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OpenRouter is joining Stripe

openrouter.ai

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Re: OpenRouter is joining Stripe

#411

Post by pixlmint »

namjh wrote: post #405

OpenRouter is great business I agree, but I'm not still convinced how the integrity of providers' models is ensured. In other words, can't the provider serve DSv4 flash advertising it as DSv4 Pro? I'm aware that OpenRouter checks response quality onboarding, and does further checks occasionally, but I'm concerned that it's basically a cat-and-a-mouse problem between the scammers and the detectors. For example, there…

How is that a problem that's unique to openrouter? Who's to say when I query the Anthropic API directly, wanting to use Opus, but they determine it doesn' need Opus, route it to Sonnet instead and pocket the difference? The only difference with openrouter is that it's another layer where this type of fraud could occur.

Re: OpenRouter is joining Stripe

#413

Post by troupo »

nikcub wrote: post #294

I love OpenRouter, long time user. Stripe will hopefully be a good custodian. I just want to point out some features of OpenRouter that make it more than just a model selection and routing endpoint and that I find incredibly useful: 0/ Default routing is to the cheapest provider, but they're usually not the most performant. I'd guess 99% of OpenRouter integrations never tweak the default routing. Here you can setup c…

> features of OpenRouter that make it more than just a model selection and routing endpoint

All those features show it's just a model selector and router.

Re: OpenRouter is joining Stripe

#414

Post by GTP »

rob-lag wrote: post #155
GTP wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, you can get better pricing if you do it yourself. But the true advantage of OpenRouter is that, in a space where there's a new model being released every week, you can easily switch to whatever model is best at any given time without having to set up accounts with multiple providers. Or you can just experiment with the latest release. Their product is the convenience. Of course if you decide to only use a specif…

But it's not really that difficult to make a clone of OpenRouter's service. What they do isn't really that original. Their only value comes from the fact that the currently have lots of traffic. And I dkn't think that their cumstomers are really bound to theur servuce. They could switch to a competitor without too much hassle.

Yes, but as l9ng as there's no clone, they're good. On the potential clone side, I guess many will be put off by the fact that "there's already OpenRouter". Also, a clone would need to find a way to make existing OpenRouter customers to switch, which isn't easy.

Re: OpenRouter is joining Stripe

#416

Post by user43928 »

aleqs wrote: post #270
user43928 wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could there be use cases where you want to run inference for users in your app, but don't want to host your own backend, user authentication, and billing? The user could log into his personal OpenRouter account, authorize your application, and optionally set a budget, all in something like a Stripe payment screen.

> The user could log into his personal OpenRouter account, authorize your application, and optionally set a budget, all in something like a Stripe payment screen. Like standard oauth? https://openrouter.ai/docs/guides/overview/auth/oauth

Good point, just needs an user friendly flow to sign up and set the budget in a way that is more similar to Stripe checkout than regular account creation.

Re: OpenRouter is joining Stripe

#417

Post by ajyoon »

pixlmint wrote: post #411
namjh wrote: post #405

OpenRouter is great business I agree, but I'm not still convinced how the integrity of providers' models is ensured. In other words, can't the provider serve DSv4 flash advertising it as DSv4 Pro? I'm aware that OpenRouter checks response quality onboarding, and does further checks occasionally, but I'm concerned that it's basically a cat-and-a-mouse problem between the scammers and the detectors. For example, there…

How is that a problem that's unique to openrouter? Who's to say when I query the Anthropic API directly, wanting to use Opus, but they determine it doesn' need Opus, route it to Sonnet instead and pocket the difference? The only difference with openrouter is that it's another layer where this type of fraud could occur.

OpenRouter's list of providers is very large and includes many little known and sketchy companies.

Re: OpenRouter is joining Stripe

#418

Post by CTDOCodebases »

powvans wrote: post #109

AI products are going to have to deal with accounting. An agent performs some work. It uses some models and perhaps some other metered services. Someone has to meter that activity. They have to attribute costs, apply the product's pricing rules, bill the customer, collect, reconcile with vendors, and maintain the ledger. Stripe can use OpenRouter to build the financial and accounting infrastructure for every product…

It's not just that.

As user agents become more common it's only natural that they will be used for taking the heavy lifting out of e-commerce purchases. There will be a big need for digital payments to verify and reconcile these purchases.

With LLMs that are plugged into digital payments we will essentially have buying agents in our pocket that can find us exactly what we want for the cheapest price and the quickest delivery.

Re: OpenRouter is joining Stripe

#419

Post by adwn »

pests wrote: post #229
dgellow wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tokens are minted then consumed. You cannot trade them, by definition. What would it even mean to trade a token? You can maybe trade a voucher that allows you to then redeem it for some token generation (aka compute), but the tokens themselves don’t make sense to be tradeable. And because they aren’t fungible you cannot swap a token for another one, that’s just not what LLMs are

I think you are reading too much into the "fungible" term. No one is talking about trading tokens. The idea being that getting your tokens from Provider A is no different than Provider B, especially if they both offer the same model. You can change one value in a request to openrouter and suddenly be hitting a different provider but offering the same tokens, because they offer the same model and the same settings.

> The idea being that getting your tokens from Provider A is no different than Provider B, especially if they both offer the same model.

You're describing a commodity. However, the commodity isn't the tokens, but the compute capacity, i.e., serving a model. And compute capacity isn't a currency — at least not, until you can acquire compute capacity from one party and exchange it with another party.

dgellow is absolutely right: tokens aren't a currency, nor can you trade them, nor are they fungible. The original claim that "tokens are just a type of currency" [1] makes no sense.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49364984

Re: OpenRouter is joining Stripe

#420

Post by chanux »

sarabande wrote: post #60
zamio wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's good about their DevEx?

I manage our company's model spend and build tools around it. The good thing about the developer experience is that it is dead simple to create keys that are time-bound, model restricted, and have budgets against them in an easy, programmatic way (also in bulk). Costs are guaranteed to be on par or lower than any model provider, so it's an easy sell to the finance department. To look at it from the other side, Gemini…

> Gemini is the absolute worse when it comes to key management.

I saw another comment thread on this recently. What I gathered was they hid it in the Cloud Platform, so for those who jumped the cloud hoops already, maybe it's alright. (However when I read what Openrouter offers, as you just laid out, I feel Google can't hold a candle to Openrouter DevEx.)

However, if there's anyone who is aware, was there a brief point where getting a Gemini API key was simple (enough)? I'm asking because, in true Google fashion, the AI product went through a lot of changes.

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