $10/per million tokens. The Pay-as-you-go (ERNIE 4.5, 4 Turbo, X1) plan requires contacting sales for a custom quote and is designed for china-market apps and chinese-first workloads. The Enterprise plan requires contacting sales for a custom quote and is designed for enterprise chinese-market deployments.

This pricing was last verified in April 23, 2026.

Baidu ERNIE API uses pay-as-you-go token-based pricing with no fixed monthly fee under the Pay-as-you-go (ERNIE 4.5, 4 Turbo, X1) tier. Input pricing across the ERNIE 4.5 model family ranges from $0.07/1M tokens for the 21B parameter models to $0.42/1M tokens for the VL 424B flagship, with output tokens priced at $0.28–$1.25/1M tokens depending on model. Enterprise pricing is available on a custom-quote basis for high-volume deployments.

How Baidu ERNIE API Pricing Compares

Compare Baidu ERNIE API pricing against top alternatives in LLM API Providers.

All Baidu ERNIE API Plans & Pricing

Plan Monthly Annual Best For
Pay-as-you-go (ERNIE 4.5, 4 Turbo, X1) Custom Custom China-market apps and Chinese-first workloads
Enterprise Contact Sales Contact Sales Enterprise Chinese-market deployments
View all features by plan

Pay-as-you-go (ERNIE 4.5, 4 Turbo, X1)

  • ERNIE 4.5 Turbo: premium flagship
  • ERNIE 4 Turbo: balanced cost/performance
  • ERNIE X1 (reasoning): competitive with DeepSeek R1
  • Strong Chinese-language performance

Enterprise

  • Volume discounts
  • Private deployment

Usage-Based Rates

Per-unit pricing for Baidu ERNIE API API usage.

Pay-as-you-go (ERNIE 4.5, 4 Turbo, X1)

Model Input Output Cached Per
ernie-4-5-turbo 128K ctx $1.10 $4.40 1M tokens
ernie-4-turbo 128K ctx $0.400 $1.60 1M tokens
ernie-x1 32K ctx $0.280 $1.10 1M tokens
  • International tier billing in USD; Mainland tier uses CNY (different rates)

Compare Baidu ERNIE API vs Alternatives

Before committing to Baidu ERNIE API, compare pricing with these 3 alternatives in the same category.

All Baidu ERNIE API alternatives & migration guides

What Companies Actually Pay for Baidu ERNIE API

Median per-1M-token pricing across 5 models
Input $0.140/1M
Output $0.560/1M
Flagship models in this provider's catalog
Model Input /1M Output /1M Blended /1M
Baidu: ERNIE 4.5 VL 424B A47B $0.420 $1.25 $0.840
Baidu: ERNIE 4.5 300B A47B $0.280 $1.10 $0.690
Baidu: ERNIE 4.5 VL 28B A3B $0.140 $0.560 $0.350
Baidu: ERNIE 4.5 21B A3B Thinking $0.070 $0.280 $0.180
Baidu: ERNIE 4.5 21B A3B $0.070 $0.280 $0.180
Review scores
Source: OpenRouter API — medians aggregated from 5 models routed. Reflects router-surface pricing (may include modest markup vs direct provider rates).

How Baidu ERNIE API Pricing Compares

Software Starting Price Top Price
Baidu ERNIE API $0.1/per million tokens $10/per million tokens
Amazon Bedrock $0.07/per million tokens $75/per million tokens
Anyscale $0.15/per million tokens $5/per million tokens
Cerebras Inference API $0.1/per million tokens $6/per million tokens
Claude API $0.03/per million tokens $75/per million tokens
Cloudflare Workers AI $0.05/per million tokens $5/per million tokens

Baidu ERNIE API Pricing FAQ

01 How is Baidu ERNIE API priced?

Baidu ERNIE API uses pay-as-you-go token-based pricing with no fixed monthly fee. Via the Pay-as-you-go (ERNIE 4.5, 4 Turbo, X1) tier, costs depend on model size: smaller 21B parameter models start at $0.07/1M input tokens and $0.28/1M output tokens, while the largest VL 424B model runs $0.42/1M input and $1.25/1M output tokens. Enterprise pricing is custom-quoted.

02 What ERNIE 4.5 models are available via the API and what do they cost?

Five ERNIE 4.5 models are available: ERNIE 4.5 21B A3B ($0.07 input / $0.28 output per 1M tokens, 120K context), ERNIE 4.5 21B A3B Thinking ($0.07 / $0.28 per 1M tokens, 131K context), ERNIE 4.5 VL 28B A3B ($0.14 / $0.56 per 1M tokens, 30K context), ERNIE 4.5 300B A47B ($0.28 / $1.10 per 1M tokens, 123K context), and ERNIE 4.5 VL 424B A47B ($0.42 / $1.25 per 1M tokens, 123K context). Prices reflect OpenRouter routing and may include a modest markup over direct API pricing.

03 Does Baidu ERNIE API offer a free tier or trial?

Based on available data, Baidu ERNIE API does not offer a public free tier. All access under the Pay-as-you-go (ERNIE 4.5, 4 Turbo, X1) plan is billed per token consumed. Enterprise agreements with custom pricing are available for high-volume use cases.

04 Which ERNIE model offers the best price-to-capability tradeoff?

The provider median across all five ERNIE 4.5 models is $0.14/1M input tokens and $0.56/1M output tokens, represented by the ERNIE 4.5 VL 28B A3B model. The 21B models (both standard and Thinking variants) undercut this median at $0.07/$0.28 per 1M tokens, making them the most cost-efficient entry points. The 300B and VL 424B flagship models carry higher pricing ($0.28–$0.42 input / $1.10–$1.25 output per 1M tokens) and are suited for workloads requiring larger parameter counts or multimodal (VL) capabilities.

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