Overview
OpenRouter is a router: one API key, one credit balance and an OpenAI-compatible endpoint that reach models from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, xAI and a long list of open-model providers. It can fall back to another provider when one is down and lets you filter providers by price, latency or data policy.
You pay the listed model price, which usually matches the underlying provider, plus a 5.5% fee when you buy credits. If you already have provider accounts, bring-your-own-key routing is free up to $25,000 of list-price inference a month on pay-as-you-go and costs 5% after that.
The free plan covers models marked free, with a limit of 20 requests a minute and 50 a day, rising to 1,000 a day once you have bought $10 of credits. OpenRouter says it does not train on your data, and zero-data-retention routing is available on all plans; the providers behind free models have their own policies, so check them before sending sensitive data.
Pricing and plans
Free tier · no card
Free models at up to 20 requests per minute and 50 requests per day; 1,000 per day once the account has bought at least $10 of credits.
At the limit Not stated The vendor does not say what happens at the limit, or we have not found it yet.
| Plan | Price | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | Free models only: 50 requests/day, 20 RPM |
| Pay as you go | 5.5% fee on credits | Model prices as listed; BYOK free to $25,000 list-price inference/month, then 5% |
| Enterprise | Custom | Fee discounts, BYOK free to $200,000/month then 5%, custom DPA |
What it does
- Unified API
- OpenAI-compatible endpoint for proprietary and open models from many providers.
- Provider routing and fallback
- Requests are load balanced across top providers with automatic fallback; sort by price, throughput or latency and set price caps.
- Free models
- Selected models at $0 with daily request limits.
- Bring your own key
- Use your provider keys with no fee up to a monthly threshold.
- Zero data retention routing
- Route only to providers that do not retain prompts, on every plan.
Strengths and limitations
Strengths
- Switch between proprietary and open models without code changes or extra accounts.
- Free models for prototyping without a card.
- Prepaid credits bound total spend.
- Data-policy filters, including zero data retention.
Limitations
- A 5.5% fee on credit purchases on top of model prices.
- Free models are limited to 50 requests a day until $10 of credits is bought.
- Performance and data handling depend on the underlying provider chosen for each request.
- BYOK costs 5% above $25,000 of monthly list-price inference on pay-as-you-go.
Who it suits
Good for
- Apps that compare or switch between many models
- Prototypes that want free models and one key
- Teams wanting failover across providers
Look elsewhere if
- High-volume single-model workloads where the 5.5% fee adds up (go direct)
- Enterprises that need a direct contract with the model maker
Alternatives to OpenRouter
| Tool | From | Free option | Stages |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mistral API (Mistral Studio) AI model API (model maker) | Usage-based | Free tier | |
| Gemini API AI model API (model maker) | Usage-based | Free tier | |
| Cerebras Inference Inference provider (open-weight models) | Usage-based | ||
| OpenAI API AI model API (model maker) | Usage-based | ||
| GroqCloud Inference provider (open-weight models) | Usage-based | Free tier | |
| Fireworks AI Inference provider (open-weight models) | Usage-based |
Questions
Does OpenRouter charge a markup?
OpenRouter charges a 5.5% fee on credit purchases; model prices themselves generally follow the underlying provider's price.
How many free requests does OpenRouter allow?
Free models allow 20 requests per minute and 50 per day, or 1,000 per day once your account has bought at least $10 of credits.
Does OpenRouter train on my prompts?
OpenRouter's pricing page says it does not train on your data; each provider sets its own policy, and zero-data-retention routing is available on every plan.
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