AnyRouter vs OpenRouter: a practical comparison

• Markup — AnyRouter charges $0 markup on your own BYOK keys; you pay only the upstream provider. OpenRouter adds a percentage on provider spend.
• Free tier — AnyRouter's Free plan is $0 with no monthly credits; free-tier models (anyrouter/free) need the Go plan ($2/mo, or donate a key). OpenRouter funds a free tier from provider giveaways — different model entirely.
• Edge routing — AnyRouter routes every provider through Cloudflare's AI Gateway at the edge. OpenRouter is region-routed.
• On-device models — AnyRouter can serve models running on your own paired hardware via a local relay. OpenRouter is cloud-only.
• Open config — AnyRouter's model prices live in a version-controlled config in this repo. OpenRouter publishes a private pricing table.

Canonical plan table: docs.anyrouter.dev/features/pricing.

Older posts that say $1 Go are wrong. Go nets $2/mo → $4 in credits; Free has no monthly credits. See /blog/starter-plan-one-dollar for the full breakdown.

AnyRouter speaks the same OpenAI-compatible contract, so switching is usually just the base URL and the key. Model ids become provider/model.

from openai import OpenAI

client = OpenAI(base_url="https://anyrouter.dev/api/v1", api_key="sk-ar-v1-...")

resp = client.chat.completions.create(
  model="anthropic/claude-opus-4-8",
  messages=[{"role": "user", "content": "Hello"}],
)