Requesty vs OpenRouter: which is better?
Requesty is the better pick when you need an EU endpoint on every plan and caps per key, while OpenRouter wins on catalog size, a free tier for paid users and an automatic router. Both resell tokens at list price, with fees of 5% (Requesty) and 5.5% (OpenRouter). For coding agents there is a third option: Standard Compute, a flat plan with included compute and routing that picks an efficient model per request.
Requesty and OpenRouter side by side
| Requesty | OpenRouter | |
|---|---|---|
| Fee | 5% on every top-up | 5.5% on card credit purchases ($0.80 minimum), 8% on Business, 5% by crypto |
| Your own keys | Six providers; 0% stated for startups after six months | Free up to $25,000 of list-price use a month, then 5% |
| Free tier | Free models, 200 requests a day | 25+ free models, 50 requests a day, 1,000 after buying $10 of credit |
| Model choice | Fallback, load-balancing and latency policies you set | openrouter/auto picks a model per prompt; pareto-code picks the cheapest above a coding score |
| Spend caps | Monthly cap per key, limits per user; group budgets on Enterprise | Credit limit per key with daily, weekly or monthly reset; workspace budgets on Enterprise |
| EU | Frankfurt endpoint on every plan, with org-wide enforcement | EU and US in-region routing on Business and Enterprise only |
| Claude Code | Native, base URL router.requesty.ai | Native, base URL openrouter.ai/api |
| Codex | Responses API, with a reasoning-summary setting to turn off | Responses API |
From requesty.ai, docs.requesty.ai, openrouter.ai/pricing and openrouter.ai/docs, checked October 13, 2026.
What a coding-agent month costs
Pinned to one Claude model, a typical month costs about the same on either gateway and less than a Standard Compute plan; a busy month costs less on the plan. What moves the bill is which model answers each step, which is why OpenRouter's auto router matters more than its fee. It ranks models by what the community spends on each task type over the past seven days, with a cost tier you set.
| Month of coding-agent use | Requesty | OpenRouter | Standard Compute |
|---|---|---|---|
| Typical days, Claude Sonnet 5.5 | $74 | $74 | Standard, $89 ($95 budget) |
| Typical days, Claude Opus 5.5 | $148 | $149 | Pro, $249 ($269 budget) |
| Busy days, Claude Sonnet 5.5 | $608 | $611 | Pro Plus, $499 ($549 budget) |
Month = 20 working days of the median (typical) or 90th-percentile (busy) coding-agent day in our Agent Burn Index, at list price plus each gateway's fee. Both list Sonnet 5.5 at $2 and $10 per million tokens and Opus 5.5 at $4 and $20.
Which to choose
- Choose Requesty for an EU endpoint on a free or pay-as-you-go account, or spend caps per key with alerts in Slack or Teams.
- Choose OpenRouter for the largest catalog, a free tier with 1,000 requests a day once you have bought $10 of credit, or a router that chooses the model for you.
- Choose Standard Compute for coding agents on a fixed monthly price: compute included, routing for cost, a plan per key for teams and agencies, and requests that stop at the budget.
The catch
Both are pay-as-you-go at list price, so neither caps a month by itself. Set the per-key limit on day one: a single agent left looping overnight on Opus can spend more than a month of typical use.
Where Standard Compute fits
One key for Claude Code on /v1/messages and Codex on /v1/responses, with a router that chooses an efficient model for routine steps and keeps frontier models for hard ones. Plans start at $19 with the compute included, stop at their budget with no overage, and come as a plan per key for teams and agencies, with Europe or US rules on any plan.
FAQ
Is Requesty cheaper than OpenRouter?
By half a percent: Requesty adds 5% to top-ups, and OpenRouter charges 5.5% on card credit purchases with a $0.80 minimum. Both charge provider list price for tokens.
Does Requesty have an auto router like OpenRouter?
No. Requesty's policies are fallback, load balancing and latency, configured by you, and its docs say latency routing does not consider cost. OpenRouter's openrouter/auto picks a model per prompt.
Which has better EU support?
Requesty: its Frankfurt endpoint is on every plan, including Free. OpenRouter's EU in-region routing needs a Business or Enterprise plan.
Which works better with Claude Code?
Both document a native setup through ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL. OpenRouter's cookbook says Claude Code is only guaranteed to work with Anthropic as the provider; Requesty's docs say to set ANTHROPIC_MODEL rather than use /model.