OpenRouter review: our take
OpenRouter is the easy way to test many models without opening many accounts: one key, one OpenAI-style endpoint and 500+ models from 80+ providers, at each provider's own token price. It charges its fee once, at credit purchase: 5.5% on card payments. The free plan gives 25+ free models at 50 requests a day, rising to 1,000 a day once you hold $10 in credits.
The trade-off is one more company in your data path, although OpenRouter says prompts and completions are not logged by default. If you settle on a single provider, going direct saves the fee: DeepSeek for the lowest prices, Claude or Gemini for frontier models. Our OpenAI API alternatives page compares them.
By the Prompt Hackers team · facts checked 4 Oct 2026
What OpenRouter does
OpenRouter gives you one key and one endpoint for models from many labs and passes through each provider's price with no markup on inference. It charges its fee when you buy credits, and the pay-as-you-go plan adds budgets, spend controls, auto-routing and prompt caching. Its API follows the OpenAI format for completions and chat, so most OpenAI client code works after changing the base URL and key.
Who OpenRouter is for
Best for
- developers comparing many models through one key
- teams that want spend controls across providers
- hobbyists who want free models to test
Not for
- teams that want fewer companies in the data path: it adds one between you and the model
- buyers who want no fees: card credit purchases carry a 5.5% fee
OpenRouter features
- F1500+ models from 80+ providers
- F2OpenAI-compatible API
- F3Free models
- F4Auto-routing and preferred providers
- F5Budgets and spend controls
- F6Prompt caching
- F7Bring your own keys
- F8Prompts not logged by default
OpenRouter pricing and plans
| Plan | Monthly | Billed yearly, per month | What it includes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | — | 25+ free models from 4 providers; 50 requests a day, or 1,000 a day with $10+ in credits; chat and API access |
| Pay-as-you-go | — | — | Provider prices with no inference markup; 5.5% fee on card credit purchases ($0.80 minimum), 5% for crypto; 500+ models from 80+ providers; budgets, auto-routing, prompt caching |
| Enterprise | — | — | Fee discounts; SSO/SAML, contractual SLAs, managed policy enforcement, dedicated support |
Free plan: yes. Prices as listed by the vendor in USD, before tax; they change, so check the pricing page before you buy.
OpenRouter FAQ
- How much does OpenRouter cost?
- OpenRouter charges by usage; see the pricing table above.
- Does OpenRouter have a free plan?
- Yes, OpenRouter has a free plan.
- What are the alternatives to OpenRouter?
- Tools that cover the same jobs include DeepSeek, Mistral Vibe, Claude, Google Gemini.