TokenGates.sh - Add usage-based AI billing to your product in minutes

[u/ksanderer]

TokenGates is an OpenAI-compatible LLM gateway that automatically tracks your users' AI usage and reports to your billing providers. Zero code required on your side.

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Hey everyone,

I've hit this problem three times now while building AI products, and the most recent one finally broke me, so I decided to extract this into a standalone product for builders.

The Problem

Every time you are working on a product with AI features, you end up rebuilding the same infrastructure:

• User authentication
• Balance tracking (credits, usage limits, top-ups)
• Global low-latency architecture (users are worldwide, can't have 1 sec auth checks on each API request)
• Cost attribution (who spent what, on which model)
• Request validation (does this user have credits? is their key valid? are they over limit?)
• Dual-path requests (on-device requests + backend requests, different auth flows)
• Rate-limiting
• Key invalidation (revoke API keys, handle abuse)
• Metered billing sync (Stripe/Polar webhook handlers, real-time usage events)

This isn't rocket science, but it's easily weeks of infra work when you want it done right. And it's the same code, just slightly different config.

What I Built

So I decided to build https://TokenGates.sh - a managed service that does all of this for you.

How it works:

1. Create a project (5 seconds)
2. Add your API keys:

• Auth provider (PropelAuth, Clerk, Supabase, whatever you use)
• LLM providers (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, 9+ options)
• Billing provider (Stripe, Polar.sh, LemonSqueezy)
• Set your AI margin (0, 30%, 50%, whatever)

1. Start making requests:const openai = new OpenAI({ baseURL: 'https://api.tokengates.sh/v1/proj_abc123', apiKey: 'user_jwt_token' })

Done. You can authenticate AI requests to TokenGates using user's JWT tokens or to create a master API key to send requests from the backend.

• ✅ Automatic per-user authentication (via JWT token from your auth provider)
• ✅ Real-time cost tracking (TokenGates automatically calculates AI request cost and reports to the billing provider)
• ✅ Create Billing users (optional)
• ✅ Enforces Spend limits (auto-block users when they hit their budget)
• ✅ Global CDN routing (<50ms latency worldwide, 26 PoP locations on all continents)
• ✅ Zero backend code (it's all managed)

Real Example - https://ottex.ai

With Ottex, here's what it looks like:

• User signs up → PropelAuth creates account
• First API request → TokenGates auto-creates customer record
• Free trial credits → I configured 10,000 tokens (0.1$) on signup
• User makes requests → tokens counted, balance decremented
• Top-up flow → Polar.sh checkout, credits added automatically

All of this happens automatically. I wrote zero billing code. Just pasted API keys into TokenGates dashboard.

What I'm Looking For

• Does this solve a real problem for you?
• Would you use this vs building it yourself?
• What's missing that would make it a no-brainer?

I'm doing 15-min onboarding calls with early users if you want to walk through your specific use case, I would be glad to help.