OpenRouter vs Vercel AI Gateway
Both are llm gateways tools. Here is how they actually differ on price, billing model and deployment.
OpenRouter
A managed gateway to 500+ models with no subscription, charging 5.5% on top of provider prices. Two details to know - there are no volume discounts, and your credits expire after a year of non-use.
Vercel AI Gateway
No markup on tokens and $5 of free credits a month per team. The details worth knowing are that BYOK is paid-tier only, and zero data retention is a metered add-on at $0.10 per 1,000 requests.
| OpenRouter | Vercel AI Gateway | |
|---|---|---|
| Category | LLM Gateways | LLM Gateways |
| Our rating | 4/5 | 4/5 |
| Starting price | 5.5% markup | $0 plus provider list price |
| Billing meter | markup-pct | No usage metering |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free self-hosting | No or paid tier only | No or paid tier only |
| Best for | Small teams and prototypes trying many models without wanting infrastructure, and anyone whose monthly provider spend stays below roughly $5,000 where the markup costs less than running a gateway. | Teams already deploying on Vercel who want provider-agnostic model access at list price with no markup, and who do not need governance features that carry a per-request charge. |
Our verdict on OpenRouter
OpenRouter is the fastest way to get access to a very large number of models, and for small teams it is close to unbeatable on convenience. One key, one OpenAI-compatible endpoint, 500+ models, no subscription, and 27 community-subsidised models that are genuinely free. If you are evaluating which model suits a problem, the ability to switch between hundreds by changing a string is worth real money in engineering time alone. The economics turn against you as you grow, and the reason is structural. The 5.5% markup carries no volume discounts, so the fee scales indefinitely with your spend while delivering nothing additional - at $50,000 a month that is $2,750 every month for the same service you got at $1,000. Two smaller details are worth knowing. Credits expire after one year of non-use, which is unusual enough to catch people out. And there is no self-hosted option, so their availability is your availability, with no fallback you control.
Full OpenRouter review →Our verdict on Vercel AI Gateway
Vercel AI Gateway takes no markup on tokens, which puts it in the right half of this category immediately. You pay provider list price from prepaid credits, every team gets $5 a month in credits that refresh every 30 days, and platform seats are free on Hobby - so a solo developer pays nothing for the gateway itself. Against OpenRouter's 5.5% with no volume discounts, that difference compounds indefinitely. Three details deserve attention before you commit. BYOK is paid-tier only, so using your own provider keys requires the $20 per seat plan. Failed BYOK requests fall back to system credentials and are charged against your balance, which is the kind of thing you discover on an invoice rather than in documentation. And zero data retention is not a default - it is a team-wide add-on metered at $0.10 per 1,000 successful requests, with provider allowlists priced the same way. Charging per request for privacy and for basic governance is an unusual choice and worth modelling if either matters to you.
Full Vercel AI Gateway review →Frequently Asked Questions
What is the main difference between OpenRouter and Vercel AI Gateway?
OpenRouter: Small teams and prototypes trying many models without wanting infrastructure, and anyone whose monthly provider spend stays below roughly $5,000 where the markup costs less than running a gateway. Vercel AI Gateway: Teams already deploying on Vercel who want provider-agnostic model access at list price with no markup, and who do not need governance features that carry a per-request charge. Both sit in LLM Gateways, so the decision usually comes down to billing model and deployment rather than raw capability.
Which is cheaper, OpenRouter or Vercel AI Gateway?
It depends entirely on your workload shape, because they meter differently - OpenRouter bills on markup-pct and Vercel AI Gateway bills on no usage metering. Published starting prices are 5.5% markup and $0 plus provider list price respectively, but those numbers are not comparable until you apply them to the same traffic. Use our cost calculator to model both against your own request volume and span count.
Can I self-host OpenRouter or Vercel AI Gateway?
OpenRouter: No or paid tier only. Vercel AI Gateway: No or paid tier only. Free self-hosting means no licence fee, not no cost - you still own the infrastructure, upgrades and on-call.