Does OpenRouter mark up model prices?

OpenRouter says it passes through the providers’ prices without markup. It charges its fee when you buy credit: 5.5% by card with a $0.80 minimum, or 5% in crypto.

Is OpenRouter safe to use with a design tool?

OpenRouter does not store your prompts or outputs unless you opt in, is a GitHub secret scanning partner that emails you if your key shows up in code pushed to GitHub, and lets you cap each key’s spending. The main risk is the key itself, so give each tool its own key with a low limit. See what bring your own key means.

What changes now that Stripe is buying OpenRouter?

Nothing yet, according to OpenRouter, which said on August 19, 2026 that it will keep the same name, product and roadmap and that existing integrations do not change. At that point the deal was still subject to closing conditions.

Can I use OpenRouter without writing code?

Yes. You can chat with models in OpenRouter’s own chatroom, which stores conversations on your device, or use an app that connects to OpenRouter with your key or a sign-in button. You only need code to call the API yourself.

What is OpenRouter, and how do you get an API key?

Checked September 24, 20266 min read

Short answer

OpenRouter is a service that gives you one account, one API key and one bill for more than 400 AI models from over 80 providers, including Google’s Nano Banana and OpenAI’s GPT Image models. It passes model prices through without markup and charges 5.5% (at least $0.80) when you buy credit by card. To get a key, sign up, add credit, then create a key at openrouter.ai/keys and give it a credit limit.

What OpenRouter is

OpenRouter sits between an app and the companies that run AI models. The app sends each request to OpenRouter with one key; OpenRouter passes it to the right provider and charges your OpenRouter balance. One key can then reach text, image and other models from many makers, and an app can offer many models without asking you to open an account with each maker.

OpenRouter says more than 8 million developers use it. It raised a $113 million Series B led by CapitalG, Alphabet’s growth fund, in May 2026, and on August 19, 2026 Stripe announced it had agreed to buy OpenRouter. Press reports put the price above $7 billion; neither company disclosed it. OpenRouter said it would keep the same name, product and roadmap and that nothing about existing integrations changes, with the deal expected to close "in the coming weeks".

What it costs

Charge	Amount
Model use	The provider’s price, passed through without markup
Buying credit by card	5.5%, at least $0.80 per purchase
Buying credit in crypto (USDC)	5%
Using your own provider keys through OpenRouter	Free up to $25,000 of use a month on pay-as-you-go, then 5%
Letting OpenRouter use your prompts and outputs	Optional; gives a 1% discount on model use
Unused credit	OpenRouter may expire it one year after purchase
Refunds	Unused credit within 24 hours of purchase; fees are not refunded, and crypto payments never are

From OpenRouter’s FAQ and docs, September 24, 2026.

The $0.80 minimum makes small top-ups dearer. The fee stays at $0.80 on any purchase up to about $14.55 and is 5.5% above that.

You buy	Fee	You pay	Fee as a share
$10	$0.80	$10.80	8%
$20	$1.10	$21.10	5.5%
$50	$2.75	$52.75	5.5%
$100	$5.50	$105.50	5.5%

New accounts get a small free allowance to try things, and some models are free with daily limits: 50 requests a day, or 1,000 once you have bought at least $10 of credit.

How to get an OpenRouter API key

Create an account at openrouter.ai.
Add credit on the Credits page. OpenRouter takes major cards, AliPay and USDC. You can also turn on auto top-up, which refills your balance when it drops below a level you set.
Open openrouter.ai/keys and create a key. Name it after the app that will use it.
Set a credit limit on the key, and choose whether it resets daily, weekly or monthly. Resets happen at midnight UTC.
Copy the key straight into a password manager. OpenRouter shows the full key only once.
Paste the key into the app. Some apps offer a sign-in button instead, which connects your OpenRouter account and creates a key you control (OpenRouter calls this OAuth PKCE).
Open your privacy settings and decide what providers may do with your data (see below).
After your first session, check the Activity page to see what each request cost.

Cap the spending on each key

OpenRouter recommends a credit limit on every key, because a key with no limit lets a leaked key or a runaway app spend your entire balance. Once a key reaches its limit, OpenRouter rejects its requests until you raise the limit or the limit resets. Weekly limits run Monday to Sunday.

For a design tool, set a monthly limit a little above what you expect to spend. At our average of about 8 renders per usable photo, 100 photos on Nano Banana 2 is about $54 of model use, so a $60 monthly limit stops a surprise without blocking normal work. For the reasoning behind that renders number, see how many AI renders it takes to get one usable photo.

Teams on an organization account can also set guardrails: budgets per member or per key, lists of allowed models and providers, and zero data retention rules. Only organization admins can create them.

Privacy settings to check

Setting	Default	What it does
Private Input & Output Logging	Off	When on, your prompts and replies appear in your own logs
OpenRouter use of your inputs and outputs	Off	Lets OpenRouter use your data to improve its product, for a 1% discount
Providers that train on your data	Your choice	Opt out, and OpenRouter will not send your requests to providers that train on them
Zero data retention (ZDR)	Your choice	Limits requests to providers that do not keep your prompt or response

OpenRouter keeps request metadata, such as token counts and speed, for every request.

Image models on OpenRouter

OpenRouter added an image API in June 2026 with more than 30 image models. On September 11, 2026 it made the same studio packshot of a glass bottle at 1024 × 1024 on each model with default settings and published what each one billed.

Model	Maker	Billed for one image
GPT Image 2 (low quality)	OpenAI	$0.006
FLUX.2 Klein 4B	Black Forest Labs	$0.014
FLUX.2 Pro	Black Forest Labs	$0.030
Qwen Image 3	Qwen	$0.030
Krea 2 Medium	Krea	$0.030
Nano Banana 2 Lite	Google	$0.034
Seedream 5.0 Lite	ByteDance	$0.035
MAI-Image-2.5	Microsoft	$0.048
Nano Banana 2	Google	$0.067
FLUX.2 Max	Black Forest Labs	$0.070
Seedream 5.0 Pro	ByteDance	$0.090
Nano Banana Pro	Google	$0.134

From OpenRouter’s published test, September 2026. Default settings; GPT Image 2 defaults to low quality.

Setting GPT Image 2 to high quality raised its bill from $0.006 to $0.21. GPT Image 2.5 Flare and Sunburst, released on September 8, 2026, are listed at the same token prices as GPT Image 2, and Meta’s Muse Image at $0.01 an image. For how these compare on product work, see which AI image model is best for product photos.

Questions people also ask

Does OpenRouter mark up model prices?: OpenRouter says it passes through the providers’ prices without markup. It charges its fee when you buy credit: 5.5% by card with a $0.80 minimum, or 5% in crypto.
Is OpenRouter safe to use with a design tool?: OpenRouter does not store your prompts or outputs unless you opt in, is a GitHub secret scanning partner that emails you if your key shows up in code pushed to GitHub, and lets you cap each key’s spending. The main risk is the key itself, so give each tool its own key with a low limit. See what bring your own key means.
What changes now that Stripe is buying OpenRouter?: Nothing yet, according to OpenRouter, which said on August 19, 2026 that it will keep the same name, product and roadmap and that existing integrations do not change. At that point the deal was still subject to closing conditions.
Can I use OpenRouter without writing code?: Yes. You can chat with models in OpenRouter’s own chatroom, which stores conversations on your device, or use an app that connects to OpenRouter with your key or a sign-in button. You only need code to call the API yourself.

Where Overs fits

Overs runs on your own OpenRouter key: requests go from your browser straight to OpenRouter, so Overs adds no markup, and the key stays on the device where you typed it. You need an OpenRouter account with a little credit before you can make photos. The Overs plan is free for 40 photos a month; the AI costs a few cents a photo on your key.

Free for 40 photos a month. The AI that makes the photos is billed separately, on your own key, with no markup from Overs.

Start free How it works

Sources

Checked on September 24, 2026. Prices, specs and rules change; follow the links for the current versions.