Batched Inference
Batch APIs let you submit thousands of prompts for offline processing at 50% of synchronous pricing · turnaround up to 24 hours.
Text reviewed October 5, 2026
Batch APIs let you submit thousands of prompts for offline processing at 50% of synchronous pricing · turnaround up to 24 hours.
Basic
Use cases: bulk content generation, offline data labeling, evaluation runs, embedding generation. Not for interactive apps. Current prices for every tracked model are on the BenchGecko pricing pages.
Deep
Batch throughput bypasses rate limits · you can submit 50K prompts even if your sync rate limit is 1000 RPM. The 50% discount applies to both input and output tokens. Providers run batches on leftover capacity, which is why the SLA is "up to 24 hours." Typical real-world turnaround: 1-4 hours. Batch pricing combined with prompt caching gives an effective 10-20× cost reduction vs naive synchronous calls.
Expert
Batch is idempotent · provider dedupes by custom_id. Failed items are returned with error codes; no partial charges. Anthropic batch supports cache_control blocks (cache applies across batch). Limits: OpenAI caps at 50K requests or 100MB per batch; Anthropic 100K or 256MB. Cross-provider pattern: use batch for reranking, synthetic data generation, large-scale evaluation. Finops teams now mandate batch for any workflow that can tolerate 1-24h latency.
Depending on why you're here
- ·A way to ask AI many questions at once for half price · but wait hours for answers
- ·Good for big non-urgent jobs
- ·Not for chat apps
- ·Use for eval runs, embeddings, bulk generation
- ·JSONL submission · poll until complete
- ·Combine with prompt caching for stacked savings
- ·Batch utilizes spare provider capacity · win-win pricing
- ·Enterprise workloads increasingly shift to batch
- ·Catalyst for very large-scale AI training data generation
- ·50% discount on input + output tokens
- ·SLA 24 hours · typical 1-4 hours
- ·Bypasses synchronous rate limits
Batch API is the first cost-cutting lever for any non-chat workflow. 50% off is enormous · use it.