OpenRouter

OpenRouter is a unified API over many LLM providers. Rechecked 2026-08-17: openrouter.ai/docs/faq says it passes through provider list prices with no inference markup, then charges a 5.5% fee ($0.80 minimum) on Stripe credit purchases and 5% on crypto. openrouter.ai/pricing still lists a Free row (25+ free models, 4 free providers) and Enterprise. BYOK has a fee-free allowance of $25,000 / month list-price inference on pay-as-you-go and $200,000 / month on Enterprise, then 5% of the equivalent OpenRouter price. Free-model rate limits in the FAQ source are 50 requests/day with no credits and 1,000 / day once you have at least $10 in credits. Model IDs change; do not freeze GPT-4o / DALL-E as the catalog.

Compare Ollama if you wanted a local runner plus Ollama's own cloud, and LangChain if you only needed a client library.

Key Features

One key, many providers: The product is routing and failover, not a single vendor model.
Credits wallet: You deposit, then burn per-model token (and sometimes per-request / image / reasoning) prices shown on each model card.
BYOK: Use your own provider keys after the monthly free allowance. The 5% overage is deducted from OpenRouter credits.
Free tier: Limited free models. It is not unlimited GPT-4o.

Use Cases

Teams that want one invoice across Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, and others.
People who will BYOK after they pass $25k / month list price.
People comparing OpenRouter vs Ollama on router vs local runner.

Limitation: We did not re-verify every model dollar on the marketplace. Quote the live model card. Domain rating 142 is leftover catalog metadata, not a new audit.

Pricing

openrouter.ai/pricing and FAQ on 2026-08-17.

Path	Price	Notes
Free	$0	25+ free models, 4 free providers. 50 RPD without credits; 1,000 RPD with $10+ credits.
Pay-as-you-go credits	Provider list price	5.5% Stripe purchase fee ($0.80 min). 5% crypto.
BYOK	$0 fee to $25k / month list	Then 5% of the equivalent OpenRouter price. Enterprise allowance $200k / month.
Enterprise	Sales	Higher BYOK allowance and extras on the pricing page.

If a leftover blog still lists only GPT-4o / Claude / Gemini / DALL-E with no fee, treat this table as the source.

Getting Started

Create an account at openrouter.ai and read one live model card before you buy credits.
Add credits on the Credits page if you need paid models.
Recheck BYOK only after you understand the $25k / 5% line.
Compare Ollama if you wanted weights on your own GPU.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does OpenRouter mark up tokens?

FAQ says no markup on provider inference. The fee is on credit purchase and on BYOK overage.

Is there a $20 Pro seat?

Not on the page we opened. Billing is credits plus optional Enterprise.

Same as LangChain?

No. LangChain is a client framework. OpenRouter is an HTTP router and wallet.

Alternatives

Ollama: Local runner plus Ollama cloud seats.
LangChain: OSS agent library.

Tips

Quote 5.5% Stripe and $25k BYOK, not "no fees."
Do not paste GPT-4o as the current catalog.
Recheck the live model card before you put a dollar in a contract.

Alternatives to CheaperInference

OpenRouter