Where Helicone fits
Helicone is the strongest choice when observability is the job. If you want to see every request and response, trace multi-step agents by session, run evals, experiment with prompts, and watch cost and latency per model — with an open-source stack you can self-host — Helicone is purpose-built for it. It is deliberately a thin, one-line integration on top of accounts you already run, so adopting it changes nothing about who you pay for inference.
Where Kunavo wins
Kunavo removes the provider accounts and the per-provider math. Top up one wallet and call Claude, Gemini, GPT, plus image, video and audio, at 30–70% under each provider's list price depending on the model — no Anthropic Console, no Google Cloud project, one invoice. Generation endpoints are first-class, the native Anthropic Messages API is on the same key, and checkout is Stripe-native with local methods (Apple Pay, ACH, Alipay, WeChat Pay). Helicone tells you what your calls cost; Kunavo makes those calls cheaper and consolidates the bill.
How to pick (or use both)
Pick Helicone if deep observability, evals and an open-source, self-hostable stack over your own keys is the priority. Pick Kunavo if you want resold inference on one prepaid wallet at 30–70% under list, first-class multimodal, and one invoice. They compose: put Helicone's proxy in front of Kunavo (base URL https://api.kunavo.com/v1) to log, trace and evaluate the exact calls running through Kunavo's discounted catalog.
How you pay: Helicone vs Kunavo
Helicone can sit on either side of this question, so it is worth being precise about which side you would end up on. Kunavo's checkout is Stripe-native, so the list follows the buyer rather than our billing country: cards (Visa, Mastercard, Amex, JCB, UnionPay) and Apple Pay everywhere Stripe reaches, Link and Cash App Pay for one-tap repeat top-ups, Klarna and Amazon Pay, ACH bank transfer for US accounts, and Alipay and WeChat Pay for mainland China. Local rails appear by country — Pix in Brazil, Bancontact in Belgium, BLIK in Poland, EPS in Austria, MB WAY in Portugal — with Stripe converting the dollar amount into local currency on the checkout page, so a Brazilian buyer scans a Pix QR code for an amount in reais instead of hunting for a card cleared for international purchases. Its AI Gateway resells provider access out of credits you top up at 0% markup — the path its own docs recommend — while the alternative is to bring your own provider keys and keep Helicone as an observability layer only. Either way the platform is a subscription on top of the model spend. Helicone does not publish which payment methods its credits page accepts, so for a buyer outside card-and-dollar territory the honest answer is that you find out after signing up. Kunavo publishes the list first, because for a lot of buyers it is the deciding fact rather than a detail.