A Helicone alternative for LLM cost tracking

Why Helicone users are looking for an alternative

Nothing breaks today. But a tool in maintenance mode won't add the things a growing bill needs: per-customer margin, a forecast, or advice on which model to move to. That's the gap people are filling.

Helicone vs LLMtrack at a glance

Helicone figures from helicone.ai/pricing, 16 Oct 2026. "Not listed" means we couldn't find it on that page, which isn't proof it doesn't exist.

What you'd see in LLMtrack

Every number is priced component by component: text in and out, cached reads, cache writes, reasoning and audio each at their own rate. You can check any rate on the AI API cost calculator before you ship a feature.

Who should switch, and who should stay

How to switch from Helicone

1. 01

   Point your base URL back at the provider

   Remove gateway.helicone.ai from your client config. If you need a gateway for caching or fallbacks, set up LiteLLM cost tracking, OpenRouter cost tracking or Cloudflare AI Gateway cost tracking instead. Each connects to LLMtrack with one URL and no SDK.

2. 02

   Install the SDK and add one line

   Using the Node and Python LLM cost tracking SDKs:

   npm install llmtrack
   
   import { LLMtrack, fromOpenAIUsage } from 'llmtrack'
   const llmtrack = new LLMtrack({ apiKey: process.env.LLMTRACK_API_KEY,
     onError: (e) => console.warn(e.code, e.message) })
   
   const res = await openai.chat.completions.create({ model, messages })
   llmtrack.track({ provider: 'openai', model: res.model,
     feature: 'summarizer', customerId: 'acme-corp',
     ...fromOpenAIUsage(res.usage) })

3. 03

   Name your features

   Give each call site its own feature. If every call is named "chat", you get one bar. The guide to tracking LLM costs in production covers naming.

Helicone's history doesn't move over. LLMtrack starts from your next request, priced in under a second.

Questions