Doubao API Complete Guide: ByteDance's Ultra-Low Cost AI

Introduction

Doubao is ByteDance's AI model offering the lowest pricing in the industry at $0.08/1M input tokens. Through AI API Hub, you can access all Doubao models via the standard OpenAI-compatible API.

Doubao Models

| Model | Input | Output | Best For | |---|---|---|---| | Doubao Pro 1.5 | $0.15/1M | $0.60/1M | Production quality | | Doubao Lite 1.5 | $0.08/1M | $0.32/1M | Cost-sensitive, high volume | | Doubao Vision | $0.15/1M | $0.60/1M | Image understanding |

Python Setup

import openai

client = openai.OpenAI(
    api_key="your-api-key",
    base_url="https://api.apiyihe.org/v1"
)

response = client.chat.completions.create(
    model="doubao-pro-1.5",
    messages=[{"role": "user", "content": "Explain cloud computing"}],
    max_tokens=1000
)
print(response.choices[0].message.content)

Bulk Processing at Scale

Doubao Lite is ideal for batch processing thousands of documents:

documents = [
    "Document about AI trends...",
    "Document about blockchain...",
    # ... thousands more
]

results = []
for i, doc in enumerate(documents):
    r = client.chat.completions.create(
        model="doubao-lite-1.5",
        messages=[{"role": "user", "content": f"Summarize: {doc}"}],
        max_tokens=200
    )
    results.append(r.choices[0].message.content)
    if i % 100 == 0:
        print(f"Processed {i}/{len(documents)}")

# Cost: ~$0.02 for summarizing 1000 documents

Streaming

stream = client.chat.completions.create(
    model="doubao-pro-1.5",
    messages=[{"role": "user", "content": "Tell me about ByteDance"}],
    stream=True
)
for chunk in stream:
    if chunk.choices[0].delta.content:
        print(chunk.choices[0].delta.content, end="", flush=True)

Node.js

import OpenAI from "openai";
const client = new OpenAI({ apiKey: "your-api-key", baseURL: "https://api.apiyihe.org/v1" });
const r = await client.chat.completions.create({ model: "doubao-lite-1.5", messages: [{ role: "user", content: "Hello Doubao!" }] });
console.log(r.choices[0].message.content);

Cost Comparison

| Task | Doubao Lite | GPT-4o Mini | Savings | |---|---|---|---| | 1000 summaries | $0.02 | $0.10 | 80% | | 10K chat messages | $0.50 | $2.50 | 80% | | 100K translations | $4.00 | $10.00 | 60% |

FAQ

Q: Is Doubao good for production? A: Doubao Pro 1.5 offers production quality at a fraction of GPT-4o pricing.

Q: Does Doubao support function calling? A: Yes, through the OpenAI-compatible API format.

Q: What languages does Doubao support? A: Chinese (native quality), English, and major world languages.