Llama Guard 4 12B API pricing
Meta · Budget price tier · Llama 4 · released 2025-04. Prices in USD per 1 million tokens. Data snapshot: 2026-11-12.
A support ticket workload of 100K requests a month costs $36.00 on Llama Guard 4 12B; the next cheaper model in the Budget price tier for this workload, Seed-2.0-Mini, does it for $35.00. Llama Guard 4 12B has held the same list price since 2026-08-15 and is the 38th cheapest of 160 models in the Budget price tier. Only one host, DeepInfra, sells it, so there is no second price to shop. No Arena score is published for it, so it carries no Efficiency score and cannot hold the FinOps Friendly badge.
- Input: $0.18 per 1M tokens
- Output: $0.18 per 1M tokens
- Batch API (in/out): Not published
- Prompt-cache read: Not published
- Context window: 164K tokens
- Arena ELO: Not published
Market position
On blended price ($0.18 per 1M tokens at 30% input, 70% output) it is cheaper than 77% of models in the Budget price tier: 38th cheapest of 160. Across every price tier it is cheaper than 88% of priced text models in the catalogue: 38th cheapest of 303. No Arena score has been published for Llama Guard 4 12B, so this page does not rank it on quality and OptimNow's quality bars do not apply to it. 77 of the 160 models we list in the Budget price tier carry one. An unranked model is unmeasured, not poor: the benchmark needs votes, and a recent release has not had time to collect them.
Licence, size and capabilities
Llama Guard 4 12B is open weights, which is not the same as open source: the weights are published, but under Llama 4, a licence that restricts some uses. Read it before self-hosting commercially. Its published size is 12B parameters. Listed capabilities: Text, Vision. Filling its 164K context window once costs $0.0295 in input tokens at list price.
Pricing by host
A host is a company that runs the model and sells it by the token: the model maker, a cloud platform like Amazon Bedrock, Azure or Vertex, or an independent host. One model, several hosts, and often several prices. This model is sold by 1 host. The price we quote elsewhere on this page is marked. We quote one host's rate so that models stay comparable; it is not a recommendation to buy there.
DeepInfra is the only host with a published rate, $0.18 input / $0.18 output per 1M tokens, which is the price we quote.
| Host | Input $/1M | Output $/1M | Precision |
|---|---|---|---|
| DeepInfra (price we quote) | $0.18 | $0.18 | bf16 |
List prices as published on 2026-11-12, via OpenRouter. Negotiated rates, committed-use discounts and provisioned capacity are not shown.
Monthly cost at 100K requests, by business use case
From the after-discounts figure (prompt caching on the cached input share, batch API for async workloads, only where Meta publishes those rates), which assumes you implement both, to the list price. One figure means no discount is published.
| Use case | Tokens (in/out) | Monthly (after discounts – list) |
|---|---|---|
| Support Ticket | 1,500 / 500 | $36 |
| Knowledge Q&A | 2,000 / 800 | $50 |
| Meeting Summary | 10,000 / 1,200 | $202 |
| Marketing Content | 2,500 / 1,800 | $77 |
| Coding Task | 3,000 / 2,000 | $90 |
| Invoice Processing | 1,500 / 600 | $38 |
| Call Summary | 2,000 / 700 | $49 |
| Agent Workflow | 6,000 / 3,000 | $162 |
Price history
Llama Guard 4 12B has been in our daily price archive since tracking began on 2026-08-15, when it listed at $0.18 input / $0.18 output per 1M tokens. No list price change since tracking began on 2026-08-15. Last checked against the 2026-11-12 snapshot.
Alternatives to Llama Guard 4 12B
Llama Guard 4 12B carries no Arena score, so this page cannot place it against models of comparable quality. The alternatives below are its nearest neighbours on price in the Budget price tier.
- Next cheaper model in the Budget price tier: Schematron V2 Small (inference-net) at $0.176 blended, 2% less.
- Next more expensive: Nova Lite 1.0 (Amazon) at $0.186 blended, 3% more.
Other models from Meta
The 8 nearest to Llama Guard 4 12B in price, of 16 other Meta models in the catalogue. Prices per 1M tokens, input then output.
- Llama 3.1 8B Instruct: $0.02 / $0.04
- Llama 3.2 1B Instruct: $0.027 / $0.201
- Muse Spark 1.2 Contributor: $0.10 / $0.20
- Muse Spark 1.3 Contributor: $0.10 / $0.20
- Llama 4 Scout: $0.10 / $0.30
- Llama 3.2 3B Instruct: $0.05 / $0.33
- Muse Ember: $0.10 / $0.50
- Llama 3.3 70B Instruct: $0.71 / $0.71
Common questions about Llama Guard 4 12B pricing
- How much does Llama Guard 4 12B cost?
- Llama Guard 4 12B costs $0.18 per 1M input tokens and $0.18 per 1M output tokens at DeepInfra, the host whose rate we quote. Prices as listed on 2026-11-12.
- Which host is cheapest for Llama Guard 4 12B?
- DeepInfra is the only host with a published rate, $0.18 input / $0.18 output per 1M tokens, which is the price we quote. Host rates as listed on 2026-11-12.
- Does Llama Guard 4 12B offer batch or cached pricing?
- No. Neither a batch rate nor a prompt-cache rate is published for Llama Guard 4 12B as of 2026-11-12.
- What would Llama Guard 4 12B cost per month?
- With the Support Ticket profile (1,500 input and 500 output tokens per request), 100,000 requests a month cost about $36 on Llama Guard 4 12B at the list price quoted on 2026-11-12.
- Can Llama Guard 4 12B be self-hosted?
- Yes, within the terms of its licence. Llama Guard 4 12B is open weights, which is not the same as open source: the weights are published, but under Llama 4, a licence that restricts some uses. Read it before self-hosting commercially.
- Has the price of Llama Guard 4 12B changed?
- Llama Guard 4 12B has been in our daily price archive since tracking began on 2026-08-15, when it listed at $0.18 input / $0.18 output per 1M tokens. No list price change since tracking began on 2026-08-15. Last checked against the 2026-11-12 snapshot.
Its weights are published, which changes what you may run yourself: the cost gap between open weights and proprietary APIs.
These are list prices. Your real cost also depends on caching and batching, negotiated discounts, marketplace agreements, and the contracts you already have. OptimNow audits exactly that.
Build the business case · Get a FinOps review
LLM pricing · Models by maker · Cloud compute pricing · Compare models · Price barometer · FinOps guides · API and MCP server