Question 1

How are tokens billed?

Accepted Answer

Input and output tokens are billed per model at posted rates.

Question 2

Do you mark up provider pricing?

Accepted Answer

No. Inference is billed at the provider's list price on every plan. OpenRouter's fee is charged when you buy credits, 5.5% on Standard and 8% on Business, never on individual requests.

Question 3

How is billing structured for Standard, Business, Enterprise and BYOK?

Accepted Answer

Standard and Business: you buy credits, manually or with auto top-up, and each request deducts its cost from your balance. The only billing difference between the two is the fee on credit purchases, 5.5% on Standard and 8% on Business. Enterprise: pricing is set by contract and based on volume, prepaid credits and annual commitments, with invoicing. BYOK: the provider bills you for inference directly. Standard and Business include $25,000 of list-price inference per month through BYOK with no OpenRouter fee; Enterprise allowances are custom. Above the allowance, OpenRouter charges 5% of what the same request would cost at list price on OpenRouter, deducted from your credits.

Question 4

Are failed or fallback attempts billed?

Accepted Answer

No. An attempt that errors is not charged for its model tokens, so with fallback you pay only for the run that answers. Under Zero Completion Insurance the same holds for a response that returns nothing and no finish reason; auxiliary services that already ran, such as web search or file parsing, may still be billed. Routing through openrouter/auto adds no fee; you pay the rate of whichever model serves the request.

Question 5

Do you offer volume discounts or annual plans?

Accepted Answer

We offer discounted OpenRouter fees in our enterprise plan. We do not discount inference.

Question 6

Are streaming responses billed differently?

Accepted Answer

No. Pricing is per token whether or not you stream.

Question 7

What payment methods do you accept?

Accepted Answer

Standard and Business: credit and debit cards, AliPay, and crypto (USDC). Enterprise: invoicing and purchase orders through sales.

Question 8

Are taxes (VAT/GST) included in prices?

Accepted Answer

Prices are exclusive of applicable taxes. Where required, VAT/GST may be added on invoices.

Question 9

Is there a minimum spend or lock-in on Standard?

Accepted Answer

No. Standard and Business have no minimums and no lock-in. You pay only for what you use.

Question 10

What does the Business plan fee apply to?

Accepted Answer

The 8% Business platform fee applies to credit purchases. It is charged when you buy credits, not on individual API requests, and model token prices are the same as on every other plan.

Question 11

Do I need to talk to sales to upgrade to Business?

Accepted Answer

No. Upgrade from the settings of the account or organization you want on Business. There is no contract, no minimum spend, and no sales conversation. You can downgrade 30 days after the upgrade, from the same place.

Question 12

Do you enforce rate limits?

Accepted Answer

OpenRouter sets no plan-based rate limit on paid models. A limit you hit there normally comes from the provider, and fallback routing retries other providers automatically; only very high burst traffic is rejected by OpenRouter's own DDoS protection with a 429. Free models are capped at 20 requests per minute and 50 per day, rising to 1,000 per day once your account has bought at least $10 of credits. Failed attempts count toward that daily cap, and a negative balance blocks free models until you add credits. Details are in the rate limits documentation.

Question 13

Can I separate environments (dev/staging/production)?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Workspaces give each environment its own keys, limits and activity: 5 workspaces on Free and Standard, 1,000 on Business. Within a workspace, each API key can carry its own credit cap.

Question 14

Do you enforce platform rate limits?

Accepted Answer

No plan-based ones. On Standard, Business and Enterprise, limits on paid models come from the provider, not from your plan; only OpenRouter's DDoS protection can reject very high burst traffic. Free models carry the caps in the answer above.

Question 15

Can I make sure to send API requests in specific regions?

Accepted Answer

Yes. In-region routing is included on Business and Enterprise plans. Send requests to eu.openrouter.ai to keep inference with providers in the EU, or to us.openrouter.ai to keep it in the US. Upgrade to Business from your settings; for Enterprise, contact sales.

Question 16

Does routing affect latency?

Accepted Answer

Routing improves reliability; latency varies by model, provider and region. For consistent latency, pin a specific model and provider.

Question 17

What happens if a model is deprecated or pricing changes?

Accepted Answer

If a model is deprecated, you will receive a 404 when you request it, with an error message like "no endpoints for this model found." If the pricing changes, we will continue to route to the model and it will serve your requests. But, you will be charged at the new rate and your credits will deduct accordingly. This will be reflected in your billing.

Question 18

Can I pin specific model versions?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Choose an explicit model ID/version to avoid unexpected changes. You can also switch models without changing your integration.

Question 19

Do you train on customer data?

Accepted Answer

No. We do not train on your data. Provider-side retention can be disabled for the account or per request, and Zero Data Retention routing is available on every plan.

Question 20

Do you support SSO?

Accepted Answer

SSO (SAML) and SCIM are available on Enterprise plans; contact sales to enable them. Business and Enterprise plans also include Workload Identity Federation, which lets your services call OpenRouter with tokens from your own identity provider instead of long-lived API keys.

Question 21

How do I migrate from OpenAI/Anthropic?

Accepted Answer

Our API is OpenAI‑compatible. Update the base URL and model names; see Quickstart.

Question 22

Do you support function calling/tools?

Accepted Answer

If the underlying model supports tools/function calling, you can use it through the same API. See the API reference for examples.

Question 23

What happens if a provider is down or a model errors?

Accepted Answer

Routing/fallback can automatically try alternative models, and an attempt that errors is not charged for its model tokens under Zero Completion Insurance.

Question 24

Where can I check uptime and incidents?

Accepted Answer

Visit the status page for real‑time uptime and incident history.

Question 25

What does the Enterprise dedicated support team include?

Accepted Answer

Enterprise accounts get a support SLA with committed response times, a dedicated Slack channel with the OpenRouter team, a customer success manager who owns the account, and a forward-deployed engineer for integration, routing and rollout work. Standard and Business use email support, and every plan can use the community Discord.

Feature	Free
Platform fees	N/A
ModelsExplore all models →	25+ free models
ProvidersExplore all models →	4 free providers
Chat and API AccessTry chat now →	Yes
Activity logs & export	Yes
Auto-routing, preferred vendor selectionsLearn more →	No
Budgets & Spend Controls	No
Advanced notificationsLearn more →	No
Prompt CachingLearn more →	No
Management API keyLearn more →	No
Admin ControlsEnterprise features →	No
Data Policy-Based RoutingModel & provider policies	No
EU in-region routingLearn more →	No
US in-region routingLearn more →	No
Workload Identity FederationLearn more →	No
Workspace limitLearn more →	5
DPA	Via Terms of Service
Managed Policy Enforcement	No
SSO/SAML	No
Contractual SLAs	No
Payment options	No
BYOK LimitsLearn more →	No
Rate limits	50 requests/day
Support	Community support

Platform fees	Free N/A	Standard 5.5%	Business 8%	Enterprise Fee discounts available
ModelsExplore all models →	Free 25+ free models	Standard 500+ models	Business 500+ models	Enterprise 500+ models
ProvidersExplore all models →	Free 4 free providers	Standard 80+ providers	Business 80+ providers	Enterprise 80+ providers
Chat and API AccessTry chat now →	Free Yes	Standard Yes	Business Yes	Enterprise Yes
Activity logs & export	Free Yes	Standard Yes	Business Yes	Enterprise Yes
Auto-routing, preferred vendor selectionsLearn more →	Free No	Standard Yes	Business Yes	Enterprise Yes
Budgets & Spend Controls	Free No	Standard Yes	Business Yes	Enterprise Yes
Advanced notificationsLearn more →	Free No	Standard No	Business Yes	Enterprise Yes
Prompt CachingLearn more →	Free No	Standard Yes	Business Yes	Enterprise Yes
Management API keyLearn more →	Free No	Standard Yes	Business Yes	Enterprise Yes
Admin ControlsEnterprise features →	Free No	Standard Yes	Business Yes	Enterprise Yes
Data Policy-Based RoutingModel & provider policies	Free No	Standard Yes	Business Yes	Enterprise Yes
EU in-region routingLearn more →	Free No	Standard No	Business Yes	Enterprise Yes
US in-region routingLearn more →	Free No	Standard No	Business Yes	Enterprise Yes
Workload Identity FederationLearn more →	Free No	Standard No	Business Yes	Enterprise Yes
Workspace limitLearn more →	Free 5	Standard 5	Business 1,000	Enterprise Custom
DPA	Free Via Terms of Service	Standard Via Terms of Service	Business Via Terms of Service, signed copy on request	Enterprise Customizations available
Managed Policy Enforcement	Free No	Standard No	Business No	Enterprise Yes
SSO/SAML	Free No	Standard No	Business No	Enterprise Yes
Contractual SLAs	Free No	Standard No	Business No	Enterprise Yes
Payment options	Free No	Standard Credit card, crypto & more	Business Credit card, crypto & more	Enterprise Invoicing options
BYOK LimitsLearn more →	Free No	Standard $25,000 of list price inference / month with no fees, 5% fee after	Business $25,000 of list price inference / month with no fees, 5% fee after	Enterprise Custom
Rate limits	Free 50 requests/day	Standard Passthrough from the provider(s)	Business Passthrough from the provider(s)	Enterprise Higher allowances available
Support	Free Community support	Standard Email support	Business Email support	Enterprise Dedicated support team

Pricing

Frequently Asked Questions

Billing and Pricing

Usage and Rate Limits

Routing and Latency

Privacy and Security

Models and Features

Reliability and Uptime

Support

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