Which LLM is the cheapest for our workload?

The best-for pages rank the live catalogue per task by the index that measures it, and the router picks the cheapest model that meets your quality rule for each request.

How much can we save on our LLM bill?

On the public benchmark the router saved 89% against sending everything to the reference model. Import last month's provider bill on the bill page and the estimate is computed on your own traffic before you change a line of code.

How often do model prices change?

The catalogue is refreshed from the vendors' price lists; each model page shows the date of its data.

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OpenSmartRoute

Switchyard by NVIDIA: pricing, context window and specs - OpenSmartRoute

Model catalogue

NVIDIA

Switchyard

nvidia/switchyardCatalogue: Indexed in the reference catalogue; nothing on this deployment answers as this model yet.

JSON

Specification

Published by the vendor; the platform bills at the target's declared price.

Switchyard

NVIDIA nvidia/switchyard

Switchyard is an open-source model router that switches between multiple models to optimize the cost of requests. By default it will use OpenRouter market data to select the most popular...

Input $/1M: -
Output $/1M: -
Context: 1M
Max output: -
Released: Sep 21, 2026
Modalities: text

Alternatives, and where the router puts Switchyard

Switchyard earns a request when it needs very long inputs; and the hardest requests, where the quality floor rules it out, to Claude Opus 5.5 (batch). Your rules decide the floor; the trace shows the comparison for every request.

Cheaper alternatives

Lower input price and an intelligence index within 5 points (this model has no published index).

None in the catalogue.

Better alternatives

A higher intelligence index, best first, with the price it comes at.

On this deployment

Nothing on this deployment answers as this model yet. Connect your own provider under Model providers, or add a target to your catalogue - the router picks it up without retraining.

Not available here yet

Signed in, add the model under Model providers; self-hosting, add a target with metadata.model set to this id.

targets.yamlyaml

# targets.yaml - declare a target that runs Switchyard
targets:
  - id: switchyard
    kind: llm
    name: Switchyard
    metadata:
      model: nvidia/switchyard          # links the target to this catalogue entry
    capabilities:
      domains: [general]
      supports_tools: false
      context_window: 1000000
    cost:
      usd_per_1k_tokens: 0.000000

Price among NVIDIA models

Input list price per million tokens; Switchyard is the cheapest of 13 listed.

1
Switchyard
free
2
Nemotron 3.5 Super VL (free)
free
3
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (free)
free
4
Nemotron 3.5 Content Safety (free)
free
5
Nemotron 3 Ultra (free)
free
6
Nemotron 3 Nano Omni (free)
free
7
Nemotron 3 Super (free)
free
8
Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B
$0.06
9
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning
$0.07
10
Nemotron 3.5 Super VL
$0.15
11
Nemotron 3.5 Content Safety
$0.20
12
Nemotron 3 Super
$0.30

List price is where the decision starts

Switchyard earns a request when it beats the field on your objective, not on the vendor's page.

The specification above is what NVIDIA publishes. What the router uses is the price you actually pay here, the latency measured on this deployment and the outcomes people reported - and it compares those against every other model that could take the request. Price a workload on the estimator, or send one live in the playground.

Photo: RDNE Stock project

For the business

What it means for which models you pay for.

Catalogue of every vendor
The right model, not the famous one
Price, context, abilities and benchmark indexes side by side, with the model that fits each task named.
The rankings
89% less
Lower cost per request
On the 150-prompt benchmark the router spent 89% less than sending every prompt to the reference model, and the judged quality went up, not down.
Read the benchmark
Per million tokens, every model
Prices you can compare

Specification

Switchyard

Alternatives, and where the router puts Switchyard

Cheaper alternatives

Better alternatives

On this deployment

Price among NVIDIA models

Switchyard earns a request when it beats the field on your objective, not on the vendor's page.

What it means for which models you pay for.

The right model, not the famous one

Lower cost per request

Prices you can compare

More from NVIDIA