***

title: Frequently Asked Questions
subtitle: Common questions about OpenRouter
slug: faq
headline: OpenRouter FAQ | Developer Documentation
canonical-url: '[https://openrouter.ai/docs/faq](https://openrouter.ai/docs/faq)'
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'og:title': OpenRouter FAQ
'og:description': >-
Find answers to commonly asked questions about OpenRouter's unified API, model
access, pricing, and integration.
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[https://openrouter.ai/dynamic-og?pathname=faq\&title=FAQ\&description=Common%20questions%20about%20OpenRouter](https://openrouter.ai/dynamic-og?pathname=faq\&title=FAQ\&description=Common%20questions%20about%20OpenRouter)
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---------------

## Getting started

<AccordionGroup>
  <Accordion title="Why should I use OpenRouter?">
    OpenRouter provides a unified API to access all the major LLM models on the
    market. It also allows users to aggregate their billing in one place and
    keep track of all of their usage using our analytics.

    OpenRouter passes through the pricing of the underlying providers, while pooling their uptime,
    so you get the same pricing you'd get from the provider directly, with a
    unified API and fallbacks so that you get much better uptime.

    [Learn more in our Quickstart guide](/docs/quickstart).
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="How do I get started with OpenRouter?">
    To get started, create an account and add credits on the
    [Credits](https://openrouter.ai/settings/credits) page. Credits are simply
    deposits on OpenRouter that you use for LLM inference.
    When you use the API or chat interface, we deduct the request cost from your
    credits. Each model and provider has a different price per million tokens.

    Once you have credits you can either use the chat room, or create API keys
    and start using the API. You can read our [quickstart](/docs/quickstart)
    or [enterprise](/docs/enterprise-quickstart) guide for code samples and more.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="How do I get support?">
    The best way to get technical support is to join our
    [Discord](https://discord.gg/openrouter) and ask the community in the #help forum.

    For billing and account management questions, please contact us at [support@openrouter.ai](mailto:support@openrouter.ai).
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="How do I get billed for my usage on OpenRouter?">
    For each model we have the pricing displayed per million tokens. There is
    usually a different price for prompt and completion tokens. There are also
    models that charge per request, for images and for reasoning tokens. All of
    these details will be visible on the models page.

    When you make a request to OpenRouter, we receive the total number of tokens processed
    by the provider. We then calculate the corresponding cost and deduct it from your credits.
    You can review your complete usage history in the [Activity tab](https://openrouter.ai/activity).

    We pass through the pricing of the underlying providers; there is no markup
    on inference pricing (however we do charge a [fee](/docs/faq#pricing-and-fees) when purchasing credits).
  </Accordion>
</AccordionGroup>

## Pricing and Fees

<AccordionGroup>
  <Accordion title="What are the fees for using OpenRouter?">
    OpenRouter charges a {getTotalFeeString('stripe', null)} fee when you purchase credits. 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.

    Crypto payments are charged a fee of {getTotalFeeString('coinbase', null)}.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Is there a fee for using my own provider keys (BYOK)?">
    Yes, if you choose to use your own provider API keys (Bring Your Own Key -
    BYOK), the first {toHumanNumber(BYOK_FEE_MONTHLY_REQUEST_THRESHOLD)} BYOK
    requests per-month are free, and for all subsequent usage there is a fee
    of {bn(openRouterBYOKFee.fraction).times(100).toString()}% of what the same
    model and provider would normally cost on OpenRouter. This fee is deducted
    from your OpenRouter credits. This allows you to manage your rate limits and
    costs directly with the provider while still leveraging OpenRouter's unified
    interface.

    [Learn more about BYOK](/docs/guides/overview/auth/byok).
  </Accordion>
</AccordionGroup>

## Models and Providers

<AccordionGroup>
  <Accordion title="What LLM models does OpenRouter support?">
    OpenRouter provides access to a wide variety of LLM models, including frontier models from major AI labs.
    For a complete list of models you can visit the [models browser](https://openrouter.ai/models) or fetch the list through the [models api](https://openrouter.ai/api/v1/models).
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="How frequently are new models added?">
    We work on adding models as quickly as we can. We often have partnerships with
    the labs releasing models and can release models as soon as they are
    available. If there is a model missing that you'd like OpenRouter to support, feel free to message us on
    [Discord](https://discord.gg/openrouter).
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="What are model variants?">
    Variants are suffixes that can be added to the model slug to change its behavior.

    Static variants can only be used with specific models and these are listed in our [models api](https://openrouter.ai/api/v1/models).

    1. `:free` - The model is always provided for free and has low rate limits. [Learn more](/docs/guides/routing/model-variants/free).
    2. `:extended` - The model has longer than usual context length. [Learn more](/docs/guides/routing/model-variants/extended).
    3. `:thinking` - The model supports reasoning by default. [Learn more](/docs/guides/routing/model-variants/thinking).

    Dynamic variants can be used on all models and they change the behavior of how the request is routed or used.

    1. `:online` - All requests will run a query to extract web results that are attached to the prompt. [Learn more](/docs/guides/routing/model-variants/online).
    2. `:nitro` - Providers will be sorted by throughput rather than the default sort, optimizing for faster response times. [Learn more](/docs/features/provider-routing#nitro-shortcut).
    3. `:floor` - Providers will be sorted by price rather than the default sort, prioritizing the most cost-effective options. [Learn more](/docs/features/provider-routing#floor-price-shortcut).
    4. `:exacto` - Providers will be sorted using quality-first signals tuned for tool-calling reliability. [Learn more](/docs/guides/routing/model-variants/exacto).
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="I am an inference provider, how can I get listed on OpenRouter?">
    You can read our requirements at the [Providers
    page](/docs/use-cases/for-providers). If you would like to contact us, the best
    place to reach us is over email.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="What is the expected latency/response time for different models?">
    For each model on OpenRouter we show the latency (time to first token) and the token
    throughput for all providers. You can use this to estimate how long requests
    will take. If you would like to optimize for throughput you can use the
    `:nitro` variant to route to the fastest provider.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="How does model fallback work if a provider is unavailable?">
    If a provider returns an error OpenRouter will automatically fall back to the
    next provider. This happens transparently to the user and allows production
    apps to be much more resilient. OpenRouter has a lot of options to configure
    the provider routing behavior. The full documentation can be found [here](/docs/features/provider-routing).
  </Accordion>
</AccordionGroup>

## API Technical Specifications

<AccordionGroup>
  <Accordion title="What authentication methods are supported?">
    OpenRouter uses three authentication methods:

    1. Cookie-based authentication for the web interface and chatroom
    2. API keys (passed as Bearer tokens) for accessing the completions API and other core endpoints
    3. [Management API keys](/docs/guides/overview/auth/management-api-keys) for programmatically managing API keys through the key management endpoints

    [Learn more about API authentication](/docs/api/reference/authentication).
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="How are rate limits calculated?">
    For free models, rate limits are determined by the credits that you have purchased.
    If you have purchased at least {FREE_MODEL_CREDITS_THRESHOLD} credits, your free model rate limit will be {FREE_MODEL_HAS_CREDITS_RPD} requests per day.
    Otherwise, you will be rate limited to {FREE_MODEL_NO_CREDITS_RPD} free model API requests per day.

    You can learn more about how rate limits work for paid accounts in our [rate limits documentation](/docs/api-reference/limits).
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="What API endpoints are available?">
    OpenRouter implements the OpenAI API specification for /completions and
    /chat/completions endpoints, allowing you to use any model with the same
    request/response format. Additional endpoints like /api/v1/models are also
    available. See our [API documentation](/docs/api-reference/overview) for
    detailed specifications.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="What are the supported formats?">
    The API supports text, images, and PDFs.
    [Images](/docs/guides/overview/multimodal/images) can be passed as
    URLs or base64 encoded images. [PDFs](/docs/guides/overview/multimodal/pdfs) can also be sent as URLs or base64 encoded data, and work with any model on OpenRouter.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="How does streaming work?">
    Streaming uses server-sent events (SSE) for real-time token delivery. Set
    `stream: true` in your request to enable streaming responses.

    [Learn more about streaming](/docs/api/reference/streaming).
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="What SDK support is available?">
    OpenRouter is a drop-in replacement for OpenAI. Therefore, any SDKs that
    support OpenAI by default also support OpenRouter. Check out our
    [OpenAI SDK docs](/docs/community/open-ai-sdk) for more details.

    [See all supported frameworks and integrations](/docs/guides/community/frameworks-and-integrations-overview).
  </Accordion>
</AccordionGroup>

## Privacy and Data Logging

Please see our [Terms of Service](https://openrouter.ai/terms) and [Privacy Policy](https://openrouter.ai/privacy).

<AccordionGroup>
  <Accordion title="What data is logged during API use?">
    We log basic request metadata (timestamps, model used, token counts). Prompt
    and completion are not logged by default. We do zero logging of your prompts/completions,
    even if an error occurs, unless you opt-in to logging them.

    We have an opt-in [setting](https://openrouter.ai/settings/preferences) that
    lets users opt-in to log their prompts and completions in exchange for a 1%
    discount on usage costs.

    [Learn more about data collection](/docs/guides/privacy/data-collection).
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="What data is logged during Chatroom use?">
    The same data privacy applies to the chatroom as the API. All conversations
    in the chatroom are stored locally on your device. Conversations will not sync across devices.
    It is possible to export and import conversations using the settings menu in the chatroom.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="What third-party sharing occurs?">
    OpenRouter is a proxy that sends your requests to the model provider for it to be completed.
    We work with all providers to, when possible, ensure that prompts and completions are not logged or used for training.
    Providers that do log, or where we have been unable to confirm their policy, will not be routed to unless the model training
    toggle is switched on in the [privacy settings](https://openrouter.ai/settings/privacy) tab.

    If you specify [provider routing](/docs/features/provider-routing) in your request, but none of the providers
    match the level of privacy specified in your account settings, you will get an error and your request will not complete.

    [Learn more about provider logging policies](/docs/guides/privacy/logging).
  </Accordion>
</AccordionGroup>

## Credit and Billing Systems

<AccordionGroup>
  <Accordion title="What purchase options exist?">
    OpenRouter uses a credit system where the base currency is US dollars. All
    of the pricing on our site and API is denoted in dollars. Users can top up
    their balance manually or set up auto top up so that the balance is
    replenished when it gets below the set threshold.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Do credits expire?">
    Per our [terms](https://openrouter.ai/terms), we reserve the right to expire
    unused credits after one year of purchase.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="My credits haven't showed up in my account">
    If you paid using Stripe, sometimes there is an issue with the Stripe
    integration and credits can get delayed in showing up on your account. Please allow up to one hour.
    If your credits still have not appeared after an hour, check to confirm you have not been charged and
    that you do not have a stripe receipt email. If you do not have a receipt email or have not been charged,
    your card may have been declined. Please try again with a different card or payment method.

    If you have been charged and still do not have credits, please reach out to us via email
    at [support@openrouter.ai](mailto:support@openrouter.ai) with details of the purchase.

    If you paid using crypto, please reach out to us via email at [support@openrouter.ai](mailto:support@openrouter.ai)
    and we will look into it.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="What's the refund policy?">
    Refunds for unused Credits may be requested within twenty-four (24) hours from the time the transaction was processed. If no refund request is received within twenty-four (24) hours following the purchase, any unused Credits become non-refundable. To request a refund within the eligible period, you can use the refund button on the [Credits](https://openrouter.ai/settings/credits) page. The unused credit amount will be refunded to your payment method; the platform fees are non-refundable. Note that cryptocurrency payments are never refundable.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="How to monitor credit usage?">
    The [Activity](https://openrouter.ai/activity) page allows users to view
    their historic usage and filter the usage by model, provider and api key.

    We also provide a [credits api](/docs/api-reference/get-credits) that has
    live information about the balance and remaining credits for the account.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="What free tier options exist?">
    All new users receive a very small free allowance to be able to test out OpenRouter.
    There are many [free models](https://openrouter.ai/models?max_price=0) available
    on OpenRouter, it is important to note that these models have low rate limits ({FREE_MODEL_NO_CREDITS_RPD} requests per day total)
    and are usually not suitable for production use. If you have purchased at least {FREE_MODEL_CREDITS_THRESHOLD} credits,
    the free models will be limited to {FREE_MODEL_HAS_CREDITS_RPD} requests per day.

    You can also use the [Free Models Router](/docs/guides/get-started/free-models-router-playground) (`openrouter/free`) to automatically select a free model for your requests.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="How do volume discounts work?">
    OpenRouter does not currently offer volume discounts, but you can reach out to us
    over email if you think you have an exceptional use case.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="What payment methods are accepted?">
    We accept all major credit cards, AliPay and cryptocurrency payments in
    USDC. We are working on integrating PayPal soon, if there are any payment
    methods that you would like us to support please reach out on [Discord](https://discord.gg/openrouter).
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="How does OpenRouter make money?">
    We charge a small [fee](/docs/faq#pricing-and-fees) when purchasing credits. We never mark-up the pricing
    of the underlying providers, and you'll always pay the same as the provider's
    listed price.
  </Accordion>
</AccordionGroup>

## Account Management

<AccordionGroup>
  <Accordion title="How can I delete my account?">
    Go to the [Settings](https://openrouter.ai/settings/preferences) page and click Manage Account.
    In the modal that opens, select the Security tab. You'll find an option there to delete your account.

    Note that unused credits will be lost and cannot be reclaimed if you delete and later recreate your account.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="How does team access work?">
    Organization management information can be found in our [organization management documentation](/docs/use-cases/organization-management).
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="What analytics are available?">
    Our [activity dashboard](https://openrouter.ai/activity) provides real-time
    usage metrics. If you would like any specific reports or metrics please
    contact us.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="How can I contact support?">
    For account and billing questions, please contact us at [support@openrouter.ai](mailto:support@openrouter.ai).
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="How can I file a bug report or change request for OpenRouter?">
    You can file bug reports or change requests by posting in our [Discord](https://discord.gg/openrouter).
  </Accordion>
</AccordionGroup>
