OpenRouter vs Together AI: Token Pricing, Speed & Intelligence
Full comparison of OpenRouter and Together AI — live token pricing, latency, throughput, context window, strengths, weaknesses, and best use cases. Updated July 2026.
OpenRouter
One API for every major LLM — route to the cheapest or fastest provider automatically
OpenRouter is a unified LLM API that routes requests to the cheapest or fastest available provider for any given model. With a single API key you can access GPT-4o, Claude, Llama, Gemini, and hundreds of other models, with automatic fallback and cost optimisation.
Together AI
Open-source model hosting with competitive inference pricing
Together AI specialises in hosting open-weight models including the full Llama family, Mixtral, and DeepSeek variants. They offer live pricing via their public API and support fine-tuning workflows. A popular choice for teams that want open-source flexibility without managing their own GPU infrastructure.
Key metrics
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
Live token pricing
Strengths & weaknesses
OpenRouter
Together AI
Key differentiators
The only API that lets you access every major LLM with a single key and automatically routes to the cheapest or fastest available provider.
The broadest open-weight model catalog with fine-tuning support — ideal for teams that need model customisation without self-hosting.
Frequently asked questions
OpenRouter FAQs
How does OpenRouter pricing work?
OpenRouter charges the underlying provider rate plus a small routing fee (typically a few percent). For many models, the effective price is very close to or equal to the direct provider rate. Some models are available for free with rate limits.
What models are available on OpenRouter?
OpenRouter provides access to 200+ models including GPT-4o, Claude 3.5 Sonnet, Llama 3.3 70B, Gemini 1.5 Pro, DeepSeek R1, Mistral, and many others. The catalog is updated as new models are released.
Can I use OpenRouter with the OpenAI SDK?
Yes. OpenRouter is fully OpenAI-compatible. Point the OpenAI SDK at the OpenRouter endpoint and use your OpenRouter API key — no other code changes needed.
Together AI FAQs
What models does Together AI support?
Together AI hosts 100+ open-weight models including the full Llama 3.x family (8B, 70B, 405B), Mixtral, DeepSeek R1, Qwen, and many others. They also support custom fine-tuned model deployment.
How much does Together AI cost?
Llama 3.3 70B costs $0.88/1M tokens (input and output). Llama 3.1 405B is $3.50/1M tokens. Smaller models like Llama 3.2 11B Vision start at $0.18/1M tokens.
Does Together AI support fine-tuning?
Yes. Together AI offers supervised fine-tuning for Llama and other open-weight models. You can upload training data, run fine-tuning jobs, and deploy the resulting model via their inference API.