AI Generate vs OpenRouter

Both let you call hundreds of LLMs with one Bearer token. AI Generate adds video / image / music in the same SDK, team accounts, spend caps, and one billing surface across modalities.

Feature AI Generate OpenRouter
LLM catalog 37 priced chat models (Anthropic, Google, OpenAI direct) + chat completions fan-out via OpenRouter 400+ chat models via aggregation
Video, image, music Yes — 177 video, 72 image, 21 music ops in catalog (Veo 3.1, Suno, Flux, Nano Banana, Seedance 2) No — chat only
Team billing (shared pool) Yes No
Daily / monthly spend cap Yes Per-key limits only
Volume-based auto-discount Yes — 5 tiers at $0 / $50 / $200 / $1000 / $5000 monthly Credit packages only
Playground (non-code UI) Yes — chat, image, video, music Chat only
Webhook delivery for async Yes (image / video / music) N/A — chat is synchronous
When to pick which

Both tools, one honest call.

Pick AI Generate when

  • You need video, image, music AND chat from one API
  • You're running an agency / team and want shared billing
  • You care about spend caps protecting your margin
  • You want auto-volume discounts without negotiating

Pick OpenRouter when

  • You already have a mature integration and switching costs outweigh savings
  • Your workload is fully within their catalog and you don't need the other modalities
  • You need a specific feature they ship first

When AI Generate beats OpenRouter on cost

OpenRouter takes a flat margin on every call you forward. AI Generate ships a 5-tier volume ladder that drops the markup from 40% (starter) to 30% at $50/mo, 22% at $200/mo, 15% at $1,000/mo, and 10% at $5,000/mo — automatically, no negotiation. If you spend more than ~$200 a month on chat alone, the savings on Claude or Gemini compound quickly. The tier recomputes every six hours against rolling 30-day spend.

OpenRouter is chat-only. AI Generate ships video, image and music too.

We catalog 177 video endpoints (Veo 3.1, Runway Aleph, Seedance 2, Wan 2.7, Kling 3.0, Sora 2 Pro), 72 image endpoints (Flux 2 Pro, Nano Banana Pro, GPT-Image, Ideogram, Recraft) and 21 music & voice ops (Suno + ElevenLabs). One API key, one credit pool, one dashboard. With OpenRouter you stop at chat completions — anything generative-media has to go to a separate vendor with its own billing surface.

Same OpenAI-compatible Bearer-token contract

If your code already uses /v1/chat/completions with an Authorization: Bearer header, switching to AI Generate is one base-URL change. Streaming SSE works out of the box. We also fan out to OpenRouter under the hood for chat, so the model name space is a superset of what OpenRouter exposes directly.

Failed calls are not billed

Upstream 5xx responses, timeouts and internal errors are never charged against your credits — only successful calls count. Media tasks are idempotent on their taskId, so retrying a timed-out poll never double-charges or double-generates.

Spend caps that hold under traffic spikes

Daily and monthly caps on every API key return HTTP 402 the instant the limit is reached, so a runaway loop or compromised key cannot drain your account. OpenRouter offers per-key budget limits but no aggregated cap across keys.

Frequently asked

How does pricing compare to OpenRouter?
Both add a margin over upstream cost. AI Generate auto-applies a 5-tier volume discount — 40% / 30% / 22% / 15% / 10% at $0 / $50 / $200 / $1,000 / $5,000 monthly spend, recomputed every six hours on rolling 30-day spend — so the effective markup falls as you scale. Compare the specific models you use; for a single chat model at low volume, going direct can be cheaper.
Can I keep my existing OpenAI SDK code?
Yes. Replace the base URL with https://aimarcusimage.eu/api and your AI Generate key. The /api/v1/chat/completions request and response shape are identical to OpenAI, including streaming SSE.
What about video, image, and music?
OpenRouter is chat-only. AI Generate routes 177 video, 72 image and 21 music & voice endpoints through the same Bearer-token API. You get Veo 3.1, Runway Aleph, Seedance 2, Sora 2 Pro for video; Flux 2 Pro, Nano Banana Pro and Ideogram for image; Suno and ElevenLabs for music — all paid from the same credit pool.
Do you support team billing?
Yes. Owners invite teammates from the dashboard; the team shares a single credit pool, with per-member spend visible in logs. OpenRouter does not support team billing.
What happens when an upstream call fails?
A failed upstream call (5xx, timeout or internal error) is not billed — only successful calls count against credits. Media jobs are idempotent on their taskId, so you can safely retry without double-charging or double-generating. Spend caps stay enforced throughout.
How do refunds work?
Spent credits are not refunded. Unspent credits are refunded within 30 days of purchase on request, subject to no card-payment dispute being open. Failed model calls (5xx / internal_error) are not charged.

Last updated .

One integration, all the providers.

Same Bearer token. Video, image, music, chat. Pay from one credit pool.