What is OpenRouter?
OpenRouter is an LLM aggregator: one OpenAI-compatible API that routes each request to one of 300+ chat models from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Mistral and a long tail of open-source providers. Instead of an account per provider, you hold one OpenRouter account and choose the model by name in the request. It is text-only — chat and completion models — with no image, video or audio generation endpoints.
How the OpenRouter API works
You send a standard OpenAI-style chat completion to OpenRouter's base URL with your OpenRouter key, setting the model field to a namespaced slug such as anthropic/claude-sonnet or openai/gpt-4o. OpenRouter forwards the call to that provider, can fall back to alternates, and returns the OpenAI-shaped response. Because it speaks the OpenAI protocol, any OpenAI SDK works by pointing base_url at it. Kunavo works the same way — the difference is the catalog and what sits behind it.
OpenRouter pricing, and how Kunavo compares
OpenRouter charges the upstream provider's per-token price plus a small platform margin, funded from a prepaid wallet (crypto-first, cards supported). Kunavo takes the opposite position: every enabled model is published 30–70% under the provider's official list rate depending on the model — Claude Sonnet 4.6 at $1.20/$6.00 per 1M tokens vs Anthropic's $3/$15, Gemini 2.5 Flash at $0.09/$0.75 vs Google's $0.30/$2.50. The per-1M rate for every model is on the /pricing page, so the comparison is direct.
OpenRouter API key vs Kunavo API key
An OpenRouter key authenticates against OpenRouter's text-model catalog only. A Kunavo key (sk-kunavo-…) authenticates against the same OpenAI-compatible chat endpoint plus image, video and audio endpoints and the native Anthropic Messages API — one credential for every modality, drawn from one Stripe-billed balance. Both are bearer tokens in the Authorization header, so moving across is a one-line base_url change plus the new key.
OpenRouter 真正的強項
如果你的產品需要文字聊天模型的長尾覆蓋 —— Mistral 微調、Llama 變體、小眾社群模型、實驗性開源模型 —— OpenRouter 的目錄無人能敵。他們也擁有最成熟的加密貨幣原生儲值流程，這對卡支付困難的地區很重要。圍繞模型、Prompt 技巧與評測的社群討論也更活躍。
Kunavo 的強項
多模態一份帳單是最大差異。一旦你的產品需要影像生成、影像編輯或影片，OpenRouter 沒有這些端點，你就得跑兩套接入、兩條結算關係。Kunavo 在 chat 之外直接給你 /v1/images、/v1/images/edits、/v1/video/generations 和 /v1/audio/music，全部 OpenAI 形態、同一錢包。價格也是實實在在更低：每個啟用模型都比官方掛牌價低 30–70%（按模型），每 1M token 價格全部公示在 /pricing 上隨時可比對。Stripe 原生結帳接入 Apple Pay、Google Pay、ACH、SEPA、Alipay 與微信支付 —— 讓美國和歐盟以外的自助付費也跑得起來。
誠實結論
如果你已經在文字場景標準化使用 OpenRouter，且產品永遠不需要影像或影片 —— 切換沒有強迫力，你現有的 OpenAI SDK 程式碼可原樣跑在 Kunavo 上（僅改一行 base_url），可以兩邊都備著，等價格差值得遷移再換。如果你做任何多模態產品，或服務以美元之外本地支付的客戶 —— Kunavo 是更簡潔的一套。無論怎樣，驗證成本很小：$5 起充、改一行 base_url，幾分鐘就能跑通。