What is OpenRouter

OpenRouter is a gateway. You create an account, buy credits in US dollars, and send requests to https://openrouter.ai/api/v1. The model field is a slug such as deepseek/deepseek-v4-pro or openrouter/free. OpenRouter forwards the call to a provider that hosts that model and deducts the provider’s token price from your balance.

What you are paying for

The public FAQ says inference is passed through with no markup. The fee is on the credit purchase: 5.5 percent, with an $0.80 minimum. Crypto purchases are charged 5 percent. A separate 1 percent usage discount exists if you opt in to let OpenRouter store prompts and completions.

• Chat and the HTTP API share the same credit balance.
• Each model has its own price per million tokens, published on the model page and in GET /api/v1/models.
• If the first provider fails, fallbacks can try another endpoint for the same slug.
• Optional headers HTTP-Referer and X-OpenRouter-Title attribute traffic to your app on the public rankings.

Router, not a model

Searches for “router ai” and “api router” land on this product because the slug can itself be a router. openrouter/free picks a free model. Other slugs name one model and still may move between providers. You do not install a local router. The base URL is the router.

Router Desk is an independent guide. It is not OpenRouter, and it cannot create a key or take a payment.