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/docs/llms.txt: /docs/llms.txt
API Reference: /docs/api_reference/overview
API documentation: /docs/api_reference/overview
Activity tab: https://openrouter.ai/activity
Activity: https://openrouter.ai/activity
Agent SDK: /docs/agent-sdk/overview
Anthropic Agent SDK: /docs/guides/community/anthropic-agent-sdk
App Attribution: /docs/app-attribution
Apps: https://openrouter.ai/apps
Arize AX: /docs/guides/community/arize
Auto Exacto: /docs/guides/routing/auto-exacto
Awesome OpenRouter: /docs/guides/community/awesome-openrouter
Batch Beta: /docs/batch-quickstart
Benchmarks: https://openrouter.ai/benchmarks
Chat: https://openrouter.ai/chat
Client SDKs: /docs/client-sdks/overview
Cookbook: /docs/cookbook/get-started/quickstart
Credits: https://openrouter.ai/settings/credits
Custom Classifiers: /docs/guides/features/classifiers
Data Collection: /docs/guides/privacy/data-collection
Discord: https://discord.gg/openrouter
Docs: /docs/quickstart
Docs: https://openrouter.ai/docs
Effect AI SDK: /docs/guides/community/effect-ai-sdk
FAQ: /docs/faq
For Providers: /docs/guides/community/for-providers
Frameworks and Integrations Overview: /docs/guides/community/frameworks-and-integrations-overview
Free Models Router: /docs/cookbook/get-started/free-models-router-playground
Images: /docs/guides/overview/multimodal/image-understanding
Infisical: /docs/guides/community/infisical
Input & Output Logging: /docs/guides/features/input-output-logging
LangChain: /docs/guides/community/langchain
Langfuse: /docs/guides/community/langfuse
Latency and Performance: /docs/guides/best-practices/latency-and-performance
Learn more about API authentication: /docs/api_reference/authentication
Learn more about BYOK: /docs/guides/overview/auth/byok
Learn more about data collection: /docs/guides/privacy/data-collection
Learn more about provider logging policies: /docs/guides/privacy/provider-logging
Learn more about streaming: /docs/api_reference/streaming
Learn more in our Quickstart guide: /docs/quickstart
Learn more: /docs/guides/routing/model-variants/exacto
Learn more: /docs/guides/routing/model-variants/extended
Learn more: /docs/guides/routing/model-variants/free
Learn more: /docs/guides/routing/model-variants/online
Learn more: /docs/guides/routing/model-variants/thinking
Learn more: /docs/guides/routing/provider-selection#floor-price-shortcut
Learn more: /docs/guides/routing/provider-selection#nitro-shortcut
LiveKit: /docs/guides/community/livekit
MCP: /docs/guides/overview/mcp-server
Management API keys: /docs/guides/overview/auth/management-api-keys
Mastra: /docs/guides/community/mastra
Message Transforms: /docs/guides/features/message-transforms
Model Fallbacks: /docs/guides/routing/model-fallbacks
Models: /docs/guides/overview/models
Models: https://openrouter.ai/models
OpenAI SDK docs: /docs/guides/community/openai-sdk
OpenAI SDK: /docs/guides/community/openai-sdk
OpenRouter | Documentation home page: https://openrouter.ai
Ori Eval: /docs/guides/ori/eval
Ori Harness: /docs/guides/ori/harness
PDFs: /docs/guides/overview/multimodal/pdfs
Presets: /docs/guides/features/presets
Principles: /docs/guides/overview/principles
Privacy Policy: https://openrouter.ai/privacy
Private Models: /docs/guides/routing/private-models
Prompt Caching: /docs/guides/best-practices/prompt-caching
Provider Logging: /docs/guides/privacy/provider-logging
Provider Selection: /docs/guides/routing/provider-selection
Providers page: /docs/guides/community/for-providers
PydanticAI: /docs/guides/community/pydantic-ai
Quickstart: /docs/quickstart
Rankings: https://openrouter.ai/rankings
Reasoning Tokens: /docs/guides/best-practices/reasoning-tokens
Render: /docs/guides/community/render
Replit: /docs/guides/community/replit
Report Feedback: /docs/guides/overview/report-feedback
Response Caching: /docs/guides/features/response-caching
Router Metadata: /docs/guides/features/router-metadata
SCIM Group Mappings: /docs/guides/features/scim-mappings
See all supported frameworks and integrations: /docs/guides/community/frameworks-and-integrations-overview
Service Tiers: /docs/guides/features/service-tiers
Settings: https://openrouter.ai/settings/preferences
Single Sign-On (SSO): /docs/guides/features/sso
Sovereign AI: /docs/guides/features/sovereign-ai
Stripe Projects: /docs/guides/overview/stripe-projects
Structured Outputs: /docs/guides/features/structured-outputs
Switching Workspaces: /docs/guides/features/workspaces/switching
TanStack AI: /docs/guides/community/tanstack-ai
Terms of Service: https://openrouter.ai/terms
Tool Calling: /docs/guides/features/tool-calling
Uptime Optimization: /docs/guides/best-practices/uptime-optimization
Vercel AI SDK: /docs/guides/community/vercel-ai-sdk
Where Ori writes files: /docs/guides/ori/files
Workspace Budgets: /docs/guides/features/workspaces/workspace-budgets
Workspaces: /docs/guides/features/workspaces
Xcode: /docs/guides/community/xcode
ZDR: /docs/guides/features/zdr
Zapier: /docs/guides/community/zapier
Zero Completion Insurance: /docs/guides/features/zero-completion-insurance
activity dashboard: https://openrouter.ai/activity
credits api: /docs/api/api-reference/credits/get-remaining-credits
enterprise: /docs/cookbook/get-started/enterprise-quickstart
fee: /docs/faq#pricing-and-fees
free models: https://openrouter.ai/models?max_price=0
here: /docs/guides/routing/provider-selection
models api: https://openrouter.ai/api/v1/models
models browser: https://openrouter.ai/models
openrouter:web_search server tool: /docs/guides/features/server-tools/web-search
organization management documentation: /docs/cookbook/administration/organization-management
pricing page: https://openrouter.ai/pricing
privacy settings: https://openrouter.ai/settings/privacy
provider routing: /docs/guides/routing/provider-selection
quickstart: /docs/quickstart
rate limits documentation: /docs/api_reference/limits
setting: https://openrouter.ai/settings/preferences
support@openrouter.ai: mailto:support@openrouter.ai
terms: https://openrouter.ai/terms

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[content]
OpenRouter FAQ
Documentation Index
Fetch the complete documentation index at:
/docs/llms.txt
Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
Skip to main content
OpenRouter | Documentation
home page
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Navigation
Overview
Frequently Asked Questions
Docs
API Reference
Client SDKs
Agent SDK
Cookbook
Overview
Quickstart
Batch
Beta
Principles
Models
MCP
Multimodal
Authentication
Stripe Projects
FAQ
Report Feedback
Models & Routing
Model Fallbacks
Provider Selection
Auto Exacto
Private Models
Model Variants
Routers
Features
Workspaces
Workspace Budgets
Switching Workspaces
Single Sign-On (SSO)
SCIM Group Mappings
Presets
Custom Classifiers
Response Caching
Tool Calling
Server Tools
Plugins
Structured Outputs
Message Transforms
Zero Completion Insurance
ZDR
App Attribution
Guardrails
Service Tiers
Sovereign AI
Router Metadata
Input & Output Logging
Broadcast
Ori
Ori Eval
Ori Harness
Where Ori writes files
Privacy
Data Collection
Provider Logging
Best Practices
Latency and Performance
Prompt Caching
Uptime Optimization
Reasoning Tokens
Community
For Providers
Frameworks and Integrations Overview
Awesome OpenRouter
Effect AI SDK
Arize AX
LangChain
LiveKit
Langfuse
Mastra
OpenAI SDK
Anthropic Agent SDK
PydanticAI
Render
Replit
TanStack AI
Vercel AI SDK
Xcode
Zapier
Infisical
On this page
Getting started
Pricing and fees
Models and providers
API technical specifications
Privacy and data logging
Credit and billing systems
Account management
Overview
Frequently Asked Questions
Copy page
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Common questions about OpenRouter
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​
Getting started
Why should I use OpenRouter?
OpenRouter provides a unified API to access all the major LLM models on the market. It also allows users to aggregate their billing in one place and keep track of all of their usage using our analytics.
OpenRouter passes through the pricing of the underlying providers, while pooling their uptime, so you get the same pricing you’d get from the provider directly, with a unified API and fallbacks so that you get much better uptime.
Learn more in our Quickstart guide
.
How do I get started with OpenRouter?
To get started, create an account and add credits on the
Credits
page. Credits are simply deposits on OpenRouter that you use for LLM inference. When you use the API or chat interface, we deduct the request cost from your credits. Each model and provider has a different price per million tokens.
Once you have credits you can either use the chat room, or create API keys and start using the API. You can read our
quickstart
or
enterprise
guide for code samples and more.
How do I get support?
The best way to get technical support is to join our
Discord
and ask the community in the #help forum.
For billing and account management questions, please contact us at
support@openrouter.ai
.
How do I get billed for my usage on OpenRouter?
For each model we have the pricing displayed per million tokens. There is usually a different price for prompt and completion tokens. There are also models that charge per request, for images and for reasoning tokens. All of these details will be visible on the models page.
When you make a request to OpenRouter, we receive the total number of tokens processed by the provider. We then calculate the corresponding cost and deduct it from your credits. You can review your complete usage history in the
Activity tab
.
We pass through the pricing of the underlying providers; there is no markup on inference pricing (however we do charge a
fee
when purchasing credits).
​
Pricing and fees
What are the fees for using OpenRouter?
OpenRouter charges a
fee when you purchase credits. We pass through the pricing of the underlying model providers without any markup, so you pay the same rate as you would directly with the provider.
Crypto payments are charged a fee of
.
Is there a fee for using my own provider keys (BYOK)?
Yes. BYOK has a plan-dependent free allowance measured by list-price inference cost, not request count. Pay-as-you-go includes
per month with no BYOK fee, while Enterprise includes
. Usage above the allowance has a fee of
% of what the same model and provider would normally cost on OpenRouter. This fee is deducted from your OpenRouter credits. This allows you to manage your rate limits and costs directly with the provider while still using OpenRouter’s unified interface. See the
pricing page
for details.
Learn more about BYOK
.
​
Models and providers
What LLM models does OpenRouter support?
OpenRouter provides access to a wide variety of LLM models, including frontier models from major AI labs. For a complete list of models you can visit the
models browser
or fetch the list through the
models api
.
How frequently are new models added?
We work on adding models as quickly as we can. We often have partnerships with the labs releasing models and can release models as soon as they are available. If there is a model missing that you’d like OpenRouter to support, feel free to message us on
Discord
.
What are model variants?
Variants are suffixes that can be added to the model slug to change its behavior.
Static variants can only be used with specific models and these are listed in our
models api
.
:free
- The model is always provided for free and has low rate limits.
Learn more
.
:extended
- The model has longer than usual context length.
Learn more
.
:thinking
- The model supports reasoning by default.
Learn more
.
Dynamic variants can be used on all models and they change the behavior of how the request is routed or used.
:online
(deprecated) - All requests will run a query to extract web results that are attached to the prompt. Use the
openrouter:web_search
server tool
instead.
Learn more
.
:nitro
- Providers will be sorted by throughput rather than the default sort, optimizing for faster response times.
Learn more
.
:floor
- Providers will be sorted by price rather than the default sort, prioritizing the most cost-effective options.
Learn more
.
:exacto
- Providers will be sorted using quality-first signals tuned for tool-calling reliability.
Learn more
.
I am an inference provider, how can I get listed on OpenRouter?
You can read our requirements at the
Providers page
. If you would like to contact us, the best place to reach us is over email.
What is the expected latency/response time for different models?
For each model on OpenRouter we show the latency (time to first token) and the token throughput for all providers. You can use this to estimate how long requests will take. If you would like to optimize for throughput you can use the
:nitro
variant to route to the fastest provider.
How does model fallback work if a provider is unavailable?
If a provider returns an error OpenRouter will automatically fall back to the next provider. This happens transparently to the user and allows production apps to be much more resilient. OpenRouter has a lot of options to configure the provider routing behavior. The full documentation can be found
here
.
​
API technical specifications
What authentication methods are supported?
OpenRouter uses three authentication methods:
Cookie-based authentication for the web interface and chatroom
API keys (passed as Bearer tokens) for accessing the completions API and other core endpoints
Management API keys
for programmatically managing API keys through the key management endpoints
Learn more about API authentication
.
How are rate limits calculated?
For free models, rate limits are determined by the credits that you have purchased. If you have purchased at least
credits, your free model rate limit will be
requests per day. Otherwise, you will be rate limited to
free model API requests per day.
You can learn more about how rate limits work for paid accounts in our
rate limits documentation
.
What API endpoints are available?
OpenRouter implements the OpenAI API specification for /completions and /chat/completions endpoints, allowing you to use any model with the same request/response format. Additional endpoints like /api/v1/models are also available. See our
API documentation
for detailed specifications.
What are the supported formats?
The API supports text, images, and PDFs.
Images
can be passed as URLs or base64 encoded images.
PDFs
can also be sent as URLs or base64 encoded data, and work with any model on OpenRouter.
How does streaming work?
Streaming uses server-sent events (SSE) for real-time token delivery. Set
stream: true
in your request to enable streaming responses.
Learn more about streaming
.
What SDK support is available?
OpenRouter is a drop-in replacement for OpenAI. Therefore, any SDKs that support OpenAI by default also support OpenRouter. Check out our
OpenAI SDK docs
for more details.
See all supported frameworks and integrations
.
​
Privacy and data logging
Please see our
Terms of Service
and
Privacy Policy
.
What data is logged during API use?
We log basic request metadata (timestamps, model used, token counts). Prompt and completion are not logged by default. We do zero logging of your prompts/completions, even if an error occurs, unless you opt-in to logging them.
We have an opt-in
setting
that lets users opt-in to log their prompts and completions in exchange for a 1% discount on usage costs.
Learn more about data collection
.
What data is logged during Chatroom use?
The same data privacy applies to the chatroom as the API. All conversations in the chatroom are stored locally on your device. Conversations will not sync across devices. It is possible to export and import conversations using the settings menu in the chatroom.
What third-party sharing occurs?
OpenRouter is a proxy that sends your requests to the model provider for it to be completed. We work with all providers to, when possible, ensure that prompts and completions are not logged or used for training. Providers that do log, or where we have been unable to confirm their policy, will not be routed to unless the model training toggle is switched on in the
privacy settings
tab.
If you specify
provider routing
in your request, but none of the providers match the level of privacy specified in your account settings, you will get an error and your request will not complete.
Learn more about provider logging policies
.
​
Credit and billing systems
What purchase options exist?
OpenRouter uses a credit system where the base currency is US dollars. All of the pricing on our site and API is denoted in dollars. Users can top up their balance manually or set up auto top up so that the balance is replenished when it gets below the set threshold.
Do credits expire?
Per our
terms
, we reserve the right to expire unused credits after one year of purchase.
My credits haven't showed up in my account
If you paid using Stripe, sometimes there is an issue with the Stripe integration and credits can get delayed in showing up on your account. Please allow up to one hour. If your credits still have not appeared after an hour, check to confirm you have not been charged and that you do not have a stripe receipt email. If you do not have a receipt email or have not been charged, your card may have been declined. Please try again with a different card or payment method.
If you have been charged and still do not have credits, please reach out to us via email at
support@openrouter.ai
with details of the purchase.
If you paid using crypto, please reach out to us via email at
support@openrouter.ai
and we will look into it.
What's the refund policy?
Refunds for unused Credits may be requested within twenty-four (24) hours from the time the transaction was processed. If no refund request is received within twenty-four (24) hours following the purchase, any unused Credits become non-refundable. To request a refund within the eligible period, you can use the refund button on the
Credits
page. The unused credit amount will be refunded to your payment method; the platform fees are non-refundable. Note that cryptocurrency payments are never refundable.
How to monitor credit usage?
The
Activity
page allows users to view their historic usage and filter the usage by model, provider and api key.
We also provide a
credits api
that has live information about the balance and remaining credits for the account.
What free tier options exist?
All new users receive a small free allowance to test out OpenRouter. There are many
free models
available on OpenRouter. These models have low rate limits (
requests per day total) and are usually not suitable for production use. If you have purchased at least
credits, the free models will be limited to
requests per day.
You can also use the
Free Models Router
(
openrouter/free
) to automatically select a free model for your requests.
How do volume discounts work?
OpenRouter does not currently offer volume discounts, but you can reach out to us over email if you think you have an exceptional use case.
What payment methods are accepted?
We accept all major credit cards, AliPay and cryptocurrency payments in USDC. We are working on integrating PayPal soon, if there are any payment methods that you would like us to support please reach out on
Discord
.
How does OpenRouter make money?
We charge a small
fee
when purchasing credits. We never mark-up the pricing of the underlying providers, and you’ll always pay the same as the provider’s listed price.
​
Account management
How can I delete my account?
Go to the
Settings
page and click Manage Account. In the modal that opens, select the Security tab. You’ll find an option there to delete your account.
Note that unused credits will be lost and cannot be reclaimed if you delete and later recreate your account.
How does team access work?
Organization management information can be found in our
organization management documentation
.
What analytics are available?
Our
activity dashboard
provides real-time usage metrics. If you would like any specific reports or metrics please contact us.
How can I contact support?
For account and billing questions, please contact us at
support@openrouter.ai
.
How can I file a bug report or change request for OpenRouter?
You can file bug reports or change requests by posting in our
Discord
.
Stripe Projects
Report Feedback
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