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Actualyze and Vercel AI Gateway

Actualyze. Keep Vercel AI Gateway. Governance shouldn't depend on whose inference you buy.

Vercel AI Gateway is an AI gateway for its model catalog, and Actualyze is the enterprise AI gateway and AI governance platform that can keep Vercel as one source. Actualyze puts every call on a budget, your own provider keys included.

Competitor facts checked against Vercel AI Gateway's documentation on .

In short

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each gateway's governance

Actualyze

Your organization

policy from Team Owners and Budget Managers

Inference

  • public APIs
  • brokers
  • GPU clouds
  • Vercel AI Gateway
  • your own servers

Vercel AI Gateway

Vercel AI Gateway pathway

policy from Vercel team settings

Inference

  • Vercel's model catalog
  • your keys, catalog providers only

Side by side

Vercel AI Gateway is Vercel's hosted AI gateway, with one API key and one endpoint for the models in Vercel's catalog. Calls run on Vercel's provider credentials or on your own provider keys, and usage is paid for with prepaid AI Gateway credits.

Actualyze and Vercel AI Gateway, side by side
ActualyzeVercel AI Gateway
Pricing and routing
Where cost figures come from

Priced per model and provider. Unknown cost is never $0

Vercel bases its rates on the provider's list price

Vercel doesn't document a way to enter your negotiated rate.

One model, many providers

One model through any provider the caller can use

Vercel picks providers by recent uptime and latency

A request can order or restrict providers, or sort them by cost, time to first token, or throughput.

Routing across models

Sizes each request, picks the cheapest model strong enough

A Virtual Model, one name over several models, picks only among models the caller can already use.

One primary model, with backup models tried in order

A Vercel Virtual Model saves one model and its routing settings under a custom name.

Provider prompt caches

Stays on the cached model unless moving saves money

Keeps a conversation on the provider holding its cache

On by default for text and chat requests, with one pin per model.

Access and spend
Who approves access and spend

Each model names its own approver. Budget Managers own spend

Vercel team owners set the model allowlist

A request for a model off the list is refused, and models Vercel adds later start disabled.

Budgets and limits

Budgets nest. A call past the limit is rejected

Stacked budgets that leave out spend on your own keys

Team, project, API key, and user budgets stack, and a request must pass every one that applies.

Chargeback and the month

Finance closes the month on one statement

Cost by model, user, tag, provider, or credential type

Vercel doesn't document cost centers or a monthly close.

Protection
On from the first request

Personal data masked from the first request

The default guardrail masks personal data in prompts and responses, and nobody can delete it.

Controls cover where data goes and what providers do with it

Weakening protection

Protection can't be quietly switched off

Only Vercel team owners can change the model allowlist

Records and reach
Audit record

Each routed call records which model answered and why

The record can't be edited, and it names the model the app asked for.

Request logs show the model served and each provider attempt

Vercel keeps routing details for 30 days, and logs export as CSV or JSON.

What the controls reach

Any LLM, anywhere, behind an OpenAI- or Anthropic-style API

Your own servers too, through a relay you run that only connects outward.

Providers in Vercel's catalog, with your keys or Vercel's

Your own keys work for any provider in the catalog, and a provider outside the catalog can't be added.

Bringing a model online

Each model goes live only after its own approval

With the model allowlist on, new models start disabled

Deployment
Deployment

Hosted today. On-prem deployment coming in 2027

Hosted, callable from any server, cloud, or local setup

Reach

Actualyze. Any model, anywhere, under one set of rules.

Actualyzeone set of approvals, budgets, and masking

  • Vercel AI Gatewayan OpenAI-compatible endpoint

    • its model catalog
    • model mappingsto your own deployment of a catalog model
  • a provider outside the catalogOpenAI- or Anthropic-compatible
  • a GPU cloud
  • your own serversthrough the Inference Relay

Actualyze governs every source without selling you inference.

Vercel AI Gateway works with providers listed in its catalog.

Actualyze governs every model you use and sells you none of the inference, in Vercel's catalog or outside it.

Any model behind an OpenAI-compatible or Anthropic-compatible API connects to Actualyze as its own endpoint, from a GPU cloud to a provider Vercel doesn't carry. Servers inside your network connect through the Actualyze Inference Relay, which you run and which needs no inbound firewall port. Vercel AI Gateway stays connected as one source, and every source gets the whole package for governing AI, end to end.

Vercel AI Gateway reaches the providers in its catalog.

Your own provider keys work for any provider in Vercel's catalog. Vercel's model mappings point a catalog model at a deployment you named yourself, such as one on Azure. A provider outside the catalog can't be added.

Spend

Actualyze. Finance closes the month on AI spend.

Actualyze

spend this budget sees

$1,000of $1,500

Support budget

through Vercel AI Gateway$600

on your own keys$400

Actualyze counts every call, your own provider keys included.

Vercel AI Gateway

spend this budget sees

$600of $1,500

team budget

through Vercel AI Gateway$600

on your own keys$400

metered separately

Vercel AI Gateway budgets don't count spend on your own keys.

No call escapes an Actualyze budget, so finance closes the month on all of it, your own keys included.

Every Actualyze API key names the budget it charges. A call on your own provider key counts toward that budget's monthly limit exactly like a call through Vercel AI Gateway, and both land on the same month-end statement. Every budget answers to an Actualyze Budget Manager, who decides who may spend from it, and team budgets can sit under a department's.

Vercel AI Gateway budgets leave out spend on your own provider keys.

Vercel budgets stack across team, project, API key, and user, and a request must pass every one that applies. A Vercel team owner can give a member Vercel's AI Gateway Budget Manager permission. Usage draws down prepaid credits, or Enterprise customers get one invoice.

Pricing

Actualyze. Priced at what you really pay, down to the call.

Actualyze

modelclaude-sonnet

throughyour own provider key

tokens1.4M

cost

$2.94

sourcethe rate you confirmed, $2.10 / M

Actualyze books the call at your negotiated rate.

Vercel AI Gateway

modelclaude-sonnet

throughyour own provider key

tokens1.4M

market cost

$3.50

chargedno credits, your own key paid the provider

Vercel AI Gateway reports the call at its market price.

With Actualyze, the rate you negotiated is the rate finance sees.

Actualyze books calls on your own provider key at the rate in your contract, as soon as that rate is confirmed. Your discounts show up in every budget and every chargeback.

Vercel AI Gateway bases its rates on the provider's list price.

A request on your own provider key shows $0 charged beside its market cost. If that request fails, Vercel AI Gateway retries it on Vercel's provider credentials and charges the retry to your credits.

Routing

Actualyze. The best model routing in the field.

Actualyze

a customer's question
support-answeran Actualyze Virtual Model
a routing model we train sizes itthen picks the cheapest model strong enough
  • Model A$0.15 / Mnot strong enough
  • Model B$0.60 / Mstrong enough
  • Model C$3.00 / Mstrong enough
    • OpenAI
    • Azure
    • Anthropicstandby
    • Bedrockserving
    • Vertexstandby
    • Google
lowest cost, strong enoughModel B through Bedrock

Actualyze answers with the cheapest model strong enough.

Vercel AI Gateway

a customer's question
a Vercel Virtual Model
the primary model, then backups in order if it fails
  • Model Aprimary
  • Model Bbackup 1
  • Model Cbackup 2
    • Anthropic
    • Bedrock
    • OpenAI
    • Google
the primary model's answer

Vercel AI Gateway returns the primary model's answer.

Actualyze reserves frontier models for requests that need them, with Vercel AI Gateway as one route among many.

An Actualyze Virtual Model is one name for several models. Our trained routing model rates each request, and Actualyze sends it to the lowest-cost model that clears the bar. Each model can be served through Vercel AI Gateway or straight from your own providers, and when one route fails, Actualyze switches to a standby.

A Vercel Virtual Model saves one primary model and its backups under one name.

Within each model, Vercel AI Gateway picks providers by recent uptime and latency. When every provider of the primary model fails, Vercel AI Gateway tries the backups in order.

Evaluate

Six questions every AI gateway should answer live

If your AI gateway can't tell you who approved a model or what last month cost each team, it's just moving traffic. Put these questions to every vendor on your list, and ask to see each answer working in the product. Actualyze answers every one today, and each comes with a check you can run in your own trial.

  1. Who approves a team's access to each model?

    The leading delegation and approval system for AI spend starts here. In Actualyze, each model names its own approver.

    Request a model that needs approval as a team member, and check who receives the request and where the decision is recorded.

  2. What decides which model answers each request?

    In Actualyze, a routing model we train sizes each request and picks the cheapest model strong enough, the best model routing in the field.

    Send an easy question and a hard one to one Virtual Model, then see which model each was routed to, and why.

  3. What happens to a call when its budget runs out?

    Actualyze rejects it before any model is contacted, so a budget is a real limit and never a surprise on the bill.

    Set a small test budget and confirm the next request is rejected once it reaches its limit.

  4. Does an unknown cost ever show up as $0?

    An unknown cost is never $0 in Actualyze, which marks it unpriced and flags it for FinOps, so no spend hides behind a zero.

    Connect a third-party endpoint with no catalog price, call it, and check the call reads unpriced, not $0.

  5. What is protected before anyone writes a policy?

    Personal data is masked from the first request in Actualyze, in prompts and responses, by a default guardrail nobody can delete.

    Open a new workspace's guardrails before writing any policy, and confirm the default guardrail is already enforcing.

  6. Can finance close the month on AI spend?

    Finance closes the month on AI spend with one Actualyze statement, a row for each budget, reviewed and then settled.

    Generate a statement for a month with traffic, then move it from draft to reviewed to settled.

Common questions

Can Actualyze keep Vercel AI Gateway as one of our sources?
Yes, Vercel AI Gateway becomes one source behind Actualyze, and your organization governs every call from one place. Actualyze connects to Vercel AI Gateway as an OpenAI-compatible endpoint, and your applications change only their base URL, API key, and model name. From then on, every call carries team access, a budget, guardrails, and an audit record.
What is the difference between Actualyze and Vercel AI Gateway?
The difference between Actualyze and Vercel AI Gateway is that Actualyze applies your rules to every model you use, including the ones Vercel doesn't sell. In Actualyze, each model's rule picks the approver for access, usually a Team Owner, and Budget Managers approve spend. In Vercel AI Gateway, Vercel team owners keep the model allowlist and set budgets, and can give members Vercel's AI Gateway Budget Manager permission.
Does Actualyze pick the model for each request?
Yes, Actualyze picks the least expensive model that can handle each one. Models from Vercel AI Gateway and models you reach directly can sit behind one Virtual Model name, and your app keeps calling that name while Actualyze makes the choice.

Sources

18 pages, checked

Vercel, Vercel AI Gateway, and other product names mentioned here are trademarks of their respective owners. Actualyze is not affiliated with or endorsed by those owners.

Head to head

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Give every model an approver and every call a budget.

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