A practical guide for developers who want to use the Claude API from Türkiye. Differences from Anthropic’s direct pricing, Visa/Mastercard and international card usage, latency from Istanbul and Ankara, lira-USD exchange rates, and KVKK compliance notes—everything you need to know before your first call.
First call in 5 seconds
Kunavo is compatible with the OpenAI wire protocol. If your code already uses the OpenAI SDK, migrating requires a one-line change in base_url. In Python:
from openai import OpenAI
client = OpenAI(
api_key="sk-kn-...",
base_url="https://api.kunavo.com/v1", # değişen tek satır bu
)
resp = client.chat.completions.create(
model="claude-sonnet-4-6",
messages=[{"role": "user", "content": "Kendini Türkçe iki cümleyle tanıt."}],
)
print(resp.choices[0].message.content)It’s identical in Node.js / TypeScript:
import OpenAI from "openai";
const client = new OpenAI({
apiKey: process.env.KUNAVO_API_KEY!,
baseURL: "https://api.kunavo.com/v1",
});
const resp = await client.chat.completions.create({
model: "claude-opus-4-7",
messages: [{ role: "user", content: "Bu makaleyi 3 madde halinde özetle." }],
});
console.log(resp.choices[0].message.content);Registration is free: top up from $10, pay only for what you use (pay-as-you-go), and your balance never expires—more than enough to thoroughly test Claude Opus 4.7, Sonnet 4.6, and Haiku 4.5.
Price difference compared with Anthropic directly
Claude models on Kunavo are priced 30% below Anthropic's official rates, depending on the model. Claude Sonnet 4.6 costs $3.00 for input / $15.00 for output per million tokens directly — on Kunavo, $2.10 / $10.50 (30% cheaper). With prompt caching, rereading a fixed prefix is billed at 10% of the input rate, or approximately $0.21 per million tokens. Full pricing for all models is available at /pricing.
Latency from Istanbul and Ankara
Kunavo runs in a single US-East region (Ashburn, Virginia), behind an anycast edge that terminates TLS near you. The edge shortens the TLS handshake, not the trip across the Atlantic: from a cloud server in Istanbul, round-trip time is determined by the physical distance to the US East Coast and the model’s own inference time. Direct access to Anthropic us-east-1 takes the same route. Streaming responses arrive with the same time-to-first-token as upstream—no buffering, no batching.
Payment methods—Turkish cards, international cards, Apple Pay, and Google Pay
We use Stripe natively. Available methods for customers in Türkiye:
- Visa and Mastercard cards issued by Turkish banks and enabled for international use
- American Express (at banks that accept it internationally)
- Apple Pay, Google Pay (if configured in Chrome / Android), and Link (one-click payment)
Important note: Your card must be enabled for international transactions. Some Turkish banks block international use by default—you may need to ask your bank to enable one-time or ongoing international use.
Prices are in USD; Stripe converts them to TRY during checkout. Stripe’s exchange rate includes the 2–4% conversion fee paid by the purchaser; this fee does not apply when paying in USD (Stripe Adaptive Pricing documentation, read on 2026-10-03). Bank transfers / EFT are not available. Minimum top-up: $10 USD. This is not a subscription but a prepaid wallet—the balance never expires.
A strategy for TRY fluctuations
Because the Turkish lira has fluctuated significantly against the USD in recent years, Kunavo's USD-based pricing may increase your costs at certain times. Three practical approaches:
- Make a bulk top-up: top-ups of $1,000+ unlock extra bonus credit (e.g., a $1,000 top-up = $1,200 in credit). Details are at /pricing.
- Use prompt caching: Agent setups with recurring system prompts can save 70–90% on input. Guide: prompt caching deep dive.
- Model tiering: Claude Haiku 4.5 for simple tasks (10x cheaper), Opus 4.7 for complex tasks. Details: cost optimization guide.
KVKK and data residency
Routing logic runs at the gateway, in the single US-East region (Ashburn), not at the edge; the anycast edge only terminates TLS. Billing and account data are stored in a single primary database whose volume is snapshotted in encrypted form every day. We route requests to upstream APIs (Anthropic, OpenAI, Google)—these providers process prompt content according to their own terms. Anthropic and Google offer Zero Data Retention options to their enterprise customers, but Kunavo does not offer ZDR routing, a data processing agreement (DPA), or data residency in Türkiye or the EU: requests are processed in the United States and forwarded to upstream providers. If your team needs a data processing agreement under KVKK, ZDR, or domestic data residency, contract directly with the model provider (Anthropic, OpenAI, or Google enterprise terms).
Turkish-language support
Our team responds in Turkish to Turkish-language emails sent to contact@kunavo.com within one business day.
Frequently asked questions
- My Turkish card was declined. What should I do? Ask your bank to enable international transactions, or try using Visa (Mastercard sometimes has issues with some banks).
- Can I be billed in TRY? No, pricing is in USD. Stripe shows TRY at checkout, but the underlying currency is USD.
- KVKK compliance? Kunavo does not offer a data processing agreement, and requests are processed in the United States. If you need one, contract directly with the model provider (Anthropic, OpenAI, or Google).
- Is there a local Turkish LLM? There is no local Turkish LLM in the catalog yet. See /models for the current catalog; subscribe to the changelog.
Ready to get started? Sign up for free, top up from $10, and make your first call to Claude in five minutes. For questions from Türkiye, contact us directly at contact@kunavo.com — we respond in Turkish.