# Sail Research

> Cheap open-model inference: pick a completion window and pay 30 to 85% less.

Canonical: https://www.subconscious.dev/providers/sail-research · By The Subconscious Team · Updated October 11, 2026

- Founded: 2026, per Tracxn
- Example models: Kimi K2.6, GLM-5.3
- Website: https://www.sailresearch.com

## Overview

Sail Research sells throughput over latency. Founders Neil Movva and Samir Menon built a serving stack that packs as much work as possible into every GPU, and customers state how long they can wait through completion windows. Its docs quote each window against traditional providers: the default asap window serves at low latency for 30 to 70% less, balanced for 45 to 80% less, and the off-peak flex window for 55 to 85% less. Batch requests default to flex, and LoRA and custom-tool requests default to balanced.

The company launched its API in March 2026 and emerged from stealth in June with $80M in seed and Series A funding at a $450M valuation, led by Kleiner Perkins with Sequoia and Redpoint participating. It reports trillions of tokens a week and claims 3x to 10x cost savings over comparable hosts. The catalog covers open models like Kimi K2.6, GLM-5.3, GPT-OSS 120B, Qwen 3.6 and Gemma 4, plus customer LoRA fine-tunes, over OpenAI and Anthropic-compatible APIs. Sailboxes, generally available since July 2026, give agents persistent compute that can run indefinitely, and code-review startup Detail.dev uses Sail for agents that scan a codebase for three to four hours.

## Upsides

- Deep discounts for workloads that can tolerate minutes of delay per turn.
- Built specifically around long-running async agents, with sandboxes on the same platform.

## Core use cases

- Background agents that run for hours without a human in the loop.
- Evals, batch processing and offline research on open models.

## Downsides

- Custom tools and batch requests are not available on the low-latency asap window.
- Open models only, so teams that need GPT or Claude quality have to look elsewhere.

## At a glance

| Attribute | Value |
|---|---|
| Model access | Open weights |
| Flagship models | Kimi K2.6, GLM-5.3, GPT-OSS 120B |
| Speed | Low-latency default; slower windows cheaper |
| Price | 30–85% below other hosts by completion window |
| Customization | Customer LoRA fine-tunes |
| Deployment | API plus Sailboxes |
| Long context | Varies by model |

## FAQ

### What is Sail Research?

Sail Research sells throughput over latency. Founders Neil Movva and Samir Menon built a serving stack that packs as much work as possible into every GPU, and customers state how long they can wait through completion windows. Its docs quote each window against traditional providers: the default asap window serves at low latency for 30 to 70% less, balanced for 45 to 80% less, and the off-peak flex window for 55 to 85% less. Batch requests default to flex, and LoRA and custom-tool requests default to balanced.

### What is Sail Research best for?

Background agents that run for hours without a human in the loop; Evals, batch processing and offline research on open models.

### How much does Sail Research cost?

Sail Research pricing at a glance: 30–85% below other hosts by completion window. Rates change often, so check Sail Research's pricing page before committing.

### How much context does Sail Research support?

Sail Research's long-context support: Varies by model.

### What are the downsides of Sail Research?

Custom tools and batch requests are not available on the low-latency asap window; Open models only, so teams that need GPT or Claude quality have to look elsewhere.

### What are the best alternatives to Sail Research?

Common alternatives include Subconscious, OpenAI, Anthropic, Google Vertex AI, Amazon Bedrock. Each has a head-to-head comparison with Sail Research on this site.

## Comparisons

- [Subconscious vs Sail Research](https://www.subconscious.dev/compare/subconscious-vs-sail-research.md)
- [OpenAI vs Sail Research](https://www.subconscious.dev/compare/openai-vs-sail-research.md)
- [Anthropic vs Sail Research](https://www.subconscious.dev/compare/anthropic-vs-sail-research.md)
- [Google Vertex AI vs Sail Research](https://www.subconscious.dev/compare/google-vertex-vs-sail-research.md)
- [Amazon Bedrock vs Sail Research](https://www.subconscious.dev/compare/aws-bedrock-vs-sail-research.md)
- [Together AI vs Sail Research](https://www.subconscious.dev/compare/together-ai-vs-sail-research.md)
- [Fireworks AI vs Sail Research](https://www.subconscious.dev/compare/fireworks-vs-sail-research.md)
- [Baseten vs Sail Research](https://www.subconscious.dev/compare/baseten-vs-sail-research.md)
- [Groq vs Sail Research](https://www.subconscious.dev/compare/groq-vs-sail-research.md)
- [Cerebras vs Sail Research](https://www.subconscious.dev/compare/cerebras-vs-sail-research.md)
- [DeepInfra vs Sail Research](https://www.subconscious.dev/compare/deepinfra-vs-sail-research.md)
- [Hugging Face Inference Providers vs Sail Research](https://www.subconscious.dev/compare/hugging-face-vs-sail-research.md)
- [Modal vs Sail Research](https://www.subconscious.dev/compare/modal-vs-sail-research.md)
- [Cloudflare Workers AI vs Sail Research](https://www.subconscious.dev/compare/cloudflare-workers-ai-vs-sail-research.md)
- [xAI vs Sail Research](https://www.subconscious.dev/compare/xai-vs-sail-research.md)
- [Mistral AI vs Sail Research](https://www.subconscious.dev/compare/mistral-ai-vs-sail-research.md)
- [DeepSeek vs Sail Research](https://www.subconscious.dev/compare/deepseek-vs-sail-research.md)
- [Moonshot AI vs Sail Research](https://www.subconscious.dev/compare/moonshot-ai-vs-sail-research.md)
- [Z.ai vs Sail Research](https://www.subconscious.dev/compare/z-ai-vs-sail-research.md)
- [Alibaba Cloud vs Sail Research](https://www.subconscious.dev/compare/alibaba-cloud-vs-sail-research.md)
- [Meta vs Sail Research](https://www.subconscious.dev/compare/meta-vs-sail-research.md)
- [Cohere vs Sail Research](https://www.subconscious.dev/compare/cohere-vs-sail-research.md)
- [SambaNova vs Sail Research](https://www.subconscious.dev/compare/sambanova-vs-sail-research.md)
- [Nebius vs Sail Research](https://www.subconscious.dev/compare/nebius-vs-sail-research.md)
- [Crusoe vs Sail Research](https://www.subconscious.dev/compare/crusoe-vs-sail-research.md)
- [fal vs Sail Research](https://www.subconscious.dev/compare/fal-vs-sail-research.md)
- [Novita AI vs Sail Research](https://www.subconscious.dev/compare/novita-ai-vs-sail-research.md)
- [Venice vs Sail Research](https://www.subconscious.dev/compare/venice-vs-sail-research.md)
- [Parasail vs Sail Research](https://www.subconscious.dev/compare/parasail-vs-sail-research.md)
- [Inference.net vs Sail Research](https://www.subconscious.dev/compare/inference-net-vs-sail-research.md)
- [GMI Cloud vs Sail Research](https://www.subconscious.dev/compare/gmi-cloud-vs-sail-research.md)
- [Thinking Machines vs Sail Research](https://www.subconscious.dev/compare/thinking-machines-vs-sail-research.md)
- [Sail Research vs Morph](https://www.subconscious.dev/compare/sail-research-vs-morph.md)
- [Sail Research vs Relace](https://www.subconscious.dev/compare/sail-research-vs-relace.md)
- [Sail Research vs TypeSafe AI](https://www.subconscious.dev/compare/sail-research-vs-typesafe-ai.md)
- [Sail Research vs StepFun](https://www.subconscious.dev/compare/sail-research-vs-stepfun.md)
- [Sail Research vs Runware](https://www.subconscious.dev/compare/sail-research-vs-runware.md)
- [Sail Research vs StreamLake](https://www.subconscious.dev/compare/sail-research-vs-streamlake.md)
- [Sail Research vs Wafer](https://www.subconscious.dev/compare/sail-research-vs-wafer.md)
- [Sail Research vs RunInfra](https://www.subconscious.dev/compare/sail-research-vs-runinfra.md)
- [Sail Research vs Particle.AI](https://www.subconscious.dev/compare/sail-research-vs-particle-ai.md)
- [Sail Research vs Luminal](https://www.subconscious.dev/compare/sail-research-vs-luminal.md)
- [Sail Research vs Infron](https://www.subconscious.dev/compare/sail-research-vs-infron.md)
- [Sail Research vs Inception](https://www.subconscious.dev/compare/sail-research-vs-inception.md)
- [Sail Research vs Dolphin](https://www.subconscious.dev/compare/sail-research-vs-dolphin.md)

## Sources

- [Sail completion windows](https://docs.sailresearch.com/completion-windows)
- [Fortune on Sail](https://fortune.com/2026/06/25/exclusive-sail-apple-kleiner-perkins-gpu-token-nvdia-sequoia-80-million/)
- [Kleiner Perkins on Sail](https://www.kleinerperkins.com/perspectives/sail-the-inference-platform-for-long-horizon-agents/)
- [Sail news](https://www.sailresearch.com/news)

Pricing and model lineups change often; figures are a snapshot.