Prepaid multi-model wallet
LLM Gateway is a hosted multi-model wallet: provider rates, a 5% fee when you buy credits, BYOK at 0%, optional payload storage at $0.01/1M tokens, and an AGPLv3 self-host. RouterPlex is the same job with a smaller catalog — vendor list price, $0 to fund the balance, requests stop at $0. They win on catalog, BYOK, and self-host. We win on the funding fee and prepaid stop-at-zero.
Wallet
Category
$0
Top-up fee
40
Models
At a glance
Figures are taken from official vendor pages and dated 26 Aug 2026. Verify before you move production traffic.
| RouterPlex | LLM Gateway | |
|---|---|---|
| Per-token prices | Vendor list price, $0 markup | Provider rates |
| Fee when you buy credits | $0.00 | 5% on credits (official) |
| $100 of credit costs | $100.00 | $105.00* |
| BYOK | Not offered | Yes — 0% platform fee (official) |
| Self-host | No — hosted only | Yes — AGPLv3 (official) |
| Model catalog | 40 curated models, 14 providers | 200+ models, 40+ providers (official) |
| Payload storage | Not a billed add-on | Optional $0.01 / 1M tokens |
| Balance can go negative | Never — requests stop at $0 | Not published as a stop-at-zero wallet |
| Hard per-key budgets | Hard lifetime cap on every key | Budgets and spend controls (official) |
| Minimum top-up | $5 | No published $5 floor |
* $100 of LLM Gateway credits at a 5% credit fee is $105. Figures from llmgateway.io/pricing, checked 26 Aug 2026. Non-US cards add a 1.5% international fee on their page.
01 — Category
LLM Gateway sits in the same shopping cart as RouterPlex, OpenRouter, and Requesty: one account, many models, OpenAI-compatible. The comparison is the credit fee, BYOK, self-host, catalog size, and whether the balance can overdraw — not GPU SKUs.
02 — The 5%
llmgateway.io/pricing (26 Aug 2026) says you pay per-token at each provider's rates, and the platform fee is a flat 5% when you buy credits. BYOK is listed at 0% — you pay providers directly. Optional full payload storage is $0.01 per 1M tokens.
RouterPlex does not offer BYOK. On the included catalog you pay the vendor's published list price and $0 to put money in. A $100 RouterPlex top-up is $100 of tokens. The same $100 of credits on LLM Gateway is $105 at that 5% rate. Optional RouterPlex plans add up to +25% bonus credit.
03 — Catalog, BYOK, self-host
200+ models across 40+ providers, BYOK at 0%, and an AGPLv3 self-host are real LLM Gateway wins. If you already have vendor keys, or you want to run the gateway yourself, they are the closer product. RouterPlex will not match that surface.
RouterPlex is built for the 40 models that dominate production agent traffic. If those are the calls, a $5 prepaid key with a hard budget and a balance that cannot go negative is the cleaner production shape — at the cost of catalog breadth and BYOK.
04 — Spend safety
RouterPlex is strictly prepaid: when the balance hits $0, requests stop. A leaked key or a looping agent can spend at most what you loaded. LLM Gateway publishes budgets and spend controls; it does not publish the same stop-at-zero overdraft guarantee. If that failure mode is why you are shopping, treat it as our product, not theirs.
The verdict
These are different products. Choose the job you actually need, not the logo that showed up first in a search.
Switching
Both are OpenAI-compatible. Point the client at RouterPlex and use plain model ids from the catalog. LLM Gateway's base URL is https://api.llmgateway.io/v1.
# before client = OpenAI(base_url="https://api.llmgateway.io/v1", api_key=LLMGATEWAY_KEY) # after client = OpenAI(base_url="https://api.routerplex.com/v1", api_key=ROUTERPLEX_API_KEY)
Full setup guides for Claude Code, Cursor and other tools are in the documentation.
Questions
Yes, in the same hosted-wallet category. LLM Gateway wins on catalog size, BYOK at 0%, and AGPLv3 self-host. RouterPlex wins on $0 funding fee, a prepaid balance that cannot go negative, and bonus-credit plans. Our catalog is 40 models, not 200+.
On credits, yes — llmgateway.io/pricing (26 Aug 2026) says the platform fee is a flat 5% when you buy credits. BYOK is listed at 0%. Optional full payload storage is $0.01 per 1M tokens. Non-US cards add a 1.5% international fee on their page.
Yes. They publish an AGPLv3 open-source gateway. RouterPlex is hosted only. Self-host if you want that control; pick RouterPlex if you do not want to operate a proxy.
Point the OpenAI SDK at https://api.routerplex.com/v1, use a RouterPlex key, and remap model ids from the catalog. Test tools and streaming first.
Also compare
Same vendor list prices. $0 top-up versus 5.5% by card. Balance never goes negative.
No token markup on Vercel. Processor fees may apply. We are a standalone prepaid wallet that cannot overdraw.
Fireworks runs the GPUs. RouterPlex is a prepaid multi-vendor wallet — not a faster Fireworks.
Together is an AI cloud. RouterPlex is a prepaid wallet for official vendors — not a Together clone.
Start routing
Vendor list prices, $0 top-up fee, prepaid that stops at zero. Top up from $5.