Billing & Pricing Guide

Why AIOrouter's Pricing Is Different

Most LLM router services charge a markup on top of what the AI providers publish. Some add platform fees of 5%, while others inflate per-token rates by 10% to 30%. That means every API call costs you more than the provider's actual price — before you even account for currency conversion or taxes.

AIOrouter charges exactly what the AI providers publish — nothing extra. When you use Claude, Gemini, DeepSeek, Qwen, GLM, or Kimi through AIOrouter, you pay the same public per-token rate that Google, Anthropic, Alibaba, DeepSeek, Moonshot and Zhipu list on their own pricing pages. Those rates are converted to CAD at the Bank of Canada daily exchange rate with a 2% buffer, and that's it. No hidden markup. No platform surcharge. Every dollar of your subscription allowance goes toward the actual model inference.

	AIOrouter	Generic LLM Routers	Direct Provider API
Per-token price	Provider-published rates	5–30% above provider rates	Provider-published rates
Privacy protection layer	Built-in	Rare or additional cost	None
Security controls	Canada-resident gateway	Not standard	Provider-specific
Multi-model access	One API — 20+ models	One API — many models	One provider only
Subscription + caps	CAD plans with hard caps	Pay-as-you-go or credit-based	Varies

AIOrouter is an All-In-One AI Router — a single API that gives you access to Western and Chinese models, with Canada-resident privacy and security protection, at the exact rates the providers publish. No markup, no surprises.

How It Works

AIOrouter uses a monthly subscription with an optional Top-Up balance for supplemental usage. Each plan includes a provider-cost indexed monthly allowance. Your allowance resets on your billing date (use it or lose it). All tiers hard-stop at quota exhaustion (402) — overage has been disabled system-wide (v3.0.6-beta).

Included allowance is calculated at the locked provider-cost rate for eligible models. Customer billable API access requires an active subscription. Top-Up balance is supplemental credit only and does not unlock API access by itself.

Plans

Explorer — $19/month

Below-20 CAD entry plan for evaluation and light API usage
Provider-cost indexed monthly allowance for eligible Chinese value models
30 requests/minute rate limit
Hard stop by default when the included allowance is exhausted
Single API key

Developer — $39/month

Larger provider-cost indexed monthly allowance
Access to the BETA model catalog
60 requests/minute rate limit
Email support (24h response)
Single API key

Professional — $79/month

Best-value builder plan with a higher monthly allowance
Access to the BETA model catalog
120 requests/minute rate limit
Priority email support

Business — $149/month

Team allowance for production workloads
Access to the BETA model catalog
300 requests/minute rate limit
Priority email support (4h response)
Multiple API keys
Priority routing

Top-Up Balance — one-time supplemental balance

Supplemental balance for active subscribers
Does not unlock customer billable API access without an active subscription
Top-Up balance is independent of the monthly allowance system
Existing prepaid ledger fields may appear as compatibility aliases in API payloads
Dashboard billing controls are available to BETA accounts after account setup

How Quotas Work

Each month, your provider-cost indexed allowance resets on your billing date
API calls deduct from that allowance using the locked provider-cost rate for the billing period
Cached input tokens reported by the provider are billed using the provider's public cache pricing where supported. This applies to both the included allowance and Top-Up balance.
Token-equivalent usage varies by model: lower-cost models go further, while higher-cost reasoning, multimodal, or Gemini Pro models consume allowance faster or may require Top-Up balance after allowance exhaustion
If you exhaust your allowance mid-month, the API returns 402 (Payment Required). All tiers hard-stop at quota. Top-Up balance does not grant overage access — it is supplemental credit only.

Cache-Aware Billing

AIOrouter passes provider cache pricing through when the provider reports cache usage:

Alibaba Qwen / Alibaba GLM implicit cache hits, explicit cache_control reads, and explicit cache-creation tokens are split into separate billing buckets.
Gemini implicit cache hits are passed through when Gemini reports cached input tokens.
The same cache-aware calculation is used for subscription allowance, Top-Up balance, and prepaid compatibility paths.
Cache-creation tokens may cost more than regular input on providers that price explicit cache creation separately; cache-hit tokens usually consume less allowance than regular input.

Provider cache fields are reported as cached_tokens and cache_creation_input_tokens when available.

See Model Catalog for current public token rates and cache prices.

Currency & Tax

Currency: All prices in Canadian Dollars (CAD)
GST/HST: Applicable Canadian sales tax added at checkout
Tax Invoices: Available from Stripe Customer Portal

Payment Methods

Credit/debit cards (Visa, Mastercard, Amex) via Stripe
All payments processed in CAD

Refunds

Monthly subscriptions: Non-refundable for the current billing period. Cancel anytime — cancellation takes effect at the end of the current period.
Top-Up balance: When a subscription is canceled, remaining Top-Up balance is automatically refunded at 95%. Top-Up usage balance does not expire by age.
Refund failure review: If the automatic refund rail fails, the balance enters manual review while refund obligation and audit evidence are preserved. Contact billing@aiorouter.ca if payment details need to be updated.

Usage Tracking

Monitor your usage from the Dashboard:

Current month's token usage
Quota remaining with progress bar
Cached input and cache-creation token counts when providers report them
Usage history (past 12 months) with per-model and per-provider breakdown
Transaction history with pagination (100 per page, "Load more" for older transactions)
API key creation from the Dashboard requires an active subscription and fresh MFA verification
Quota and spending tracking
Subscription portal access via Stripe Customer Portal for payment method and billing history management
One-time Top-Up balance purchases available to active subscribers from the Dashboard

Billing Cycle

Subscriptions renew on the same day each month
Top-Up usage balance does not expire by age and is tracked separately from subscription status and refund workflow state
You'll receive an email invoice after each payment

FAQ

Q: Can I switch plans mid-cycle? A: Yes. When you switch plans, you pay the full monthly fee for the new plan and your billing cycle restarts. Any unused basic allowance from your current period is preserved and added to your new plan's allowance — so you never lose what you've already paid for. After payment your new plan activates immediately with the combined allowance.

Q: What happens if I go over my quota? A: All tiers hard-stop at quota exhaustion with a 402 response. Top-Up balance is supplemental credit only and does not enable overage spending. Your allowance resets on your next billing date.

Q: Do you offer annual billing? A: Not yet. Annual billing with 2 months free is planned for a future release.

Q: Are there any hidden fees? A: No. Your plan includes a locked provider-cost allowance plus applicable tax. AIOrouter adds no markup on model pricing — you pay exactly what Google, Anthropic, Alibaba, DeepSeek, Moonshot, and Zhipu publish.