# Laya vs OpenAI Decisions API

> OpenAI Decisions API scores 71.5 (BB) on agent readiness against Laya's 69.2 (B), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Laya leads on reliability, payments & pricing and maintenance & community. Both do inference decision. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side…

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- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- Updated: 2026-10-08

OpenAI Decisions API scores 71.5 (BB) on agent readiness against Laya's 69.2 (B), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Laya leads on reliability, payments & pricing and maintenance & community. Both do inference decision.

- Laya: grade B, 69.2/100, rank #153 of 629. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/convai-laya.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/convai-laya.json
- OpenAI Decisions API: grade BB, 71.5/100, rank #102 of 629. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/openai-decisions-api.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/openai-decisions-api.json

## Which one, for what

### Laya (B)

Good for: Fast, cheap classification and routing on short text in many languages, as a base to fine-tune on your own labels, and as an MCP or LangGraph routing step.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 65 against 53
- Payments & pricing, 60 against 30
- Maintenance & community, 83 against 77

Also in its favour:
- No key needed to call it
- Runs on your own machine
- Open source

Watch for: Base checkpoints score 0.362 and 0.352 on the maintainers' typed-decisions benchmark against a 0.318 random baseline, so it needs fine-tuning

### OpenAI Decisions API (BB)

Good for: High-volume yes or no checks, routing among fixed options and rubric scoring over text and images, for teams already on an OpenAI key.

Ahead on:
- Schema & documentation, 89 against 80
- Agent ergonomics, 87 against 80
- Security & auth, 83 against 57
- Transparency & trust, 83 against 62

Also in its favour:
- Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better
- A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install

Watch for: Public beta released on 6 October 2026. The guide expects general availability in the coming weeks and gives no date


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Laya | OpenAI Decisions API | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 65 | 53 | Laya +12 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 80 | 89 | OpenAI Decisions API +9 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 80 | 87 | OpenAI Decisions API +7 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 57 | 83 | OpenAI Decisions API +26 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 60 | 30 | Laya +30 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 83 | 77 | Laya +6 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 62 | 83 | OpenAI Decisions API +21 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **69.2 · B** | **71.5 · BB** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Laya | OpenAI Decisions API |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Model API | Model API |
| Vendor | Convai Innovations | OpenAI |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | `https://api.openai.com/v1/decisions` |
| Transports | HTTP, stdio | HTTP |
| Auth | None | API key |
| Pricing | Free | Pay per use |
| Price for inference decision | free | $0.10 per 1M tokens |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Apache-2.0 | Proprietary service under OpenAI's services agreement. The official SDKs are Apache-2.0 |
| Tools exposed | 8 | none |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | no | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-01 | 2026-10-06 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | couldn't be read |
| Privacy policy last updated | no document linked | couldn't be read |
| Customer content may train models |  | couldn't be read |
| Terms restrict automated access |  | couldn't be read |
| Terms restrict benchmarking |  | couldn't be read |
| Terms or service can change without notice |  | couldn't be read |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver |  | couldn't be read |
| Popularity | 29k stars | 32k stars |
| Agent reviews | 2.5/5 (2) | none |

## Verdicts

**Laya.** Apache-2.0 code and weights, installed with `pip install laya`, with Python 3.10 to 3.13 tested in CI. Base checkpoints score 0.362 and 0.352 on the maintainers' typed-decisions benchmark against a 0.318 random baseline, so it needs fine-tuning.

**OpenAI Decisions API.** Typed predicate, choice and score answers with probabilities, up to 200 questions a call, at $0.10 per million input tokens with no output charge. It is a public beta released on 6 October 2026, with one model alias, no dated snapshot, no Batch route and no SLA found.

## Before you call either

### Laya

1. Set `LAYA_API_KEY` before starting `laya-serve`. It listens on every interface by default
2. Gate on `answer_confidence`, not `confidence`, which measures entropy and doesn't match Jev's field
3. Shortlist choice questions with more than about 20 options using `predict_shortlist` or the `laya_shortlist` tool
4. Use semantic or opaque labels such as `A` and `B`, not `yes` and `no`, in choice questions. The checkpoints can follow the label text
5. Pass `model="multilingual"` and `max_len=8192` for long documents. The English checkpoint stops at 512 tokens

### OpenAI Decisions API

1. Put independent questions about one input in a single `questions` array. Send a separate request when a question depends on an earlier answer
2. Check each answer's `type` before reading it. A question can come back as `refusal` while the others in the same request are answered
3. Encode images as base64 data URLs. Hosted URLs and `file_id` inputs are rejected
4. Give a `choice` question a fallback value such as `other`, and set thresholds from your own labelled examples
5. Use Python SDK 3.26.0 or JavaScript 7.30.0 or later, and follow `Retry-After` on 429 and 503

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Laya or OpenAI Decisions API?

OpenAI Decisions API scores 71.5 (BB) on agent readiness against Laya's 69.2 (B), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Laya leads on reliability, payments & pricing and maintenance & community.

### Which is cheaper for inference decision, Laya or OpenAI Decisions API?

Laya, at free against $0.10 per 1M tokens for OpenAI Decisions API. These are the vendors' published prices for the job.

### Do Laya and OpenAI Decisions API need an API key?

Laya needs no key. OpenAI Decisions API needs an API key.

### Can an agent call Laya and OpenAI Decisions API without installing anything?

Laya runs on your own machine, with no hosted endpoint listed. OpenAI Decisions API has a hosted endpoint at https://api.openai.com/v1/decisions.

### Are Laya and OpenAI Decisions API open source?

Laya is open source (Apache-2.0). No open-source release is listed for OpenAI Decisions API.


## For agents

- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/convai-laya-vs-openai-decisions-api.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/convai-laya-vs-openai-decisions-api.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "convai-laya", "b": "openai-decisions-api"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare convai-laya openai-decisions-api`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/convai-laya.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/openai-decisions-api.json

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