Content moderation (I/O safety classify)

Scores as of 2026-09-14 (43 days old; Depot marks scores stale after 30 days). The pick is still Depot's current editorial pick; it has not been re-reviewed since. Prices below carry their own dates.

Depot Pick

OpenAI Moderation · 8.62/10 for this job (curated estimate, high confidence)

pricePerf + dx + reliability. Free OpenAI Moderation is the blunt default; escalate to Guardrails/Llama Guard for custom policy.

Runner-up

Groq · 7.95/10

Scores higher than the pick on: Lock-in risk (higher = worse).

When not to use the pick

Need open Llama Guard classifier with low latency — groq; need programmable multi-step rails — nvidia-nemo-guardrails; need EU-hosted guard models — ovhcloud-ai.

Lock-in / migration

Runner-up Groq has lower stored lock-in risk (5 vs 5.5, 0–10, higher = more lock-in).

Sourced price (usd_per_1k_requests)

Pick's lowest sourced SKU: omni-moderation-latest (moderation endpoint) $0 (usd_per_1k_requests) — source, as of 2026-10-21

Cheapest matching SKU: OpenAI Moderation omni-moderation-latest (moderation endpoint) $0 — source, as of 2026-10-21. The pick is the cheapest.

Price history: first seen 2026-10-21 · last changed no change recorded · history JSON

Free option

No free resource lists this job. A cheap paid SKU is not a free option.

Failure modes to watch

• Runaway spend: Set a budget and a tool-call cap per task. Alert when spend jumps. Stop the run at the cap instead of summarizing a partial trace as success.
• Confirmation skip: Gate those tool names on an approval id recorded before the call. A missing approval is a failure even if the downstream tool returns success.
• Identity confusion: Bind every tool call to a user or tenant id. Refuse the call if that id changed mid-task. For a public bot, the operator owns the words the bot shows.
• Non-determinism: Run the task more than once and compare the end state, not a single transcript. Record the trial count next to any success rate you cite.
• Over-refusal: Log refusals separately from successes. Review a sample against the written policy. Do not treat a refusal as a pass, and do not weaken a safety check to raise the pass rate.
• Policy conflict: If cited sources contradict each other, return the conflict and the URLs. Do not pick a winner silently.

Reported outcomes (submitted reports only)

This job: loading… JSON · reports never change scores · seed/test records excluded

Depot Pick (OpenAI Moderation) on this job: loading… JSON · reports never change scores · seed/test records excluded

Cite: Agent Provider Depot, Depot Pick for content-moderation: openai-moderation, scores as of 2026-09-14. Agents: GET /api/decide?jtbd=content-moderation