The fees
| Plan | What it costs |
|---|---|
| Free | Free models only, no fee |
| Standard (pay as you go) | 5.5% added when you buy credits |
| Business (pay as you go) | 8% added when you buy credits |
| Enterprise | Contract pricing, with fee discounts by volume |
The token prices themselves are the providers' own: OpenRouter says it passes them through without markup, and streaming costs the same as not streaming. An attempt that errors isn't charged for its tokens, though extras such as web search can still be. Taxes like VAT are added on top where they apply.
So $100 of credit costs $105.50 on Standard and $108 on Business, and every model costs its list price plus that fee in the end.
Free models and their limits
OpenRouter lists 25 or more free models, marked :free, that don't draw on your credits. They're capped:
| Account | Free model limit |
|---|---|
| Never bought credits | 20 requests a minute, 50 a day |
| Bought at least $10 of credits | 20 a minute, 1,000 a day |
Failed attempts count toward the daily cap, and a negative balance blocks free models until you add credits. Free models suit trying things out; for anything with users, the daily cap is the limit you'll hit first.
Is there an OpenRouter promo code?
OpenRouter has a page for redeeming codes, openrouter.ai/redeem, where each code works once per account and may expire or run out. But its pricing page, FAQ and docs list no public code for new or existing users: codes come from its own events and promotions. Treat codes on coupon sites with care: one only works if OpenRouter issued it.
Bring your own key (BYOK)
You can route requests through OpenRouter with your own provider keys and pay the provider directly. The first $25,000 a month of usage, counted at list price, carries no OpenRouter fee; after that, OpenRouter takes 5% of what the request would have cost there, from your credits.
Credits, expiry and refunds
- OpenRouter's terms let it expire unused credits a year after purchase.
- Unused credits can be refunded if you ask within 24 hours of buying them. The fee isn't refunded, and crypto payments never are.
- Each API key can carry its own credit limit, resetting daily, weekly or monthly.
Get an OpenRouter API key
Create one at openrouter.ai/keys: give it a name and, if you like, a credit limit. It works with the OpenAI SDKs at https://openrouter.ai/api/v1, sent as Authorization: Bearer. Model names carry the lab's prefix, such as anthropic/… or openai/….
What the same models cost below list
For Claude, GPT and Gemini, OpenRouter's price is the lab's list price, so with the Standard fee each 1M tokens costs about 5.5% more than list. On Zurelay the same models cost less than list, with no fee on credit. Per 1M input / output tokens:
| Model | OpenRouter, with the 5.5% fee | Zurelay |
|---|---|---|
| Claude Opus 5.5 | $4.22 / $21.10 | $1.40 / $7.00 |
| Claude Sonnet 5.5 | $2.11 / $10.55 | $0.90 / $4.50 |
| GPT-6 Astra | $10.55 / $52.75 | $2.50 / $12.50 |
| GPT-6.1 Terra | $1.06 / $5.28 | $0.25 / $1.25 |
| Gemini 3.8 Flash | $0.79 / $3.96 | $0.32 / $1.59 |
OpenRouter is the better fit if you want its free models, hundreds of open models from many hosts, or to bring your own provider keys. If you mostly spend on the big labs' models, the OpenRouter alternative page compares the two side by side.
Fees, limits and terms read from OpenRouter's pricing page, FAQ and API docs on October 28, 2026. OpenRouter is a trademark of its owner; Zurelay isn't affiliated with it.