Standard Credits
How you pay
Buy credits on OpenRouter, pay per token from your balance
Platform fee
5.5% on credit card, 5% on crypto
Key management
One OpenRouter key for everything
Best for
Simplicity, multi model usage, experimentation
BYOK
How you pay
Pay providers directly, 5% routing fee to OpenRouter
Platform fee
5% routing fee only
Key management
OpenRouter key + individual provider keys
Best for
Existing provider accounts, negotiated rates, enterprise agreements
BYOK setup tips
- Register provider keys in your OpenRouter dashboard under the BYOK section.
- You can mix BYOK and credit based usage. Use your own Anthropic key for Claude models and credits for everything else.
- BYOK keys still benefit from fallback routing. If your Anthropic key hits a rate limit, OpenRouter can fall back to other providers using credits.