Anthropic, Google and OpenAI each released a public and a vetted model in one week. The public tier costs $10 in and $50 out per million tokens for Fable 5.1 and Astra. Gemini 3.8 Flash stays at $0.75 in and $3.75 out until December 31. The vetted tier has no price and requires identity verification. OpenAI’s vetted tier needs a government ID and two hardware keys for individuals. Anthropic ties approval to an organization ID and limits access to US organizations. Google restricts its vetted tier to government agencies and critical infrastructure operators. OpenAI’s public tier can stop long-running agent tasks on the API. Benchmarks for Astra were run on the vetted tier, not the public one. Solo builders must now plan around credential gates rather than price.
What changed
Frontier models were sold as a single tier with price as the only gate.
What it unlocks
Access to vetted-tier models with fewer safeguards and advanced capabilities for approved users.
- $10 in / $50 out per million tokens (Fable 5.1, Astra)
- $0.75 in / $3.75 out per million tokens (Gemini 3.8 Flash, until Dec 31, 2026)
- 2 business-day review (Anthropic Cyber Verification Program)
What you need to act on it
- government-issued ID (OpenAI Daybreak)
- two hardware security keys (OpenAI Daybreak)
- organization ID (Anthropic)
- US organization (Anthropic, current)
- category membership (Google Fairwind)
- alpha tester status (OpenAI Astra advanced tier)
Sources