Prefactor vs Respan Gateway (2026)
A side-by-side comparison of Prefactor and Respan Gateway on pricing, features, and fit, so you can decide which is right for you.
Quick answer
Prefactor and Respan Gateway are both strong choices, but they fit different needs. Choose Prefactor if you mainly need engineering teams deploying production ai agents that handle sensitive user data or financial operations — its edge is blocks risky agent actions in real time rather than simply logging them after the fact. Choose Respan Gateway if you need managing multi-provider llm traffic for production ai applications — its edge is combines routing, observability, and evals in a single platform reducing tool sprawl. Prefactor starts at Contact for pricing; Respan Gateway starts at around $49/month based on usage volume.
Features compared
- Real-time agent run scoring for quality, drift, and risk using LLM-as-judge and technical evaluations
- Runtime enforcement that can pause or block high-risk actions like PII exposure or financial transactions before execution
- Native TypeScript and Python SDKs with support for LangChain, Claude, Vercel AI, OpenClaw, and LiveKit
- Human-in-the-loop approval workflows for sensitive agent actions alongside automatic blocking for the highest-risk scenarios
- Unified LLM routing across multiple AI providers with a single API endpoint
- Built-in observability including request tracing, latency monitoring, and logging
- Automated evaluations to benchmark and compare model outputs at scale
- Fallback and retry logic to handle provider outages and reduce downtime
Pros & cons
- Blocks risky agent actions in real time rather than simply logging them after the fact
- Generous free tier of 25,000 spans per month with no credit card required
- Broad framework compatibility through native SDKs covers most major agent development stacks
- Paid tier pricing is not publicly listed, making budget planning difficult without contacting sales
- SOC 2 Type II certification is still in progress, which may be a blocker for some enterprise procurement teams
- Combines routing, observability, and evals in a single platform reducing tool sprawl
- Provider-agnostic design makes it easy to swap or mix LLM providers
- Saves engineering time by replacing custom middleware with ready-built infrastructure
- Relatively new platform so documentation and community resources are still maturing
- Advanced evaluation customization may require technical setup not suited for non-developers
The verdict
Choose Prefactor if
you mainly need to engineering teams deploying production ai agents that handle sensitive user data or financial operations. Its edge: blocks risky agent actions in real time rather than simply logging them after the fact.
Choose Respan Gateway if
you mainly need to managing multi-provider llm traffic for production ai applications. Its edge: combines routing, observability, and evals in a single platform reducing tool sprawl.
Frequently asked questions
Is Prefactor better than Respan Gateway?
Neither is universally better. Prefactor is stronger for engineering teams deploying production ai agents that handle sensitive user data or financial operations, with an edge in blocks risky agent actions in real time rather than simply logging them after the fact. Respan Gateway is stronger for managing multi-provider llm traffic for production ai applications, with an edge in combines routing, observability, and evals in a single platform reducing tool sprawl. Pick based on your main task.
Which is cheaper, Prefactor or Respan Gateway?
Prefactor starts at Contact for pricing and Respan Gateway starts at around $49/month based on usage volume. Free tier: Prefactor — 25,000 spans/month, no credit card required; Respan Gateway — Free tier available with limited requests and basic observability features.
What is Prefactor best for?
Prefactor is best for engineering teams deploying production ai agents that handle sensitive user data or financial operations, companies that need compliance-grade oversight of autonomous agent behavior without halting development velocity, developers building on popular agent frameworks who want enforcement guardrails without rebuilding their agent architecture.
What is Respan Gateway best for?
Respan Gateway is best for managing multi-provider llm traffic for production ai applications, running automated evals to compare model quality across openai and anthropic, monitoring api costs and latency to optimize ai infrastructure spending.
Do Prefactor and Respan Gateway have free plans?
Prefactor: 25,000 spans/month, no credit card required. Respan Gateway: Free tier available with limited requests and basic observability features. Check each tool's pricing page for current limits, as plans change.