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'.

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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

  1. Buy credits at openrouter.ai/credits (5.5% fee, $0.80 minimum)
  2. Each request deducts (prompt_tokens * prompt_rate) + (completion_tokens * completion_rate)
  3. Check balance via GET /api/v1/auth/key or the dashboard
  4. Auto-topup is available to prevent service interruption

Query Model Pricing

bash
# 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

python
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

python
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

bash
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

python
# :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 :floor variant to automatically pick the cheapest provider
  • Route simple tasks to budget models and complex tasks to premium models (see openrouter-model-routing)
  • Set max_tokens on every request to cap completion cost
  • Enable auto-topup to prevent service interruptions in production

References

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