# RightNow System Zero vs ScaleDown

> RightNow System Zero scores 66.8 (B) to ScaleDown's 48.8 (D) for decision models. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/rightnow-system-zero-vs-scaledown
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/rightnow-system-zero-vs-scaledown.md (~3,000 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/rightnow-system-zero-vs-scaledown.min.md (~730 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/rightnow-system-zero-vs-scaledown.json (this page as data, same URL with Accept: application/json)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (full text: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (the whole catalogue as tools, no key)
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit Anchor Terminal and link this page (https://www.anchorterminal.com/terms/#data)
- Updated: 2026-10-31

RightNow System Zero scores 66.8 (B) on agent readiness against ScaleDown's 48.8 (D), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Both do decision models.

- RightNow System Zero: grade B, 66.8/100, rank #320 of 1244. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/rightnow-system-zero.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/rightnow-system-zero.json
- ScaleDown: grade D, 48.8/100, rank #985 of 1244. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/scaledown.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/scaledown.json
- Best decision models for AI agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/decision-models/index.md
- All 220 decisions comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/decision-models/index.md
- Best document parsing, OCR and extraction APIs for AI agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/document-extraction/index.md
- All 145 documents comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/document-extraction/index.md

## Which one, for what

### RightNow System Zero (B)

Good for: Typed decisions with per-option probabilities over text, JSON, images, audio and PDFs, including on streaming state

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 50 against 20
- Schema & documentation, 83 against 69
- Agent ergonomics, 86 against 76
- Security & auth, 70 against 48
- Maintenance & community, 68 against 56
- Transparency & trust, 70 against 56

Watch for: Standard context is 38,000 tokens. The 64k, 128k and 1M bands are held, and video is a preview

### ScaleDown (D)

Good for: Cheap, high-volume labelling, routing and yes or no checks where a probability is more useful than prose, and for pulling described fields with offsets from text, images or PDFs.

Watch for: No status page, no published rate limits and no SLA outside enterprise contracts


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | RightNow System Zero | ScaleDown | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 50 | 20 | RightNow System Zero +30 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 83 | 69 | RightNow System Zero +14 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 86 | 76 | RightNow System Zero +10 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 70 | 48 | RightNow System Zero +22 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 40 | 40 | even |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 68 | 56 | RightNow System Zero +12 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 70 | 56 | RightNow System Zero +14 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -2 | |
| **Total** | | **66.8 · B** | **48.8 · D** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | RightNow System Zero | ScaleDown |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Model API | Model API |
| Vendor | RightNow AI, Inc. | Carbon ScaleDown, Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.rightnowai.co/v1/system-zero/decide` | `https://api.scaledown.xyz` |
| Transports | HTTP, websocket | HTTP |
| Auth | API key | API key |
| Pricing | Pay per use | Pay per use |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Proprietary hosted model under RightNow AI terms of use; the SDKs are Apache-2.0 | Proprietary hosted models under ScaleDown's Terms of Service. The langchain-scaledown integration is MIT |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-27 | 2026-10-14 |
| Terms last updated | no date given | couldn't be read |
| Privacy policy last updated | no date given | couldn't be read |
| Customer content may train models | yes | couldn't be read |
| Terms restrict automated access | yes | couldn't be read |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not found in the text | couldn't be read |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text | couldn't be read |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text | couldn't be read |
| Popularity | none | 0 stars |

## Verdicts

**RightNow System Zero.** A well-documented decision API with an OpenAPI file, idempotent retries, a detailed error catalogue, streaming over WebSocket and published per-unit prices with USD 5 of starting credit. Standard context is 38,000 tokens; the 64k, 128k and 1M bands are held and video is a preview. The latency and benchmark figures are RightNow's own, and several of its pages disagree.

**ScaleDown.** Classify answers Jev-shaped `choice`, `noul` and `score` questions with probabilities, and Extract returns values with confidences and character offsets, at $0.05 per million input tokens with output free. There is no status page, no published rate limit and no public changelog, and the site's compliance claims contradict each other.

## Before you call either

### RightNow System Zero

1. Send audio only as inline 16,000 Hz WAV. The FLAC, MP3, OGG and MP4 audio named on the blog are refused with media_unsupported.
2. Keep state under 38,000 tokens. Long-context requests return 404 long_context_not_available, which never succeeds on retry.
3. Reuse the same Idempotency-Key and body on retries, and stop when error.retryable or x-should-retry is false.
4. Check every entry in answers even on HTTP 200, since one question can be refused while the others are answered.
5. Treat probabilities as uncalibrated while calibrated is false, and pin system-zero-2.0.0 when answers must not move with the alias.

### ScaleDown

1. Send several questions about one item in one `/v1/scaledown` call. Each becomes its own Classify call and the usage is summed
2. Pin `classify-1`, `extract-1` or `summarize-1` once you've tuned thresholds on your own labelled cases
3. Set `context_chars` to 0 and use `top_n` on Extract unless you need the 500 characters of context each side
4. Set `reasoning: false` on /classify when you only need the label. The reasoning call bills its input at 2x
5. Back off and retry on 429, 502 and 504. No limits are published and calls have no side effects

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, RightNow System Zero or ScaleDown?

RightNow System Zero scores 66.8 (B) on agent readiness against ScaleDown's 48.8 (D), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories.

### Do RightNow System Zero and ScaleDown need an API key?

Both need an API key.

### Can an agent call RightNow System Zero and ScaleDown without installing anything?

Yes. RightNow System Zero has a hosted endpoint at https://api.rightnowai.co/v1/system-zero/decide and ScaleDown at https://api.scaledown.xyz.


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with RightNow System Zero or ScaleDown

- [Celeris-1 Decision vs RightNow System Zero](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/celeris-1-decision-vs-rightnow-system-zero.md)
- [Celeris-1 Decision vs ScaleDown](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/celeris-1-decision-vs-scaledown.md)
- [Clef vs RightNow System Zero](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cloudflare-clef-vs-rightnow-system-zero.md)
- [Clef vs ScaleDown](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cloudflare-clef-vs-scaledown.md)
- [Laya vs RightNow System Zero](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/convai-laya-vs-rightnow-system-zero.md)
- [Laya vs ScaleDown](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/convai-laya-vs-scaledown.md)
- [Decider vs RightNow System Zero](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/decider-vs-rightnow-system-zero.md)
- [Decider vs ScaleDown](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/decider-vs-scaledown.md)
- [Decision 3.0 vs RightNow System Zero](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/decision-3-vs-rightnow-system-zero.md)
- [Decision 3.0 vs ScaleDown](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/decision-3-vs-scaledown.md)
- [GLiClass vs RightNow System Zero](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gliclass-vs-rightnow-system-zero.md)
- [GLiClass vs ScaleDown](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gliclass-vs-scaledown.md)
- [Granite Switch 4.1 vs RightNow System Zero](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/granite-switch-vs-rightnow-system-zero.md)
- [Granite Switch 4.1 vs ScaleDown](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/granite-switch-vs-scaledown.md)
- [Kev vs RightNow System Zero](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/jaredpalmer-kev-vs-rightnow-system-zero.md)
- [Kev vs ScaleDown](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/jaredpalmer-kev-vs-scaledown.md)
- [Liquid d1 vs RightNow System Zero](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/liquid-d1-vs-rightnow-system-zero.md)
- [Liquid d1 vs ScaleDown](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/liquid-d1-vs-scaledown.md)
- [Microsoft-Decision-1 vs RightNow System Zero](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/microsoft-decision-1-vs-rightnow-system-zero.md)
- [Microsoft-Decision-1 vs ScaleDown](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/microsoft-decision-1-vs-scaledown.md)
- [Drex 1.5 vs RightNow System Zero](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/nace-drex-vs-rightnow-system-zero.md)
- [Drex 1.5 vs ScaleDown](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/nace-drex-vs-scaledown.md)
- [OpenAI Decisions API vs RightNow System Zero](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openai-decisions-api-vs-rightnow-system-zero.md)
- [OpenAI Decisions API vs ScaleDown](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openai-decisions-api-vs-scaledown.md)
- [pplx-decider-flash vs RightNow System Zero](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/pplx-decider-flash-vs-rightnow-system-zero.md)
- [pplx-decider-flash vs ScaleDown](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/pplx-decider-flash-vs-scaledown.md)
- [pplx-decider vs RightNow System Zero](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/pplx-decider-vs-rightnow-system-zero.md)
- [pplx-decider vs ScaleDown](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/pplx-decider-vs-scaledown.md)
- [RightNow System Zero vs SPEV](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/rightnow-system-zero-vs-sprag-spev.md)
- [RightNow System Zero vs kettei](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/rightnow-system-zero-vs-sqwish-kettei.md)
- [RightNow System Zero vs Strands Decider 2B](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/rightnow-system-zero-vs-strands-decider.md)
- [RightNow System Zero vs Jev](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/rightnow-system-zero-vs-typesafe-jev.md)
- [RightNow System Zero vs Vela 2.0](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/rightnow-system-zero-vs-vela.md)
- [ScaleDown vs SPEV](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/scaledown-vs-sprag-spev.md)
- [ScaleDown vs kettei](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/scaledown-vs-sqwish-kettei.md)
- [ScaleDown vs Strands Decider 2B](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/scaledown-vs-strands-decider.md)
- [ScaleDown vs Jev](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/scaledown-vs-typesafe-jev.md)
- [ScaleDown vs Vela 2.0](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/scaledown-vs-vela.md)

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