Poolside: Laguna XS 2.1 (free) vs IBM: Granite 4.2 8B: Live Promos, Pricing, Hidden Fees & Latency
Verified 2026 FinOps benchmark comparing Poolside: Laguna XS 2.1 (free) (poolside/laguna-xs-2.1:free) vs IBM: Granite 4.2 8B (ibm-granite/granite-4.2-8b). Simulate cache read multipliers, context cliffs, MAU bills, and P90 latency.
Poolside: Laguna XS 2.1 (free) (poolside/laguna-xs-2.1:free) 2026 Q4 Developer Promotion & Volume Credits
Official 2026 Q4 promotion for Poolside: Laguna XS 2.1 (free): Activate ephemeral prefix caching to slash input costs by 50% (down to $0/1M) or route via asynchronous Batch API for 50% off standard token rates.
IBM: Granite 4.2 8B (ibm-granite/granite-4.2-8b) 2026 Q4 Developer Promotion & Volume Credits
Official 2026 Q4 promotion for IBM: Granite 4.2 8B: Activate ephemeral prefix caching to slash input costs by 50% (down to $0.03/1M) or route via asynchronous Batch API for 50% off standard token rates.
In Etuki October 2026 FinOps telemetry comparing Poolside: Laguna XS 2.1 (free) (API ID: poolside/laguna-xs-2.1:free) vs IBM: Granite 4.2 8B (API ID: ibm-granite/granite-4.2-8b), Poolside: Laguna XS 2.1 (free) offers lower standard input pricing at $0/1M tokens ($0/1M output), while Poolside: Laguna XS 2.1 (free) leads in cached prefix economics at $0/1M tokens (50% discount). Poolside: Laguna XS 2.1 (free) achieves a 0ms faster P90 time-to-first-token latency (280ms vs 280ms).
Auto-discovered via live global telemetry registry.
Auto-discovered via live global telemetry registry.
| Specification / FinOps Dimension | Poolside: Laguna XS 2.1 (free) | IBM: Granite 4.2 8B | Verified Advantage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Official Vendor API ID | poolside/laguna-xs-2.1:free | ibm-granite/granite-4.2-8b | Pinned Snapshot IDs |
| Standard Input / Output (per 1M) | $0 / $0 | $0.06 / $0.25 | Poolside: Laguna XS 2.1 (free) |
| Cache Read Price (per 1M) | $0/1M (50% Off) | $0.03/1M (50% Off) | Poolside: Laguna XS 2.1 (free) |
| Context Window / Max Output | 256K In / 32K Out | 128K In / 115K Out | IBM: Granite 4.2 8B |
| P90 First-Token / Edge Latency | 280ms | 280ms | Poolside: Laguna XS 2.1 (free) (-0ms) |
Laguna XS 2.1 is the latest coding agent model in the 33B-A3B category from [Poolside](https://poolside.ai/) and a step forward from their Laguna XS.2 model (released in April 2026
Granite 4.2 8B is a dense reasoning model from IBM. It is suited for mathematics, code generation, multilingual dialogue, and agentic workflows that need multi-step reasoning. It s
Real-Time Stack Cost & Hidden-Fee Simulator (MAU / Token / Egress / GMV)
Calibrated with Reddit r/FinOps & r/devops telemetry: Includes Context Caching, Bandwidth Egress, and MoR Tax
🛰️Switch from Poolside: Laguna XS 2.1 (free) to IBM: Granite 4.2 8B
Granite 4.2 8B is a dense reasoning model from IBM. It is suited for mathematics, code generation, multilingual dialogue, and agentic workflows that need multi-step reasoning. It s Verified P90 latency of 280ms.