How Far Does Together AI's $5 Free Credit Go? 70B Turbo at $0.88/1M Tested: ~5M Tokens + FLUX at $0.003/Image Cost Table

Updated: 2026-08-29 · Official: https://www.together.ai · Pricing: https://www.together.ai/pricing · Console: https://api.together.ai · Verified: 2026-08-29 live pricing page + API test

One-liner: Together AI typically grants $5 free credit for new users covering text / image / embeddings in one stack, fully OpenAI-compatible at https://api.together.xyz/v1; at 70B Turbo $0.88/1M ≈ 5.68M tokens (~500 long chats) and FLUX.1-dev ~$0.003/image ≈ 1,666 images, it is the smoothest graduation path from "free trial" to "pay-as-you-go".

Why Together

• $5 actually runs end-to-end: 5.68M tokens is enough for a prototype + a small benchmark (e.g., 1,100 long doc summaries or 7,500 short Q&As), unlike "a few hundred calls" trials that expire before you finish integration. You can validate latency, quality and cost on real workload before paying.
• High-throughput inference cloud: Proprietary inference engine optimized for batch processing (thousands of doc summaries / embeddings). Cost per 1K docs is lower than low-latency providers when you can tolerate 1-2s per request.
• One billing for all modalities: Chat / Image / Embeddings / Rerank / Moderation share the same $5 pool. A full RAG stack (embed + retrieve + generate + image) needs no separate bills or keys.
• Zero migration: OpenAI-compatible endpoint — just change base_url to https://api.together.xyz/v1. Dashboard has a "Pause when credits run out" switch to prevent accidental charges after $5 is exhausted.

Free API Deep Dive (Verified 2026-08-29)

Source: https://www.together.ai/pricing snapshot 2026-08-29; $5 is the typical new-user grant, subject to console at signup. R1 is expensive on $5 — reserve it for hard reasoning only.

Cost Breakdown (at 70B Turbo $0.88/1M)

Rate Limits & Quota (Verified via Dashboard)

5-Min Quick Start

1) Signup & API Key

1. Sign up at https://api.together.ai/signup
2. Create key at https://api.together.ai/settings/api-keys → tgp_...
3. Confirm $5 balance and toggle Pause when credits run out in Dashboard → Billing

2) One-Click Calls (curl / Python / Node.js — all verified HTTP 200)

curl — Chat (70B Turbo)

curl -X POST https://api.together.xyz/v1/chat/completions \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $TOGETHER_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "model": "meta-llama/Llama-3.3-70B-Instruct-Turbo",
    "messages": [{"role":"user","content":"Write a one-line product slogan"}],
    "max_tokens": 100
  }'
# Expected: HTTP 200, body contains choices[0].message.content and usage.prompt_tokens / completion_tokens

curl — Image (FLUX.1-dev)

curl -X POST https://api.together.xyz/v1/images/generations \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $TOGETHER_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "model": "black-forest-labs/FLUX.1-dev",
    "prompt": "a cyberpunk street at night, neon lights, ultra detailed",
    "width": 1024,
    "height": 1024,
    "steps": 28
  }'
# Expected: HTTP 200, data[0].url is the image URL

Python (OpenAI SDK + requests for image)

from openai import OpenAI
import requests

client = OpenAI(base_url="https://api.together.xyz/v1", api_key="tgp_...")

# Chat
resp = client.chat.completions.create(
    model="meta-llama/Llama-3.3-70B-Instruct-Turbo",
    messages=[{"role": "user", "content": "Introduce Together AI in one sentence"}],
    max_tokens=100
)
print(resp.choices[0].message.content)
print(resp.usage)  # prompt_tokens / completion_tokens / total_tokens

# Image
r = requests.post(
    "https://api.together.xyz/v1/images/generations",
    headers={"Authorization": f"Bearer {client.api_key}", "Content-Type": "application/json"},
    json={"model": "black-forest-labs/FLUX.1-dev", "prompt": "a cute cat astronaut", "width": 1024, "height": 1024, "steps": 28}
)
print(r.json()["data"][0]["url"])

Node.js (OpenAI SDK)

import OpenAI from "openai";

const client = new OpenAI({
  baseURL: "https://api.together.xyz/v1",
  apiKey: process.env.TOGETHER_API_KEY
});

// Chat
const r = await client.chat.completions.create({
  model: "meta-llama/Llama-3.3-70B-Instruct-Turbo",
  messages: [{ role: "user", content: "Hello from Together" }],
  max_tokens: 100
});
console.log(r.choices[0].message.content, r.usage);

// For image, use fetch to /v1/images/generations with same baseURL

3) Practical Tips

• Start with Qwen2.5-7B, then upgrade to 70B: 7B is 5× cheaper (27.7M tokens on $5) and handles high-frequency calls, bilingual and simple summarization well. Reserve 70B/R1 for hard tasks that need quality/reasoning.
• Batch workloads belong on Together: For 1K+ doc summaries or embeddings, Together's throughput pricing beats low-latency providers. Monitor per-model p50 latency in Dashboard before locking in 70B vs 7B.
• Always enable "Pause when credits run out": In Dashboard → Billing, enable Pause before binding a card. Otherwise $5 exhaustion silently becomes pay-as-you-go.

Pricing & Pitfalls

Graduation path: After $5 is spent, Together's pay-as-you-go remains cheaper than closed-source (70B $0.88/1M vs GPT-4o $5/1M input). It is the cheapest first paid step. If you need pure free, fall back to OpenRouter :free models (e.g., qwen/qwen2.5-7b-instruct:free) as a safety net — same OpenAI-compatible code, just swap base_url and model ID.

Official Resources (Traceability)

• Official: https://www.together.ai
• Pricing: https://www.together.ai/pricing
• Docs: https://docs.together.ai
• Console / Keys: https://api.together.ai
• Status: https://status.together.ai

Verified 2026-08-29 pricing and model list; article will be updated within 24h on price change.

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