OpenRouter Cost Calculator: Fees, Credits and BYOK
OpenRouter passes model prices through without markup — its money comes from fees around the edges. Here are Standard plan credit fees, BYOK fees and illustrative estimates. Business and Enterprise terms can differ; taxes and optional services can add charges.
Last updated: November 10, 2026 · verified against OpenRouter's official FAQ ↗ and current plans
The three ways OpenRouter charges you
1. Credit purchase fee — 5.5% (minimum $0.80)
Standard card credit purchases carry a 5.5% fee with a $0.80 minimum. Check the current checkout for crypto fees and any minimum. Business has an 8% credit fee; Enterprise pricing is contractual. It is charged per purchase, not per request.
| Credits purchased | Fee (5.5%) | Total paid |
|---|---|---|
| $10 | $0.80 (minimum) | $10.80 |
| $100 | $5.50 | $105.50 |
| $500 | $27.50 | $527.50 |
| $2,000 | $110.00 | $2,110.00 |
| $5,000 | $275.00 | $5,275.00 |
Two mechanics worth knowing: the minimum matters on small purchases — twelve $100 purchases and one $1,200 purchase each cost $66 in Standard percentage fees. Ten $1 purchases would trigger the $0.80 minimum ten times, versus $0.80 once on a $10 purchase, where those purchase sizes are available. And unused credits can legally be expired after a year, so don't stockpile more than you'll burn.
2. BYOK overage — 5% above a $25,000/month allowance
If you route to providers with your own API keys (Bring Your Own Key), OpenRouter includes a free allowance measured by list-price inference cost: $25,000 per month on the pay-as-you-go plan. Above the allowance, the fee is 5% of what the same usage would have cost through OpenRouter's own routing. This allowance measures list-price inference value, not request count.
3. Model prices — pass-through, no markup
Model inference is billed at the provider's listed price. Verify the exact model, provider endpoint, context tier and cache support on OpenRouter before comparing it with a direct account. A direct-provider promotional or peak/off-peak rate is not assumed to apply identically to every routed endpoint.
Worked example: DeepSeek at $2,000/month
Assume the same model and provider route costs $2,000/month for inference, with identical billable token categories. Direct from DeepSeek, that's the bill. Through OpenRouter, add the credit fee: $110/month, $1,320/year — for routing and failover you may not need once your stack is fixed. The full breakdown of when that trade is worth it is in OpenRouter vs Direct.
Estimate your total bill
- Estimate your raw inference cost with the LLM API cost calculator — enter requests, token sizes and your cache-hit assumption.
- First confirm that OpenRouter's selected endpoint has the same token rates. For Standard, estimate credit purchase fees as max(credits × 5.5%, $0.80) per purchase; Business uses 8%. Credits purchased can differ from monthly usage.
- Compare against the direct list price — the difference is what the convenience costs you, per month and per year.
Free models on OpenRouter exist (50 requests/day, or 1,000/day once you've bought at least $10 in credits) — fine for evaluation, not for production rate limits.
FAQ
- Is there a per-request fee? Standard fees include credit purchases (5.5%, $0.80 minimum) and BYOK overage (5%). Business credit fees are 8%. Some models and auxiliary services have other billing units; check the selected endpoint and current plan.
- Do credits expire? OpenRouter's terms allow expiring unused credits after one year.
- Can I get a refund? Unused credits are refundable within 24 hours of purchase; platform fees and crypto payments are not.
- Is there a volume discount? Enterprise platform fees can be negotiated; provider inference rates are not discounted by the standard pricing page.
Open the cost calculator → · OpenRouter vs Direct: the full analysis · Cheapest LLMs for coding