What Helicone does
Helicone combines an AI gateway with request observability, cost tracking, prompt management, experiments, caching, fallbacks, rate limits, and evaluation workflows.
Helicone puts the operational layer for an LLM application behind one API-compatible gateway while also supporting direct-provider logging. Teams can inspect requests and multi-step sessions, query telemetry, compare prompts, attach scores, monitor spend, and route among providers. Its open-source code and on-premises enterprise option broaden deployment choices.
The Hobby plan includes 10,000 monthly requests, one seat, 1 GB of storage, and short retention. Pro is listed at $79 monthly and Team at $799 monthly before usage-based request and storage charges; Enterprise is quoted. Provider tokens remain a separate bill. Model a real workload including retries, cached calls, long retention, ingestion bursts, and evaluator calls.
Prompts and traces can contain secrets, personal data, retrieved passages, tool arguments, and model output. Redact or omit fields before export, isolate environments, use least-privilege keys, and define retention. Cost estimates outside the gateway are best effort. A successful fallback may change model behavior, and automated scores are not proof of correctness, so test routing and require people to review consequential output.
How Helicone works
An application sends model requests through Helicone's gateway or instruments a direct provider integration. Helicone forwards the authorized request, records configured prompt, response, token, latency, cost, user, session, and custom-property data, and exposes traces, dashboards, alerts, prompts, scores, and experiments. Gateway policies can cache, rate-limit, balance, or fail over calls. Operators decide what telemetry is captured, validate estimates and evaluations, and retain human release authority.
How to set up Helicone
Map the telemetry boundary
List providers, data classes, regions, fields to redact, retention, users, cost owners, and the incidents the platform must help resolve.
Create isolated environments
Separate development and production organizations or properties, issue server-side keys, and keep provider credentials out of clients and traces.
Instrument a small service
Use the gateway or approved SDK integration, attach stable user and session identifiers, and verify that sensitive headers and payload fields are excluded.
Configure operational policies
Set budgets, alerts, caching, rate limits, provider order, retries, timeouts, and fallbacks with explicit behavior tests.
Calibrate and govern
Build reviewed datasets and scores, audit trace access and deletion, test failure paths, and require approval before prompt or routing changes reach production.
Helicone FAQs
Is Helicone open source?
Yes. Helicone publishes open-source components; its hosted service and enterprise deployment, support, and governance features have separate terms.
How much does Helicone cost?
A limited Hobby tier is free. Pro and Team have base subscriptions plus usage-based telemetry charges, while model-provider usage is billed separately.
Must requests pass through its gateway?
No. Helicone supports gateway and direct-provider integration patterns, although available routing and cost accuracy differ.
Does Helicone evaluate answer correctness?
It can store and run configured scores and evaluations, but those measurements need calibration against domain expert review.
Can it prevent provider outages?
Fallbacks can reduce some failures, not eliminate them. Capacity, authentication, incompatible features, changed behavior, and regional incidents still require testing.
Listing reviewed 2026-07-31. Product details and pricing can change; verify important terms on the provider's website.
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