How Billing Works

Routeway offers two billing models: Pay-As-You-Go for flexible, usage-based access to every model, and DeepSeek Subscriptions for teams with consistent DeepSeek workloads.

Pay-As-You-Go

Access every model. Pay only for what you use — no commitments, no minimums.

DeepSeek Subscriptions

Reserved token budgets and bonus perks for consistent DeepSeek usage.

Pay-As-You-Go

PAYG gives you access to every model on the Routeway API — OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini, DeepSeek, Llama, and more. You’re charged only for the tokens you process, with no monthly commitment required.

How tokens are billed

Every request is billed in two parts:

Component	What it covers
Input tokens	The prompt and any context you send
Output tokens	The text generated in the response

Rates are quoted per 1 million tokens and vary by model. You can view live rates in the Models Catalog or query them via the API.

Service tiers

Some models support flex and priority processing tiers in addition to the default tier. These are provider-side features from OpenAI and Gemini — Routeway passes your tier through to the upstream provider and bills you at the corresponding rate. Routeway does not run its own queue or priority routing.

Tier	Cost	Trade-off
Default	Standard pricing	Balanced TTFT
Flex	50% off	Same output quality; TTFT may occasionally be higher
Priority	2× standard	Lower, more consistent TTFT

Set a tier via the service_tier request parameter, or append :flex / :priority to the model ID. Currently available on select OpenAI and Gemini models only — check capabilities.service_tiers in the model object.See Service Tiers for full details.

Prompt caching

Caching support varies by model. Check the pricing.caching field returned by the API (or the Models Catalog) to see what a specific model supports.

Tier	When you’re charged	Billing key
Cache read	A cached prompt is reused (cheaper than a fresh input)	`caching.read`
Cache write (5 min TTL)	A prompt is written into cache, kept for 5 minutes	`caching.write.5m`
Cache write (1 hr TTL)	A prompt is written into cache, kept for 1 hour	`caching.write.1h`

Not every model has every tier:

Read-only (e.g. Kimi K2.7 Code) — cache hits are discounted; there is no explicit write charge.
Read + write (e.g. Anthropic models) — both reads and writes are billed, with write rates varying by TTL.
No caching — pricing.caching is absent from the model’s pricing object.

DeepSeek Subscriptions

Subscriptions include a reserved DeepSeek token budget and free daily model requests across all plans.

Core — $6.99 / $15.99
Core Pro — $12.99 / $34.99

	Biweekly	Monthly
Price	$6.99	$15.99
Included DeepSeek tokens	15M	35M
Free model requests	250 / day	250 / day

	Biweekly	Monthly
Price	$12.99	$34.99
Included DeepSeek tokens	28M	80M
Free model requests	300 / day	330 / day
PAYG text discount	5% off	5% off

Core Pro includes an additional 5% discount on all Pay-As-You-Go text usage.

Subscription tokens are consumed first. Once exhausted, usage automatically continues on PAYG (unless you disable key fallback in the dashboard).

Cost Examples

Routeway calculates your cost using the standard token billing formula:

\text{Total Cost} = (\text{Input Tokens} \times \text{Input Rate}) + (\text{Output Tokens} \times \text{Output Rate})

No caching
Cache read only
Cache read + write

deepseek-v3 —

0.23/1M input ·

0.64/1M output

	Tokens	Cost
Input (≈ 750 words)	1,000	$0.00023
Output (≈ 1,500 words)	2,000	$0.00128
Total	3,000	$0.00151

kimi-k2.7-code —

0.95/1M input ·

4.00/1M output · $0.20/1M cache readSuppose 800 of your 1,000 input tokens were already cached:

	Tokens	Rate	Cost
Fresh input	200	$0.95/1M	$0.00019
Cache read	800	$0.20/1M	$0.00016
Output	2,000	$4.00/1M	$0.00800
Total			$0.00835

Without caching the same request would cost $0.00950 — a ~12% saving.

claude-fable-5 —

10.00/1M input ·

50.00/1M output ·

1.00/1M cache read ·

12.50/1M cache write (5 min)First request — prompt is written into cache:

	Tokens	Rate	Cost
Cache write (5 min)	1,000	$12.50/1M	$0.01250
Output	500	$50.00/1M	$0.02500
Total			$0.03750

Subsequent requests within 5 minutes — same prompt served from cache:

	Tokens	Rate	Cost
Cache read	1,000	$1.00/1M	$0.00100
Output	500	$50.00/1M	$0.02500
Total			$0.02600

Each cache hit saves $0.01150 compared to a fresh input read.

Live Pricing

View rates anytime in the Interactive Models Catalog, or fetch them programmatically:

curl https://api.routeway.ai/v1/models

Each model returns a pricing object. The caching field is only present when the model supports it, and its shape reflects exactly what that model offers:

No caching
Cache read only
Cache read + write

{
  "id": "deepseek-v3",
  "pricing": {
    "input": { "unit": "1M tokens", "price_per_million_t": 0.23 },
    "output": { "unit": "1M tokens", "price_per_million_t": 0.64 }
  }
}

{
  "id": "kimi-k2.7-code",
  "pricing": {
    "input":  { "unit": "1M tokens", "price_per_million_t": 0.95 },
    "output": { "unit": "1M tokens", "price_per_million_t": 4.0 },
    "caching": {
      "read": { "unit": "1M tokens", "price_per_million_t": 0.2 }
    }
  }
}

{
  "id": "claude-fable-5",
  "pricing": {
    "input":  { "unit": "1M tokens", "price_per_million_t": 10.0 },
    "output": { "unit": "1M tokens", "price_per_million_t": 50.0 },
    "caching": {
      "read": { "unit": "1M tokens", "price_per_million_t": 1.0 },
      "write": {
        "5m": { "unit": "1M tokens", "price_per_million_t": 12.5 },
        "1h": { "unit": "1M tokens", "price_per_million_t": 20.0 }
      }
    }
  }
}

Payment Methods

Payments are processed securely through Polar.sh:

Credit / Debit cards (Visa, Mastercard, Amex, and more)
Automatic invoicing

Your card details never touch Routeway’s servers. All transactions are handled exclusively by Polar.sh, which is fully PCI-compliant.

Do you support PayPal or other payment methods?

PayPal is supported, though it isn’t available by default. For other payment methods, availability may vary — reach out to us and we’ll let you know what’s possible:

Discord: Join discord.gg/RjX2CpdPpd and open a ticket — this is the fastest way to reach us.
Email: help@team.routeway.ai

Get Started

Platform Details

Help & Resources

Core Concepts

Account Management

Guides

Pay-As-You-Go

DeepSeek Subscriptions

Pay-As-You-Go

DeepSeek Subscriptions

Cost Examples

Live Pricing

Payment Methods

Pay-As-You-Go

DeepSeek Subscriptions

​Pay-As-You-Go

​DeepSeek Subscriptions

​Cost Examples

​Live Pricing

​Payment Methods

Pay-As-You-Go

DeepSeek Subscriptions

Cost Examples

Live Pricing

Payment Methods