OpenRouter vs Vercel AI Gateway
The question that decides it: Do you need the long tail of the model catalog, or do you already pay Vercel for seats?
Our verdict
Already on Vercel with the AI SDK: Vercel AI Gateway, because your seats are a sunk cost and there is no fee on top of tokens. Anywhere else, or if you need the long tail of open-weight models across many upstream providers: OpenRouter, and accept the 5.5% credit fee.
Why
These two look like direct competitors and price almost nowhere near each other. Both publish zero token markup, so neither adds a percentage to the per-token rate you would pay the model vendor. The difference is what surrounds that. OpenRouter takes 5.5% when you buy credits, with a minimum of $0.80 — which means a $5 top-up costs you $5.80, an effective 16% on small amounts. Vercel takes nothing on credits and nothing on tokens, but Pro seats are $20 per user per month.
That makes the arithmetic almost entirely about your existing bill. If you are already paying Vercel for three Pro seats to host your app, the gateway is genuinely free at the margin and OpenRouter cannot beat it on cost. If you are not on Vercel, those seats are a new $60 a month line item to access a gateway, and OpenRouter is cheaper until your credit purchases are large enough that 5.5% exceeds the seat cost.
Catalog is the other axis, and it is not close. OpenRouter publishes 500+ models across 80+ upstream providers; Vercel publishes 360 models and does not publish a provider count. More importantly, OpenRouter typically offers several upstream deployments of the same open-weight model, which is what makes its price sorting and automatic failover useful. If you are running Llama or Qwen and want the cheapest healthy endpoint at any moment, that pool of providers is the product. Vercel gives you provider ordering and fallbacks too, but from a shallower pool.
Neither offers a semantic cache or native content guardrails, so if you need either, both of these are the wrong shelf — look at Portkey or Kong instead. Both are managed-only, so neither is an option if you need to self-host.
Which one, concretely
Choose OpenRouter if
- You want the widest catalog and several upstream providers per open-weight model
- You are not paying Vercel for seats and do not want to start
- You want a public, unauthenticated models endpoint with live per-model pricing
- You buy credits in large enough amounts that 5.5% is small in absolute terms
Choose Vercel AI Gateway if
- You already ship on Vercel and the seats are already on your invoice
- You want zero fee on both tokens and credit purchases
- You use the AI SDK and want the tightest integration with it
- You want per-request zero data retention and provider allowlists at no extra cost
What catches people out
- OpenRouter's 5.5% credit fee has a $0.80 minimum, so small top-ups are disproportionately expensive. Buy credits in larger blocks.
- OpenRouter's own BYOK documentation describes two different meters — a $25k list-price cost threshold and a 1M request threshold. Confirm which applies to you before planning around it.
- Vercel's team-wide zero data retention and team-wide provider allowlists are metered at $0.10 per 1,000 requests, unlike the per-request versions which are free.
- Vercel's BYOK requires purchased credits, can silently fall back to Vercel credentials, and is excluded from budget controls — a combination that can produce surprise spend.
Side by side
3 of 16 fields differ, marked with a dot. Every figure links to the vendor page it came from. Blank values read Not published rather than No — silence from a vendor is not a negative answer.
| Field | OpenRouter | Vercel AI Gateway |
|---|---|---|
| Ease of leaving Derived score, higher is easier | 64/100 Some work to leave | 64/84 Some work to leave |
| What kind of product Category | Managed marketplace | Managed gateway |
| Who runs it Deployment model | Managed only | Managed only |
| Licence Licence | Proprietary | Proprietary |
| Models available Models available | 400–500 | 200–350 |
| Model providers reachable Upstream providers | ~83 | Not published |
| Markup on model prices Token markup | None | None |
| Fee to add funds Credit purchase fee | 5.5% | None |
| Monthly cost per person Seat fee | Not published | $20/user/mo |
| Can use your own provider accounts BYOK supported | Yes | Yes |
| Does not retain your data Zero data retention | Yes | Yes |
| Automatic failover Automatic failover | Yes | Yes |
| Rule-based routing Conditional routing | Yes | Yes |
| Similar-question caching Semantic cache | No | No |
| Content guardrails Content guardrails | No | No |
| SOC 2 audited SOC 2 audited | Yes | Yes |
| Will sign a HIPAA agreement HIPAA BAA | Not published | Yes |
Verified 3 days ago for OpenRouter and Verified 3 days ago for Vercel AI Gateway. Want more fields, or a third option in the mix? Open these two in the full comparison tool.
Common questions
Is Vercel AI Gateway cheaper than OpenRouter?
It depends on whether you already pay for Vercel seats. Vercel charges no token markup and no credit-purchase fee, but Pro seats are $20 per user per month. OpenRouter charges no token markup either, but takes 5.5% on credit purchases with a $0.80 minimum. If your Vercel seats already exist for other reasons, Vercel is effectively free at the margin. If they do not, OpenRouter is usually cheaper.
Which one has more models?
OpenRouter publishes 500+ models from 80+ upstream providers. Vercel AI Gateway publishes 360 models and does not publish a provider count. OpenRouter also typically offers multiple upstream deployments of the same open-weight model, which matters for price-based routing and failover.
Can either one be self-hosted?
No. Both are managed-only services. If self-hosting is a requirement, look at LiteLLM, Bifrost, or the open-source core of Portkey instead.