Agent skill
openrouter-pricing-basics
Understand OpenRouter pricing, calculate costs, and optimize spend. Use when budgeting, comparing model costs, or tracking spend. Triggers: 'openrouter pricing', 'openrouter cost', 'model pricing', 'openrouter budget', 'how much does openrouter cost'.
Install this agent skill to your Project
npx add-skill https://github.com/jeremylongshore/claude-code-plugins-plus-skills/tree/main/plugins/saas-packs/openrouter-pack/skills/openrouter-pricing-basics
SKILL.md
OpenRouter Pricing Basics
Overview
OpenRouter charges per token with separate rates for prompt (input) and completion (output) tokens. Prices are listed per token in the models API (multiply by 1M for per-million rates). Credits are prepaid with a 5.5% processing fee ($0.80 minimum). Free models are available for testing and low-volume use.
How Pricing Works
- Buy credits at openrouter.ai/credits (5.5% fee, $0.80 minimum)
- Each request deducts
(prompt_tokens * prompt_rate) + (completion_tokens * completion_rate) - Check balance via
GET /api/v1/auth/keyor the dashboard - Auto-topup is available to prevent service interruption
Query Model Pricing
# Get pricing for all models
curl -s https://openrouter.ai/api/v1/models | jq '.data[] | select(.id == "anthropic/claude-3.5-sonnet") | {
id: .id,
prompt_per_M: ((.pricing.prompt | tonumber) * 1000000),
completion_per_M: ((.pricing.completion | tonumber) * 1000000),
context: .context_length
}'
# → { "id": "anthropic/claude-3.5-sonnet", "prompt_per_M": 3, "completion_per_M": 15, "context": 200000 }
Cost Tiers (Representative)
| Tier | Example Model | Prompt/1M | Completion/1M | Use Case |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free | google/gemma-2-9b-it:free |
$0.00 | $0.00 | Testing, prototyping |
| Budget | meta-llama/llama-3.1-8b-instruct |
$0.06 | $0.06 | Simple Q&A, classification |
| Mid | openai/gpt-4o-mini |
$0.15 | $0.60 | General purpose |
| Standard | anthropic/claude-3.5-sonnet |
$3.00 | $15.00 | Complex reasoning, code |
| Premium | openai/o1 |
$15.00 | $60.00 | Deep reasoning |
Calculate Request Cost
def estimate_cost(model_id: str, prompt_tokens: int, completion_tokens: int) -> float:
"""Calculate cost for a single request."""
import requests
models = requests.get("https://openrouter.ai/api/v1/models").json()["data"]
model = next((m for m in models if m["id"] == model_id), None)
if not model:
raise ValueError(f"Model {model_id} not found")
prompt_rate = float(model["pricing"]["prompt"]) # Cost per token
completion_rate = float(model["pricing"]["completion"])
return (prompt_tokens * prompt_rate) + (completion_tokens * completion_rate)
# Example: Claude 3.5 Sonnet, 1000 prompt + 500 completion tokens
cost = estimate_cost("anthropic/claude-3.5-sonnet", 1000, 500)
print(f"Estimated cost: ${cost:.6f}") # ~$0.0105
Track Actual Cost Per Request
import requests
# Method 1: From response usage (estimate)
response = client.chat.completions.create(
model="anthropic/claude-3.5-sonnet",
messages=[{"role": "user", "content": "Hello"}],
max_tokens=100,
)
# response.usage.prompt_tokens, response.usage.completion_tokens
# Method 2: Query generation endpoint (exact cost from OpenRouter)
gen = requests.get(
f"https://openrouter.ai/api/v1/generation?id={response.id}",
headers={"Authorization": f"Bearer {os.environ['OPENROUTER_API_KEY']}"},
).json()
print(f"Exact cost: ${gen['data']['total_cost']}")
print(f"Tokens: {gen['data']['tokens_prompt']} prompt + {gen['data']['tokens_completion']} completion")
Check Credit Balance
curl -s https://openrouter.ai/api/v1/auth/key \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $OPENROUTER_API_KEY" | jq '{
credits_used: .data.usage,
credit_limit: .data.limit,
remaining: ((.data.limit // 0) - .data.usage),
is_free_tier: .data.is_free_tier
}'
Save Money with Variants
# :floor variant picks the cheapest provider for a model
response = client.chat.completions.create(
model="anthropic/claude-3.5-sonnet:floor", # Cheapest provider
messages=[{"role": "user", "content": "Hello"}],
max_tokens=100,
)
# :free variant uses free providers (where available)
response = client.chat.completions.create(
model="google/gemma-2-9b-it:free",
messages=[{"role": "user", "content": "Hello"}],
max_tokens=100,
)
Special Pricing
| Item | Pricing |
|---|---|
| Reasoning tokens | Charged as output tokens at completion rate |
| Image inputs | Per-image charge listed in pricing.image |
| Per-request fee | Some models charge a flat fee per request (pricing.request) |
| BYOK | First 1M requests/month free; then 5% of normal provider cost |
| Free model limits | 50 req/day (free users), 1000 req/day (with $10+ credits) |
Error Handling
| HTTP | Cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| 402 | Insufficient credits | Top up at openrouter.ai/credits or use :free model |
| 402 | Key credit limit reached | Increase key limit or use a different key |
Enterprise Considerations
- Set per-key credit limits via the dashboard or provisioning API to isolate blast radius
- Query
/api/v1/generation?id=after each request for exact cost auditing - Use
:floorvariant to automatically pick the cheapest provider - Route simple tasks to budget models and complex tasks to premium models (see openrouter-model-routing)
- Set
max_tokenson every request to cap completion cost - Enable auto-topup to prevent service interruptions in production
References
- Examples | Errors
- Pricing | Credits | Models API
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