Volcengine API API Pricing & Free Tier 2026
Verified May 14, 2026Volcengine API is ByteDance's enterprise cloud — Doubao LLM, video / livestream / recommendation algorithms, ECS compute, object storage; ByteDance internal tech outputs.
Free tier
Volcengine Ark hosts Doubao models with shared free quotas; non-Doubao endpoints (e.g., third-party model hosting) bill per-service.
Doubao Pro / Lite tiers each include 500K free tokens valid 30 days. Vision and image endpoints carry separate quotas.
Per-model pricing
| Model | Context | Input $/1M | Output $/1M | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ark Doubao-Pro-128k | 128K | $0.70 | $1.26 | Same pricing as direct Doubao endpoint |
| Ark Third-Party Hosting | — | — | — | Pricing varies by hosted model (e.g., Llama, DeepSeek). Contact provider. |
Rate limits & access
Rate limit: Per-service quota; varies by Ark endpoint.
Volcengine Ark is the platform layer; most Chinese-AI traffic should pick the Doubao-specific page instead.
FAQ
- Doubao vs. Qwen vs. DeepSeek?
- Price + Chinese: Doubao. Strongest general: Qwen-Max. Best cost-effectiveness + coding: DeepSeek. Differences narrowing — test for specific use case.
- Why did all China LLMs cut prices in 2024?
- May 2024 Doubao's aggressive pricing triggered price war; Alibaba / Tencent / Zhipu followed. End of 2024 DeepSeek-V3 pushed the floor lower.
Prices in USD. Some providers (DashScope, Doubao) bill in CNY; figures shown at ~7.2 CNY/USD reference rate. Verify on the provider's official page before procurement.