# Llama 4 Scout API Rate Limits, Pricing & Performance (July 2026)

- Tool: AI API Limits & Performance Matrix
- Last updated: July 2026

## TL;DR

Llama 4 Scout is a live GA model (109B total, 17B active, 16 experts) with a 10M native context window and multimodal support. No first-party Meta API — access via DeepInfra ($0.08/$0.30, cheapest), Groq ($0.11/$0.34, fastest at ~446 t/s), CompactifAI ($0.10/$0.14 blended, verify), or Fireworks (~$0.17, ~1M context). Rate limits are set by the host. The recommended budget successor for all legacy Llama models.

## Frequently asked questions

### What is Llama 4 Scout's API rate limit?

Llama 4 Scout has no first-party Meta API. Rate limits are set entirely by your inference host. Groq's free tier is approximately 30 RPM with a 128K context cap. DeepInfra, Fireworks, and Together AI do not publish RPM limits publicly — check your organization's console. All hosts return 429 with a Retry-After header when limits are exceeded.

### Is Llama 4 Scout free to use?

Groq offers Llama 4 Scout on a free tier with approximately 30 RPM at $0.11/$0.34 per MTok. There is no zero-cost free inference tier. For production, DeepInfra at $0.08/$0.30 per MTok is the cheapest paid option (verified July 10, 2026).

### How do I access Llama 4 Scout's full 10M context window?

The 10M native context is only available via self-hosting the open weights. Hosted providers cap the context window: Groq at 128K, DeepInfra at 320K, and Fireworks at approximately 1M. Fireworks is the best hosted option for long-context workloads — use it for requests over 320K tokens.

### Llama 4 Scout vs Llama 4 Maverick: which should I choose?

Scout for most use cases — it is 47% cheaper on input ($0.08 vs $0.15/MTok) and 50% cheaper on output ($0.30 vs $0.60/MTok) on DeepInfra. Maverick has stronger reasoning capability (128 experts vs 16, 400B total vs 109B) and a 1M native context window. Route tasks to Scout by default and escalate to Maverick only for complex multi-step reasoning where quality differences are measurable.

### How do I increase Llama 4 Scout rate limits?

Since Meta does not operate a first-party API, rate limits are managed on each inference host. To increase limits: upgrade from Groq's free tier to a paid plan; add credit balance on DeepInfra or Fireworks; request a quota increase on Amazon Bedrock via AWS Service Quotas (1–3 business days); or distribute load across multiple hosts. For help architecting a multi-host routing system with higher effective throughput, RapidDev offers free scoping calls at rapidevelopers.com/contact.

### What is the cheapest way to run Llama 4 Scout in production?

DeepInfra at $0.08 in / $0.30 out per MTok is the cheapest verified option as of July 10, 2026. CompactifAI offers $0.10 in / $0.14 out (cheapest blended output price), but verify availability and SLA before committing production traffic. For workloads above ~$400–700/month in API spend, self-hosting the open weights on GPU infrastructure may be more cost-effective.

### What does the Llama 4 Community License mean for my app?

The Llama 4 Community License allows free commercial use and self-hosting for most applications. The key restriction: platforms with more than 700 million monthly active users must obtain a separate license agreement directly from Meta. For the vast majority of apps and APIs, this restriction does not apply. If your platform is approaching or exceeding this threshold, contact Meta directly for the enterprise license.

### Why is Llama 4 Scout faster on Groq than other hosts?

Groq uses custom LPU (Language Processing Unit) hardware designed specifically for transformer inference. As of July 10, 2026, Artificial Analysis benchmarks place Llama 4 Scout on Groq at approximately 446 tokens per second — the fastest among surveyed hosts. The trade-off is a tighter context cap (128K) and slightly higher per-token pricing ($0.11/$0.34 vs DeepInfra's $0.08/$0.30).

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Source: https://www.rapidevelopers.com/ai-api-limits-performance-matrix/llama-4-scout
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