Alternatives

OpenRouter Alternatives: costs, performance and limits

Choose DeepInfra for a direct GPT-OSS 120B endpoint at $0.00054 per example, which is above OpenRouter’s $0.00045 route floor before credit fees; choose Groq for 473 tokens/s on Artificial Analysis (AA).

Updated · 15 sources · Methodology

NeedPickWhy
Lowest alternative costDeepInfra$0.0005412
Fastest measured outputGroq473 tokens/s3
Shortest measured initial waitTogether AI0.47 s3

Performance

Performance

GPT-OSS 120B · AA provider snapshot · high reasoning effort · 10,000 input tokens.

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ProviderOutput speed (tokens/s)First-chunk median (s)Endpoint Accuracy Index v1.0
OpenRouter3Depends on the selected upstream route——
DeepInfra336.7198%
Novita AI3228.9193%
Groq3473.6590%
Together AI3118.4781%
Fireworks AI3No endpoint row in this AA provider snapshot——

Pricing

Prices and request cost

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ProviderInput / 1M tokensOutput / 1M tokens
OpenRouter45
Depends on the selected upstream route		$0.03$0.15
DeepInfra12$0.037$0.17
Novita AI678$0.05$0.25
Groq910$0.15$0.60
Together AI111213$0.15$0.60
Fireworks AI1415$0.15$0.60
Cost example: 10,000 input + 1,000 billed output tokens
OpenRouter$0.00045
DeepInfra$0.00054
Novita AI$0.00075
Groq$0.00210
Together AI$0.00210
Fireworks AI$0.00210

Options, strengths and limitations

Options, strengths and limitations

  1. DeepInfra

    A direct-provider alternative with bfloat16 serving and published zero data retention.

    Input / 1M tokens
    $0.037
    Output / 1M tokens
    $0.17
    Estimated request cost
    $0.00054

    Strengths

    • DeepInfra offers a direct bfloat16 GPT-OSS 120B endpoint with published zero data retention, without selecting an upstream route.12

    Limitations

    • A direct DeepInfra integration trades routing choice for the standard endpoint’s 36 tokens/s at $0.037/$0.17. Turbo is separately priced and measured.3

    Sources:12 · Novita AI vs DeepInfra

  2. Novita AI

    A fixed-provider API for teams replacing upstream routing with a single direct integration.

    Input / 1M tokens
    $0.05
    Output / 1M tokens
    $0.25
    Estimated request cost
    $0.00075

    Strengths

    • Novita’s measured output is 228 tokens/s at a $0.00075 example cost; the OpenRouter example is $0.00045.6783

    Limitations

    • A fixed Novita AI endpoint has a 32K output cap and a 0.91 s first-chunk median, compared with Groq’s 0.65 s. It does not preserve OpenRouter’s upstream selection.3

    Sources:678

  3. Groq

    A direct streaming API for replacing route selection with model-specific provider limits.

    Input / 1M tokens
    $0.15
    Output / 1M tokens
    $0.60
    Estimated request cost
    $0.00210

    Strengths

    • Groq records 473 tokens/s in this AA snapshot; OpenRouter costs $0.00045 per fixed-token example.9103

    Limitations

    • Direct Groq access costs $0.15/$0.60 per 1M input/output tokens, above Novita AI’s $0.05/$0.25.

    Sources:910 · Novita AI vs Groq

  4. Together AI

    Direct provider access for teams prioritizing a short initial wait over upstream routing choice.

    Input / 1M tokens
    $0.15
    Output / 1M tokens
    $0.60
    Estimated request cost
    $0.00210

    Strengths

    • Together has the shortest measured first-chunk median here at 0.47 s; OpenRouter costs $0.00045 per example.1112133

    Limitations

    • Direct Together AI access costs $0.15/$0.60 per 1M input/output tokens. Novita AI lists lower rates of $0.05/$0.25.

    Sources:111213 · Novita AI vs Together AI

  5. Fireworks AI

    A direct Fireworks option for cached prompts or dedicated deployments instead of provider routing.

    Input / 1M tokens
    $0.15
    Output / 1M tokens
    $0.60
    Estimated request cost
    $0.00210

    Strengths

    • Fireworks lists cached GPT-OSS 120B input at $0.015 per 1M tokens; OpenRouter costs $0.00045 in the uncached example.1415

    Limitations

    • Direct Fireworks access has synchronous rates of $0.15/$0.60, above DeepInfra’s standard prices. Dedicated deployment does not bypass Fireworks’ account-wide request quotas.

    Sources:1415 · Novita AI vs Fireworks AI

Methodology

Methodology and sources

OpenRouter’s GPT-OSS 120B baseline is its lowest listed route-price pair, not a direct-provider commitment. Alternative endpoint performance uses AA high reasoning, 10,000 input tokens and 72-hour output-speed/first-chunk medians. The first received chunk may contain reasoning; its latency does not wait for the first answer token, and Endpoint Accuracy Index is relative to a reference endpoint, not task pass rate. Direct-provider AA results do not measure OpenRouter routing overhead; Fireworks has price and deployment data only.

The chart compares 10,000 uncached input and 1,000 billed output tokens, including reasoning, before OpenRouter credit-purchase fees. Cards rank the direct alternatives by this example; the router baseline stays in the price table and chart. Tax, retries, discounts and dedicated capacity are omitted. Novita AI publishes these public-source results as a compared alternative, without a private workload test.

  1. DeepInfra · GPT-OSS 120B deepinfra.com · Checked 2026-10-15
  2. DeepInfra · Rate Limits deepinfra.com · Checked 2026-10-15
  3. Artificial Analysis · GPT-OSS 120B Providers artificialanalysis.ai · Checked 2026-10-15
  4. OpenRouter · GPT-OSS 120B openrouter.ai · Checked 2026-10-15
  5. OpenRouter · FAQ openrouter.ai · Checked 2026-10-15
  6. Novita AI · GPT-OSS 120B novita.ai · Checked 2026-10-15
  7. Novita AI · Platform novita.ai · Checked 2026-10-15
  8. Novita AI · Batch docs.novita.ai · Checked 2026-10-15
  9. Groq · GPT-OSS 120B console.groq.com · Checked 2026-10-15
  10. Groq · Rate Limits console.groq.com · Checked 2026-10-15
  11. Together AI · GPT-OSS 120B www.together.ai · Checked 2026-10-15
  12. Together AI · Model Library www.together.ai · Checked 2026-10-15
  13. Together AI · Rate Limits docs.together.ai · Checked 2026-10-15
  14. Fireworks AI · GPT-OSS 120B fireworks.ai · Checked 2026-10-15
  15. Fireworks AI · Account Quotas docs.fireworks.ai · Checked 2026-10-15

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