AI model prices: aggregators vs buying direct
Per-million-token list prices (USD, standard tier, text) for representative models, bought from the model maker versus through OpenRouter, Hugging Face Inference Providers and Vercel AI Gateway. Aggregator prices come from each one's official machine-readable model list, refreshed at every build; direct prices are read from our stored snapshots of official pricing pages. Every number shows its source and fetch date. If we could not fetch or verify a price, it shows n/a; we never fill one in. Percent difference = (route − direct) ÷ direct.
| Model | Route | Input $/1M tokens | Output $/1M tokens | vs direct (in / out) | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GPT-4o | Direct | n/a† | n/a† | n/a | GPT-4o text pricing is not in our stored snapshot of OpenAI's pricing page (the openai.com pricing page blocks automated access). |
| GPT-4o | OpenRouter | $2.50 | $10.00 | no direct price | API, fetched 2026-10-23 |
| GPT-4o | Vercel AI Gateway | $2.50 | $10.00 | no direct price | API, fetched 2026-10-23 |
| GPT-4o | Hugging Face Inference Providers | n/a† | n/a† | n/a | model not listed in the official price list fetched 2026-10-23 |
| Claude Sonnet 5 | Direct (Anthropic (Claude)) | $2.00 | $10.00 | baseline | snapshot, fetched 2026-10-23 |
| Claude Sonnet 5 | OpenRouter | $2.00 | $10.00 | +0% / +0% | API, fetched 2026-10-23 |
| Claude Sonnet 5 | Vercel AI Gateway | $2.00 | $10.00 | +0% / +0% | API, fetched 2026-10-23 |
| Claude Sonnet 5 | Hugging Face Inference Providers | n/a† | n/a† | n/a | model not listed in the official price list fetched 2026-10-23 |
| Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Direct (Anthropic (Claude)) | $2.00 | $10.00 | baseline | snapshot, fetched 2026-10-23 |
| Claude Sonnet 5.5 | OpenRouter | $2.00 | $10.00 | +0% / +0% | API, fetched 2026-10-23 |
| Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Vercel AI Gateway | $2.00 | $10.00 | +0% / +0% | API, fetched 2026-10-23 |
| Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Hugging Face Inference Providers | n/a† | n/a† | n/a | model not listed in the official price list fetched 2026-10-23 |
| Llama 3.3 70B Instruct | Direct | n/a† | n/a† | n/a | Meta does not sell Llama 3.3 70B through a first-party API that we track; no direct price. |
| Llama 3.3 70B Instruct | OpenRouter | $0.10 | $0.32 | no direct price | API, fetched 2026-10-23 |
| Llama 3.3 70B Instruct | Hugging Face (novita) | $0.14 | $0.40 | no direct price | API, fetched 2026-10-23 |
| Llama 3.3 70B Instruct | Hugging Face (scaleway) | $1.03 | $1.03 | no direct price | API, fetched 2026-10-23 |
| Llama 3.3 70B Instruct | Hugging Face (ovhcloud) | $0.74 | $0.74 | no direct price | API, fetched 2026-10-23 |
| Llama 3.3 70B Instruct | Vercel AI Gateway | $0.72 | $0.72 | no direct price | API, fetched 2026-10-23 |
| Gemini 2.5 Flash | Direct (Google (Gemini)) | $0.30 | $2.50 | baseline | snapshot, fetched 2026-10-23 |
| Gemini 2.5 Flash | OpenRouter | $0.30 | $2.50 | +0% / +0% | API, fetched 2026-10-23 |
| Gemini 2.5 Flash | Vercel AI Gateway | $0.30 | $2.50 | +0% / +0% | API, fetched 2026-10-23 |
| Gemini 2.5 Flash | Hugging Face Inference Providers | n/a† | n/a† | n/a | model not listed in the official price list fetched 2026-10-23 |
Cheapest verified route per model
- GPT-4o: OpenRouter, Vercel AI Gateway ($2.50 in / $10.00 out, fetched 2026-10-23)
- Claude Sonnet 5: Direct (Anthropic (Claude)), OpenRouter, Vercel AI Gateway ($2.00 in / $10.00 out, fetched 2026-10-23)
- Claude Sonnet 5.5: Direct (Anthropic (Claude)), OpenRouter, Vercel AI Gateway ($2.00 in / $10.00 out, fetched 2026-10-23)
- Llama 3.3 70B Instruct: OpenRouter ($0.10 in / $0.32 out, fetched 2026-10-23)
- Gemini 2.5 Flash: Direct (Google (Gemini)), OpenRouter, Vercel AI Gateway ($0.30 in / $2.50 out, fetched 2026-10-23)
Based on input + output list price only, ignoring fees, caching, batch and regional pricing. Ties are listed together.
Platform and credit fees (official wording)
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.
OpenRouter charges a fee when you purchase credits.
OpenRouter's credit-purchase fee percentage: not stated in our fetched copy of the FAQ (the number did not render). Not included in the table.
Usage above the allowance has a fee of 5 % of what the same model and provider would normally cost on OpenRouter.
Hugging Face charges you the same rates as the provider, with no additional fees.
AI Gateway charges no markup and no platform fee on tokens.
You're responsible for any payment processing fees that may apply.
Poe and T3 Chat
Poe: not comparable. poe.com's robots.txt disallows our crawler for its pricing/about page, so we did not fetch it and cannot derive a per-token cost from official numbers.
T3 Chat: not comparable. Its site returned HTTP 429 (rate limited) to our crawler; we did not retry around that, and we have no official per-token numbers to derive an effective cost.
Price-list refresh at this build: openrouter: refreshed, huggingface: refreshed, vercel: refreshed. See also how aggregators route requests, price drops & deals, the changelog.