Choosing an AI Gateway: Seven Tests Before You Buy

Choose a Super Intelligence gateway by testing the requests your application sends and the controls your team needs. A long model list is useful only when the required models, parameters and provider routes work for your workload.

Use these seven questions to turn an SI gateway evaluation into a decision your engineering, finance and security teams can review.

1. Does it support the whole request?

Test more than a short chat prompt. Include your actual context size, output length, streaming mode, tool calls and structured responses. Record unsupported parameters and transformations. An OpenAI-compatible interface can simplify integration without making every model behave identically.

2. Who operates the gateway?

Decide whether your team wants to host and update the service or buy managed access. Self-hosting adds responsibility for deployment, upgrades and incident response. Managed access adds a service dependency and requires an appropriate review of its terms. Compare both against the staffing and deployment requirements you actually have.

3. What happens when a provider fails?

Ask which failures trigger a retry or fallback. Test a rate-limit response, a timeout and an interrupted stream. Keep allowed models and providers explicit. A fallback that completes the request but violates a data restriction is not a successful test.

4. Where does request data go?

Review the gateway and upstream providers separately. Identify who receives prompts, what is logged, how long it is retained and which settings affect those behaviors. Ask for supporting documents rather than treating a badge or broad privacy statement as the complete answer.

5. Can you explain the bill?

Calculate token costs using the same request mix across candidates. Add subscriptions, credit-purchase charges, BYOK fees, support and hosting where applicable. Check whether usage can be attributed to a team, project and key. Test what happens when a configured budget is reached.

6. Can someone diagnose a failed request?

Give the evaluator a request ID and ask them to identify the model, provider, status, timing and attempted fallback. Decide whether that evidence is sufficient for your support process without retaining sensitive prompt content unnecessarily.

7. Can you reverse the migration?

Start with a small workload. Keep the previous configuration available, compare responses and usage accounting, and define a clear rollback trigger. Do not move every application just because the first request succeeds.

Evaluate Concentrate against those requirements

Concentrate combines a managed gateway with inference purchasing through one account. For healthcare workloads, request BAA-covered access for the intended models and routes before sending PHI. Compare the signed scope and settings rather than assuming that all catalog models qualify.

Concentrate offers managed model access with configured fallbacks, spend tools and request logs. Review the gateway overview, check the Trust Center, and use the same test cases you apply to other candidates.

The useful comparison is a record of what passed, what failed and what remains unknown. That is more informative than declaring a universal winner for every SI workload.