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Llama 3.1 8B API

Ultra-fast, cost-efficient 8B model perfect for high-throughput and latency-sensitive applications.

Parameters

8B

Context

128,000 tokens

Organization

Meta

Pricing

$0.1

per 1M input tokens


$0.15

per 1M output tokens

Try Llama 3.1 8B for Free

Quick Start

Start using Llama 3.1 8B in minutes. VoltageGPU provides an OpenAI-compatible API — just change the base_url.

Python (OpenAI SDK)
pip install openai
from openai import OpenAI

client = OpenAI(
    base_url="https://api.voltagegpu.com/v1",
    api_key="YOUR_VOLTAGE_API_KEY"
)

response = client.chat.completions.create(
    model="meta-llama/Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct",
    messages=[
        {"role": "system", "content": "Extract entities as JSON."},
        {"role": "user", "content": "John Smith from Acme Corp signed a $50,000 contract on March 15, 2026."}
    ],
    max_tokens=512,
    temperature=0.0
)

print(response.choices[0].message.content)
cURL
Terminal
curl -X POST https://api.voltagegpu.com/v1/chat/completions \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_VOLTAGE_API_KEY" \
  -d '{
    "model": "meta-llama/Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct",
    "messages": [
      {"role": "system", "content": "Extract entities as JSON."},
      {"role": "user", "content": "John Smith from Acme Corp signed a $50,000 contract on March 15, 2026."}
    ],
    "max_tokens": 512,
    "temperature": 0.0
  }'

Pricing

ComponentPriceUnit
Input tokens$0.1per 1M tokens
Output tokens$0.15per 1M tokens

New accounts receive $5 free credit. No credit card required to start.


Capabilities & Benchmarks

Llama 3.1 8B delivers strong performance for its size class: MMLU (73.0%), HumanEval (72.6%), and GSM8K (84.5%). It excels at instruction following, text summarization, entity extraction, classification, and simple reasoning. With 128K context support and fast inference speeds, it processes thousands of requests per second at minimal cost.


About Llama 3.1 8B

Llama 3.1 8B is Meta's most efficient small language model, offering impressive capabilities at minimal cost. With 8 billion parameters and a 128K context window, it delivers fast inference with low latency, making it ideal for real-time applications, high-throughput batch processing, and cost-sensitive deployments. Despite its compact size, it performs remarkably well on instruction following, summarization, and simple coding tasks. It was trained on over 15 trillion tokens and fine-tuned with RLHF.


Use Cases

Real-Time Chat

Build responsive chatbots with sub-100ms latency for consumer-facing applications.

🏷️

Text Classification

Classify documents, sentiment, intent, and topics at high throughput and low cost.

📝

Summarization

Summarize articles, emails, meeting notes, and documents efficiently at scale.

🔍

Data Extraction

Extract structured data from unstructured text: names, dates, amounts, entities.

📦

Batch Processing

Process millions of records affordably for data enrichment and annotation.


API Reference

Endpoint

POSThttps://api.voltagegpu.com/v1/chat/completions

Headers

AuthorizationBearer YOUR_VOLTAGE_API_KEYRequired
Content-Typeapplication/jsonRequired

Model ID

meta-llama/Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct

Use this value as the model parameter in your API requests.

Example Request

curl -X POST https://api.voltagegpu.com/v1/chat/completions \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_VOLTAGE_API_KEY" \
  -d '{
    "model": "meta-llama/Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct",
    "messages": [
      {"role": "system", "content": "Extract entities as JSON."},
      {"role": "user", "content": "John Smith from Acme Corp signed a $50,000 contract on March 15, 2026."}
    ],
    "max_tokens": 512,
    "temperature": 0.0
  }'



Frequently Asked Questions

When should I use Llama 3.1 8B vs a larger model?

Use Llama 3.1 8B when you need fast responses, high throughput, or low cost. It excels at classification, summarization, extraction, and simple Q&A. Switch to a larger model (70B+) for complex reasoning, creative writing, or tasks requiring deep domain knowledge.

How fast is Llama 3.1 8B?

Llama 3.1 8B delivers extremely fast inference with typical time-to-first-token under 50ms. It can process thousands of requests per second on VoltageGPU's infrastructure, making it ideal for real-time applications.

Can Llama 3.1 8B handle long documents?

Yes, Llama 3.1 8B supports a 128K context window, allowing it to process documents up to ~96,000 words. However, for complex analysis of very long documents, a larger model may provide better results.

What is the cost of running Llama 3.1 8B?

Llama 3.1 8B costs $0.10 per million input tokens and $0.15 per million output tokens on VoltageGPU. This means processing 1 million words costs approximately $0.13, making it one of the most affordable models available.


Start using Llama 3.1 8B today

Get $5 free credit when you sign up. No credit card required. Deploy in under 30 seconds with our OpenAI-compatible API.