Compare · 2026
Glow vs Helicone
Helicone is an observability gateway for engineers: route requests through it and get logs, caching and cost per request. Glow is for the owner: it reads usage from your providers’ admin APIs (no proxy, no SDK), so you get 30+ days of history on day one, per product, next to revenue.
Helicone priceFree up to 10K requests; Pro $79/mo; Team $799/mo
How it worksProxy or SDK in your request path
Built forEngineers debugging LLM apps
From helicone.ai/pricing, checked October 2026. Prices change; check theirs before you buy.
Side by side
| Helicone | Glow | |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue sources | No | Stripe (one or several accounts) |
| One view per product | By property tags you add in code | Yes: a product tree with channels under each product |
| Costs: hosting, SaaS, cards, bank | No | Ramp card spend, Cloudflare and AI bills; keep-or-cancel for unused SaaS |
| AI spend by model and key | Yes, per request (new traffic only) | Yes: OpenRouter and Cloudflare, per key and product, against revenue |
| SEO and analytics joined to revenue | No | Search Console, GA4 and PostHog joined to Stripe: clicks → signups → $ |
| Explains what changed | No | AI caption on every chart, daily briefing, “Glow found” nuggets with proof |
| Agents that act on the numbers | No | Daily agents grounded in your numbers; dispatch to Claude Code or Devin |
| Phone app | Web | Phone-first (iOS, Android), with web |
| Setup | Change base URL or add an SDK | Read-only keys, about a minute per source |
| Price | Free to 10K requests, then $79 a month | Solo $19, Pro $49, Studio $99 a month |
Which one should you pick?
Pick Helicone if
- You need request-level traces to debug prompts and latency.
- You want a caching proxy in front of your providers.
Pick Glow if
- You want cost per product and per key without touching code.
- You want history from before you signed up.
- You want AI spend next to revenue and the rest of the business.
Related
Glow vs Helicone: questions
Does Glow sit in my request path?
No. Glow never proxies your traffic. It reads usage and cost from OpenRouter and Cloudflare with read-only or management keys, so it can’t slow down or break your app.
Light up your numbers.
Join the beta. Connect Stripe and one AI key, and see every product’s money in, money out and AI bill in about a minute.
- Read-only keys
- Never shown again
- 2FA + Face ID
- 7-day trial