//Compare>Nous Portal vs Together AI

Nous Portal vs Together AI

Nous Portal gives you a pay-as-you-go API, models that are free only on Nous Portal and discounts on selected models. Together AI offers no free trial, and its chat models include no Claude or GPT.

Start with Nous PortalSet it up in Hermes Agent

Why Nous Portal

  1. 01

    Pay-as-you-go API, no subscription needed

    Nous Portal API keys bill per token from your credits, at the prices on the models page. No subscription is needed, and x402 (beta) needs no account.

  2. 02

    Models that are free only on Nous Portal

    Step 3.7 Flash and LongCat 2.5 are free on Nous Portal, and Together AI does not list them. The Free filter on the models page lists every free model.

  3. 03

    Discounts on selected models

    Selected models sell below list price on Nous Portal, and some cost less than on Together AI, such as GLM-5.3 Flash.

  4. 04

    One plan covers models, tools and hosting

    Paid plans include Hermes Agent usage, hosted tools and one Hermes Cloud agent. Setup is one command or one click in Hermes Desktop.

At a glance

A check marks where Nous Portal has the edge.

Topic
Nous Portal
Together AI
Hermes Agent setup
Edge: One command, hermes setup --portal, or one click in Hermes Desktop.
Added by hand as a custom provider with a base URL and API key.
Subscription plans
Edge: Plus, Super and Ultra include Hermes Agent usage, reset daily to monthly.
No subscription plan for its API. Scale and Enterprise are by contract.
Agent tools
Edge: Paid plans include web search, images, speech and a cloud browser.
A code sandbox, enabled through sales. No web search tool documented.
Agent hosting
Edge: Every paid plan includes one always-on Hermes Cloud agent.
No hosted agents. Sells GPU clusters and dedicated containers.
Models
Edge: Claude, GPT, Gemini and Grok on launch day, beside open models.
Open models such as DeepSeek and Qwen. No Claude or GPT chat models.
Free models
Edge: Some are free only here, such as Step 3.7 Flash. See the Free filter.
No free trial. Some models are priced free after a minimum purchase.
How you pay
Pay-as-you-go API per token, with selected models below list price.
Prepaid per token, with up to 50% off batch jobs and a minimum purchase.

Switch from Together AI

  1. 01

    Run hermes setup --portal

    It signs Hermes Agent in to Nous Portal, lets you pick a model and turns on the Tool Gateway. Hermes Desktop does it in one click.

  2. 02

    Point your code at the Nous API

    Use an OpenAI-compatible client with a Portal API key at inference-api.nousresearch.com/v1.

  3. 03

    Keep your other providers

    Picking Nous Portal in hermes model keeps Together AI configured, so /model can switch between them.

hermes setup --portal

Questions

Nous Portal or Together AI: which is better for Hermes Agent?

Nous Portal gives you a pay-as-you-go API, models that are free only on Nous Portal and discounts on selected models. For Hermes Agent, paid plans add included usage, hosted tools and one Hermes Cloud agent, and setup is one command. The Hermes Agent docs call Nous Portal the recommended way to run Hermes Agent. Together AI also works with Hermes Agent as a custom provider, and it offers no free trial.

How does Nous Portal pricing compare with Together AI?

Both bill per token from prepaid credits. Nous Portal sells selected models below list price: on Nov 9, 2026, GLM-5.3 Flash cost 20% less than on Together AI. Together AI needs a minimum first credit purchase, gives batch jobs up to 50% off, charges 25% more for US-only requests and bills dedicated endpoints by the minute.

Does Nous Portal have free models?

Yes, and some are free only on Nous Portal: on Nov 9, 2026, Step 3.7 Flash and LongCat 2.5 were free on Nous Portal, not listed on Together AI and paid on Vercel AI Gateway. Beam 1.0 was also free on Nous Portal and paid on Together AI. The Free filter on the models page shows the current list, and the Free plan covers free models with standard rate limits.

Does Together AI have a free trial?

Together AI does not currently offer free trials. Its platform needs a minimum first credit purchase, and API access stops when the balance reaches zero. Some models are priced free, such as Ternary Bonsai 27B. Nous Portal's Free plan covers its free models at standard rate limits, and any account can link an eligible ChatGPT account for supported inference, with no paid Nous subscription.

Does Together AI offer Claude or GPT models?

On Nov 9, 2026, Together AI's serverless chat list named no Claude or GPT frontier model, and OpenAI appeared as the open-weight GPT-OSS 120B. Together Link can send difficult Claude Code requests to Claude Opus with your own Anthropic key, billed to your Anthropic account. Nous Portal lists Claude, GPT, Gemini and Grok models, including Claude Opus 5.5 and GPT-6 Astra, billed to your Nous Portal credits.

How do I switch from Together AI to Nous Portal?

In Hermes Agent, run hermes setup --portal. It signs you in to Nous Portal, lets you pick a model and turns on the Tool Gateway, and Hermes Desktop does the same in one click. On an existing install, picking Nous Portal in hermes model keeps your other providers configured, so /model can switch between them. In your own code, point an OpenAI-compatible client at https://inference-api.nousresearch.com/v1 with a Portal API key, which you create after adding credits or starting a plan.

Can I host Hermes Agent on Nous Portal?

Yes, every paid Nous Portal plan includes one Hermes Cloud agent, up to the plan's included size, and larger or extra agents bill daily from credits. Without a plan, a small credit balance lets you deploy one. Together AI documents no hosted agents. It offers a code sandbox and GPU clusters for your own workloads.

Is Together AI open source?

Together AI publishes open-source work, such as its Python SDK under the Apache 2.0 license and the RedPajama-Data-v2 dataset, and it serves open-source models. Together AI documents no public source code for its cloud platform. Nous Portal is a hosted account service. Hermes Agent, the agent Nous Portal is built around, is open source under the MIT license.

In detail

The Nous Portal API is pay-as-you-go

Nous Portal API keys bill per token from a credit balance, at the prices on the models page, and no subscription is needed for the API. API keys always use your credits, not a plan's included usage. Top-ups are paid by card through Stripe. For API calls, x402 (beta) lets you pay per request in Solana USDC with no account, API key or prepaid credits.

Together AI also bills prepaid credits. It offers no free trial, the first credit purchase has a minimum, and API access stops when the balance reaches zero. Serverless models bill per token, batch jobs get up to 50% off serverless rates and US-only requests cost 25% more. Dedicated endpoints bill by the minute while they run, and Scale and Enterprise customers are billed under contract.

Some models are free only on Nous Portal

Nous Portal offers free models, and the Free filter on the models page shows the current list. On Nov 9, 2026, Step 3.7 Flash, LongCat 2.5, Solar Mini 4 and Beam 1.0 were free on Nous Portal. Together AI's serverless model list priced Beam 1.0 as paid and did not list the other three. The Free plan covers free models with standard rate limits.

Together AI prices some models free, such as Ternary Bonsai 27B, but using its platform at all needs a minimum credit purchase.

Selected models cost less than list price

Nous Portal lists hundreds of models, with new frontier models the day they launch, including Claude, GPT, Gemini, Grok, DeepSeek, Qwen, Kimi, GLM and MiniMax, with prices per million tokens. Selected models sell below their list price, and the Discounted filter on the models page shows the current list.

On Nov 9, 2026, GLM-5.3 Flash cost 20% less on Nous Portal than on Together AI. Together AI's serverless list named no Claude or GPT frontier chat model: OpenAI appeared as the open-weight GPT-OSS 120B, and its OpenAI and Google entries were image, video and speech models such as GPT Image 2 and Veo 3.1.

One plan covers Hermes Agent usage

Nous Portal is one account for Hermes Agent, the Nous inference API and Hermes Cloud. The Hermes Agent docs call Nous Portal the recommended way to run Hermes Agent. One command, hermes setup --portal, signs Hermes Agent in, lets you pick a model and turns on the Tool Gateway. Hermes Desktop does the same in one click.

Plus, Super and Ultra include Hermes Agent usage, within limits that reset daily, weekly and monthly. You can use any model, and pricier models use your included usage faster. If you use it up, you can switch to a free model, wait for the reset or continue with pay-as-you-go credits. Hermes Business gives a team a shared Hermes Agent deployment with one balance and per-member caps.

Together AI documents no subscription plan for its API. Hermes Agent's docs show how to add Together AI as a custom provider with a base URL and an API key. Together Link, Together AI's own agent tool, is in beta for macOS and Linux and runs Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode and Pi Code on Together AI models.

Paid plans include hosted agent tools

On paid plans, the Tool Gateway gives Hermes Agent web search, page extraction, image generation, text-to-speech, speech-to-text and a cloud browser, with no separate vendor accounts or keys. Hermes Agent can switch any single tool to your own vendor key whenever you want.

Together AI's code sandbox runs commands and code in isolated environments, and your organization must have it enabled through sales. Its API serves image, video and speech models. Together AI documents no web search tool for its API.

Every paid plan includes a Hermes Cloud agent

Every paid Nous Portal plan includes one Hermes Cloud agent, up to the plan's included size: up to 4 GB RAM and 25 GB disk on Plus, 4 GB RAM and 100 GB disk on Super, and 8 GB RAM and 100 GB disk on Ultra. Larger or extra agents bill daily from credits.

Hermes Cloud runs Hermes Agent around the clock in the nearest available region. Each agent gets its own hardened container, and its files, memory and configuration persist whether it is running or stopped.

Together AI documents no hosted agents. It sells GPU clusters, reserved or on demand, and through its sales team, dedicated containers for your own inference code.

Sources (16), checked November 9, 2026

Every statement about Together AI comes from the pages below. If something here is out of date, email support@nousresearch.com and we will correct it. Statements about Nous Portal come from this site and the Hermes Agent documentation.

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