AI Token Router vs Groq: how to choose
Across 9 dimensions compared below, AI Token Router comes out ahead on 4 and Groq on 4, and 1 are a genuine tie -- so the honest answer is that it depends on which dimensions matter to your workload, and both sections naming a winner are on this page rather than only the flattering one.
Groq: Custom LPU silicon built for very fast inference. · Of the 9 dimensions below, Groq wins 4.
Raw throughput
AI Token Router
Standard GPU-class serving speeds
Groq
500–1000 tokens/sec on their published models — an architectural outlier, not a tuning claim
Hardware
AI Token Router
None owned
Groq
Own silicon (LPU/LPX) and a cost curve nobody renting GPUs can copy
Built-in agentic tooling
AI Token Router
Not offered — you bring your own tools
Groq
Compound and Compound Mini ship with web search and code execution built in
Speech-to-text
AI Token Router
Not offered — we do /v1/audio/speech (TTS) only
Groq
Whisper Large V3 and V3 Turbo, billed per hour of audio
Pricing transparency
AI Token Router
Every model's rate published, with the official rate beside it — 36–43% below official
Groq
No rate card on groq.com. Rates live in console docs for some models, and flagship Llama models are marked "Enterprise pricing" with no public number at all
Model catalog
AI Token Router
24 open-weight models catalogued across text, image, speech and video
Groq
A narrow production list — GPT-OSS and Llama text models plus Whisper. No image models, no video models
Video generation
AI Token Router
Yes — /v1/video/generations, billed at a fixed 5-second duration during rollout
Groq
None
Platform fee
AI Token Router
None. No minimum spend, no subscription
Groq
None published
Billing model
AI Token Router
Prepaid credits, self-serve; balance is a hard ceiling, exhaustion returns 429 insufficient_credits
Groq
Console billing, with a sales conversation standing between you and a price on their flagship models
Figures as each provider publishes them, last checked September 2026 — method and sources below.
How this comparison was made
- Where the Groq figures come from
- Every Groq cell in the table is taken from Groq's own published material -- their pricing page, their documentation or their rate card -- not from an aggregator, a press mention or our own testing. Where they publish no number for a dimension, the row says so rather than filling the gap with an estimate: no dollar figure appears in their column anywhere on this page.
- Where our own figures come from
- Our column is the catalogue that prices real requests, including the parts of it that do not flatter us: 7 of the 24 catalogued models are callable today, and the rows say so rather than counting the catalogue as the lineup. The rates behind it were last reconciled with upstream on Sep 2, 2026 and are published in full on the pricing page.
- When this was last checked
- September 2026. Competitor pricing and product scope both move without notice, so every figure here is a statement about that date rather than a permanent one. Anything you are about to make a decision on is worth confirming against Groq's own site before you make it.
- What is deliberately not compared
- There are no benchmark scores, no latency measurements and no tokens-per-second figures in our column -- not on this page and nowhere else on this site -- because we have not measured them. Where a speed claim appears in the Groq column it is theirs, repeated as they publish it and not verified by us. An unmeasured quality or speed number would be the easiest thing on this page to invent, which is precisely why there is not one.
- How the winner column is decided
- Each of the 9 rows is marked for one side: 4 to AI Token Router, 4 to Groq, and 1 a genuine tie. That marking is our judgement and you are free to disagree with it. The figures underneath it are the part you can check without taking our word for anything.
- Corrections
- If a figure here is stale or wrong, tell us and we will change it -- including when the correction runs in Groq's favour, and including when it costs us a row we currently win. A comparison only ever corrected in its own favour is not being corrected.
When you should choose Groq
If latency is the product — a voice agent, a live coding assistant, anything where a human is waiting on the first token — Groq wins and it is not close. Their speed comes from custom silicon rather than a scheduling trick, which means it holds up under load in a way GPU-based competitors cannot match by trying harder. They are also well capitalised and building serious capacity, and Compound gives you web search and code execution without wiring up tools yourself. If your workload is one or two big text models and you need them fast, go there.
When you should choose us
The gap worth knowing about is pricing: groq.com publishes no rate card, and their flagship Llama models are listed as "Enterprise pricing" rather than a number, so you cannot price your workload before you talk to someone. We publish every rate, with the model's official rate beside it. We also carry image and video models, which they do not carry at all.