Written by us, but honest. We'll tell you when OpenRouter is the better tool.
dimension
aiusage
OpenRouter
core goal
Make your existing Claude bill ~20× cheaper. Same model, same output, lower cost.
Route requests across 100+ models and providers from one API key. Model flexibility.
who pays Anthropic
You do. BYOK — your Anthropic key stays yours. We never touch your billing.
OpenRouter does. You pay OpenRouter, they pay the underlying providers.
pricing model
Credit packs: $10/15 runs, $25/50, $50/120. No subscription. Credits never expire.
Pay-as-you-go by token, priced per model with a margin on top of list.
models available
Anthropic Claude (all current Sonnet + Haiku, 1M context variants included).
Claude, GPT, Gemini, Llama, Mistral, DeepSeek, plus smaller/open models.
Claude Code support
Drop-in. Same CLI, one-line installer swaps the endpoint.
Works as a generic Anthropic-compatible endpoint. Config required.
when it wins
You already picked Claude and want the same output for far less money.
You want to test different models, fall back across providers, or try open-source.
when it loses
You want a model other than Claude. Use OpenRouter.
You just want Claude cheaper. OpenRouter adds a margin on top of Anthropic list.
mechanism
Proprietary infrastructure in front of Claude. Same output, far fewer Anthropic tokens billed to your key.
Request routing + provider negotiation. Passes through to the underlying API.