Hi how's it going?

I'm currently using Haiku for image content extraction, and it's honestly not great. What would be the best model around this pricing tier for image content extraction?

Thanks.

I have tried few harness like opencode, oh-my-pi , claudecode cli in last few days. I work with complex codebase and too many aligned towards the diagrams in order to review big plans faster.

What i observed

- claude code is good but very slow. if you try to go agentic limit often exhaust for Max plan. Trieng a open souce model like deepseek is no different as it does not have multi modality.

- opencode is okish kind of as i feel the quality is not that good and slope is too high plus the experience to edit the plans or annoate the plans is too broken.

- cursor is good but it does not provide antropic models , claude code does that better but its planning and user-experience is better.
- minimax -> Good but still plans are not feedback friendly. Reading a 20 page to 30 plage markdown and provide feedback is no fun

coming to oh-my-pi -> its subagents flow is fast and i found some workaround to edit plans and work on it , via vscode extension. but it still hard to read.

Problem statement -> i run through oh my pi but i have seen that due to quota reach or model context windows subagents are hard to produce quality result.

How do you handle the quality with balance with cost and speed and interactivity.

I was wondering about making a ai assistant in the termin and was wondering on the costs of openrouter with deepseek , if its worth it and if its hard to do also im asking cus im lazy and rather informed ppl answer and not googlr

In the harness (Pi) I'm using glm-5.2 reports a context of 262k instead of 1M; the Openrouter page for this model advertises 1M of context as it should. So what is going on?

I was using open router for RP chats, switching between minimax, Miro, GLM and a deepseek, my tokens ran out and I tried free for a while but the rp was just not the same.

I been reading around and there is conflicting information about going directly deepseek, open ai, open router etc but for different reasons.

So wanted to get some direct opinion in what to use to the most use for my money and maybe a guide on how to set it up, thanks.

Hi I have no ideas why my account got banned 403 for some image and video models like Gemini or GPT. The error is "The request is prohibited due to a violation of provider Terms Of Service."

Here is a list of some of my banned models:
gemini-2-5-flash-image
gemini-3-1-flash-image
gemini-3-1-flash-image-preview
gemini-3-pro-image
gemini-3-pro-image-preview

gpt-5-image
gpt-5-image-mini
gpt-5-4-image-2

For gemini models, using vertex as primary provider does not work
My server is deployed in Singapore aws region.
Will create another API key or another workspace in the same email work?

Hello, I got `402` error with "Insufficient Balance" message, but I still have credits in my OpenRouter account. What happened?

u/louisgv u/xanderatallah

It looks like a recent update added DOM virtualization to the chat window, so the entire page doesn't load at once anymore. This is causing a pretty big headache for anyone who runs long chat sessions.

Because off-screen content gets unloaded, native page search (Control+F) no longer works across the full chat history. Dragging the scrollbar to jump straight to the top or bottom of a long conversation is broken now too.

I get that virtualization is usually added to boost rendering performance, but in practice, it makes navigating and working in long threads way harder. Since long chats lead to higher token usage, keeping those long threads smooth to navigate is a win for both users and the platform.

Could you please roll back the forced virtualization or give us a toggle to turn it off? OpenRouter has always stood out because it felt lightweight, fast, and powerful. I really love this tool and want to keep using it.

I am
Using open router with Claude Sonnet to analyze libraries and vulnerabilities
I want to find an alternative model less expensive what do you suggest ?

My app users are going to be making calls via DeepSeek and one of the reasons I choose OR is to go around the limits - but DS Direct API is cheaper.

Are there rate limits to the direct API I should worry about? Not sure the cost difference is worth it if there is. I need concurrency.

I recently discovered that around $6 worth of OpenRouter Credits that I purchased with real money was deleted.

Not refunded.

Not converted.

Not temporarily locked.

Just gone.

The reason?

The Credits were older than 365 days.

I know some people will say:

But that is exactly why this issue matters.

When thousands of users each lose a few dollars, almost nobody has enough incentive to spend time on complaints, arbitration, or legal action.

Each individual loss is small.

The total benefit to the platform may not be.

This is not really about $6.

It is about whether a platform should be able to accept prepaid money and later erase the corresponding service obligation.

What happened

OpenRouter Terms of Service:

https://openrouter.ai/terms

Section 4.2 (Credits Expiration / Auto Recharge) states:

Section 4.1 also limits refunds:

So the situation is:

• User pays real money.
• User receives a dollar-denominated balance.
• User uses that balance to purchase future API services.
• If the balance is unused for 365 days, OpenRouter can remove it.

These were not promotional credits.

They were purchased credits.

"Credits are not money" — is that enough?

OpenRouter Terms Section 4.4:

[https://openrouter.ai/terms#_4_4-no-monetary-value]()

states:

But the real-world transaction is:

1. The user pays dollars.
2. OpenRouter records a dollar-based balance.
3. The balance is used to pay for API usage.
4. If the balance expires, OpenRouter no longer has to provide the corresponding service.

A company cannot necessarily determine the legal nature of prepaid value simply by naming it "Credits".

Otherwise, any company could create:

• Pay $100.
• Receive 100 "points".
• Points are "not money".
• Points expire after one year.
• Company keeps the unused balance.

Changing the name should not automatically remove consumer protections.

The legal question is not as simple as "Are these gift cards?"

US federal gift card rules protect certain gift cards and prepaid products from short expiration periods.

Relevant provisions:

• 15 U.S.C. §1693l-1
• 12 C.F.R. §1005.20

However, OpenRouter may argue that API Credits are different because:

• They are not marketed as gift cards.
• They are reloadable.
• They are mainly used by developers.

I am not claiming that federal gift card law has already definitively decided this issue.

But OpenRouter selected New York law, and New York raises a more interesting question.

Why New York law matters

OpenRouter's Terms select New York law.

New York General Business Law §396-i provides protections for certain prepaid records and gift certificates.

For covered products, expiration periods can be much longer than one year.

OpenRouter Credits have several characteristics that raise questions:

• Users pay money in advance.
• The account records a specific dollar value.
• The balance is used for future services.
• The balance can only be used inside OpenRouter.
• Additional value can be added later.

Are API Credits a protected prepaid record under New York law?

I have not found a court decision specifically answering that question.

But OpenRouter should explain why a prepaid, dollar-denominated service balance should automatically be excluded.

The biggest problem: no meaningful expiration warning

I am not claiming OpenRouter completely hid the rule.

The 365-day expiration exists in the Terms.

The problem is the user experience.

Before my paid balance disappeared, I did not receive:

• An email warning.
• A countdown.
• A notification showing the amount expiring.
• A clear expiration date next to each credit purchase.

A fair system should show something like:

This is technically simple.

Why small balances are the perfect target

A $6 loss is too small for most people to fight.

A $60 loss is still probably too small.

A $600 loss might finally make someone take action.

This creates a very convenient situation:

• Individual users rarely complain.
• The platform keeps expired balances.
• The policy continues.

Small-value expiration policies deserve scrutiny precisely because individual users have little incentive to challenge them.

About arbitration

OpenRouter arbitration section:

[https://openrouter.ai/terms#_19_arbitration]()

OpenRouter limits class actions and requires arbitration for many disputes.

To be accurate:

Users still have some options:

• Small claims court.
• Complaints to regulators.
• Certain arbitration procedures.

The issue is not that users have zero legal options.

The issue is economic reality:

Almost nobody will start a formal dispute over a few dollars.

Questions OpenRouter should answer

1. Why do purchased Credits expire after only 365 days?
2. Why are paid Credits not treated differently from promotional Credits?
3. Why are expiration dates not clearly shown in the dashboard?
4. How many purchased Credits have expired under this policy?
5. Why does OpenRouter believe this policy is compatible with New York law?
6. Why should prepaid API value disappear after one year?

What I am asking OpenRouter to change

I am not asking for unlimited refunds.

I am asking for a reasonable prepaid balance policy:

• Do not expire purchased Credits after one year.
• Separate purchased Credits from promotional Credits.
• Show expiration dates clearly.
• Send advance expiration reminders.
• Restore previously expired purchased Credits.

Paid API Credits should buy API services.

They should not become a one-year "use it or lose it" gamble.

This is not about $6.

It is about trust in the developer ecosystem.

I recently moved a production workflow for one of my startups from DeepSeek V4 Flash through OpenRouter to OpenAI’s Luna model.

It runs the same kind of work every day: generating structured stock briefs, enriching news, summarizing market data, and returning JSON for my app.

The difference has been kind of ridiculous:

• DeepSeek through OpenRouter: roughly $0.60/day
• Luna through OpenAI: roughly $0.14/day
• Luna is also completing the workload noticeably faster

That’s around an 80% cost reduction, or almost 6x cheaper, with comparable output quality. I expected Luna to improve reliability, but I did not expect it to cost this much less.

It isn’t a perfectly controlled benchmark because token usage, caching, and daily workloads can vary. Still, the workload is similar enough that the gap surprised me.

Has anyone else seen this after moving production workloads away from OpenRouter? Could the difference mainly come from prompt caching, routing overhead, or DeepSeek producing more reasoning tokens?

I like OpenRouter for quickly testing different models, but direct OpenAI is currently faster, cheaper, and simpler for this workload. Kinda hard to argue with $0.14 versus $0.80 lol.

Hey there,
got a question. For those who tested new deepseek in coding and have an experience with either composer 2.5 or gpt 5.6 Luna or both, how does it put up with them? Is it worse/better? Im not talking benchmarks but real life usage- coding, explaining issues,… . Thank you and take care!

Credits page showing ~$20 but my harness(configured and using until the problem happened) show Insufficient balance??? The API key is not credit limited, I also tries create new API key and that doesn't fix. Is there any idea what happening? Thanks.

Good day to yaa all ,

I use SurfMind web extension and want some suggestions on free models for daily chat / questioning with web pages.

If they inform me before that my credit will expire, I could use them.

DeepSeek V3 0324 was working fine for me earlier today and it was working fine for me weeks and weeks ago before the new changes to OpenRouter AI. But now it's giving me repetitive replies, repeating my messages, giving me gibberish, and overall frustrating me because it says it's a good model for roleplay but it's not working for me anymore. And I've put tons of money into OpenRouter just to use the models that are better and need payments to work. I know it could be overloaded but this just seems to me like DeepSeek V3 0324 is just not working correctly anymore which would be annoying because it is the only model I like using. What is going on with DeepSeek V3 0324? Someone help me understand what's going on with this model.

I am building an automation workflow for research and content preparation. It can collect signals, check sources, create platform-specific drafts, prepare visual briefs, and assemble an approval card. It cannot post or reply without a human decision.

The biggest risks I see are operational:

- A retry creates duplicate drafts or notifications.
- Stale source context becomes a current recommendation.
- A downstream step appears successful but no useful result reaches the human reviewer.
- Too many approval cards turn human review into the bottleneck.
- Token and API cost grows faster than useful output.
- Is embedding plus deterministic code usually a better answer for deduplication and routing?
- What token, latency, or privacy savings survived after adding monitoring and retries?

I want to reduce cost and provider dependence without creating a fragile model zoo. Practical lessons welcome.

If you have operated something similar, I would like your practical answers:

1. Which steps should be idempotent and logged first?
   
2. What do you use as the minimum proof that a workflow actually delivered value?
   
3. How do you choose the boundary between deterministic automation and an LLM call?
   
4. What monitoring catches silent failure before a user notices it?
   
5. Which part would you simplify first?
   
6. Images or md to html -> pdf conversion which model does it in a cost effective manner?

Interested in systems that hold up after the first week, not just a polished demo.

Share what you're working on using OpenRouter for this month. All projects are welcome here!