OpenRouter Pricing

paidlast verified August 29, 2026official site ↗

Plan	Price	Notes
Free Modelsofficial source ↗	$0checked 2026-08-29	Access to select open-weights free models; 50 requests/day default (increases to 1,000 requests/day with $10 purchased credit balance), 20 requests/minute rate limit
API Pay-As-You-Goofficial source ↗	Usage-basedchecked 2026-08-29	Zero markup on provider inference token rates; prepaid account credits billed per prompt/completion token across 300+ AI models, 5.5% payment processing fee on credit card deposits
Bring Your Own Key (BYOK)official source ↗	Usage-basedchecked 2026-08-29	Route requests using your own provider API keys; free for first 1,000,000 requests/month, 5% platform routing fee thereafter

structured from cited official pricing sources: “OpenRouter operates on a pay-as-you-go model with zero markup on model provider token rates. Free models provide 50 requests/day (1,000 requests/day with $10+ in purchased credits). Paid inference is billed strictly per token against prepaid credit balances (5.5% credit card deposit fee). Bring-Your-Own-Key (BYOK) routing is free for the first 1M requests/month.”

Free & cheaper Model Providers

same category, free plan or open-source license

ClaudeFree tier with core Claude access. Paid subscription plans include Claude Pro at $20/month ($17/month billed annually), Claude Max 5x at $100/month for 5x Pro usage limits, Claude Max 20x at $200/month for heavy agentic coding and power workflows, and Claude Team at $30/user/month ($25/user/month billed annually, 5-seat minimum). Enterprise tier provides custom scalable pricing, SAML SSO, and SCIM provisioning.CerebrasCerebras delivers high-throughput inference powered by its Wafer-Scale Engine (CS-3). It offers a free tier with $5 trial credits, a Developer pay-as-you-go tier with 10x rate limits and per-token pricing starting at $0.10/1M tokens, and custom Enterprise agreements with dedicated wafer hardware and guaranteed SLAs.ChatGPTChatGPT plans (vendor_documented, as-of 2026-09-14): Free; Go (~$8/mo US); Plus $20/mo; Pro from $100/mo (5×) and $200/mo (20×—new $200 sign-ups paused as of 2026-09-10); Business Standard $25/user/mo or $20/user/mo annual (Premium seats $125/$100 annual); Enterprise custom. Product URL: chatgpt.com. Former “Team” plan is now Business. Confirm geo-localized Go/Plus/Pro card amounts on https://chatgpt.com/pricing/.GroqGroq offers ultra-fast LPU inference for open-source AI models. It features a free prototyping tier with zero credit card required, pay-as-you-go developer pricing from $0.05/1M tokens with 50% prompt caching and batch discounts, and dedicated Enterprise LPU capacity.

OpenRouter overview →alternatives →review: 86/100 →

FAQ

How much does OpenRouter cost?

OpenRouter operates on a pay-as-you-go model with zero markup on model provider token rates. Free models provide 50 requests/day (1,000 requests/day with $10+ in purchased credits). Paid inference is billed strictly per token against prepaid credit balances (5.5% credit card deposit fee). Bring-Your-Own-Key (BYOK) routing is free for the first 1M requests/month.

Does OpenRouter have a free plan?

No — OpenRouter has no free plan; it is a paid tool.

What are free or cheaper OpenRouter alternatives?

Claude, Cerebras, ChatGPT are in the same category with a free plan or open-source license.

pricing is editorial catalog data (last verified August 29, 2026) — vendors change plans; confirm on the official site before you buy. Reuse this data under CC-BY 4.0 via /data.