Where Portkey fits
Portkey is strongest as a control and observability layer over accounts you already run. If you have negotiated provider rates, need an open-source gateway you can self-host for data-residency or compliance reasons, or want first-class guardrails, prompt versioning and deep request tracing, Portkey is built for exactly that. It is an LLMOps platform first — the gateway is one part of a governance stack aimed at teams standardising how many services call many models.
Where Kunavo wins
Kunavo removes the provider accounts entirely. You top up one wallet and call Claude, GPT, plus image, video and audio, below each provider's list price depending on the model — no Anthropic Console, no Google Cloud project, no per-provider invoice to reconcile. Generation endpoints (images, video, music) are first-class, the native Anthropic Messages API is available on the same key, and checkout is Stripe-native with local methods (Apple Pay, Alipay, WeChat Pay). For a team that wants the cheapest path to many models on one bill — rather than a governance platform over keys it already holds — Kunavo is the shorter route.
How to pick (or use both)
Pick Portkey if you need a self-hostable open-source gateway, deep guardrails and prompt governance over provider keys you already manage. Pick Kunavo if you want resold inference on one prepaid wallet below list, first-class multimodal, and one balance to reconcile. And they compose: add Kunavo as an OpenAI-compatible provider inside Portkey to keep Portkey's control plane while your tokens run through Kunavo's discounted catalog.
How you pay: Portkey vs Kunavo
Portkey and Kunavo answer the payment question at different layers, which is easy to miss when you are comparing pricing pages. Kunavo's checkout is Stripe-native, so the list follows the buyer rather than our billing country, and every method tops up the same prepaid API balance. Everywhere Stripe reaches: cards (Visa, Mastercard, Amex, JCB, UnionPay); everywhere except India, also Link and, on devices where they are set up, Apple Pay or Google Pay. In the United States: Cash App Pay, Klarna, Afterpay, ACH bank debit (3–5 business days to clear) and crypto (stablecoins), plus Affirm on top-ups of $100 and up and Zip on top-ups of $100 to $1,500. Elsewhere the local rail appears with the local currency: Alipay and WeChat Pay in mainland China; KakaoPay, Naver Pay, PAYCO, Samsung Pay and Korean domestic cards in South Korea; UPI in India; Pix in Brazil; iDEAL in the Netherlands, Bancontact in Belgium, EPS in Austria, MB WAY in Portugal, Satispay in Italy; BLIK in Poland; Bacs Direct Debit in the UK (a few business days to clear); and Pay by Bank for buyers in the UK, Ireland and Finland. Stripe converts the dollar amount into local currency on the checkout page, so nobody has to hunt for a card cleared for international purchases; its rate includes a 2–4% conversion fee, which paying in dollars avoids. Portkey is a bring-your-own-key gateway: what you pay Portkey is a platform subscription priced by recorded logs, while the model spend itself lands on your own OpenAI, Anthropic and Google accounts. So “which payment methods are accepted” has as many answers as you have provider accounts, and each of those providers wants its own card on file. Portkey does not publish the methods its own subscription takes. With Kunavo there is one checkout and one balance, and the list above is the whole of it.