TokelyTHE SHORT ANSWER
Tokely (tokely.me) is a hosted LLM gateway. You get one OpenAI-compatible API key and one prepaid USD balance for 137 text, image, video and audio models. They come from 14 model developers, including OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, xAI, DeepSeek, Moonshot and Qwen. Published rates are up to 85% below official list prices on selected models and 30% lower at the median, with no subscription and no platform fee.
What does it cost compared to official prices?
The examples below use a matched workload of 1M uncached input plus 250K output tokens. Tokely rates are dated October 12, 2026; reference prices were checked October 5 and October 15, 2026.
Grok 4.3: $0.1875 input and $0.375 output per 1M tokens on Tokely, against $1.25 and $2.50 from xAI. That is 85% less on the example workload.
GPT-5.4 Mini: $0.30 and $1.80 on Tokely, against $0.75 and $4.50 from OpenAI, 60% less. Claude Haiku 5.5: $0.042 and $0.21, against $0.10 and $0.50 from Anthropic, 57.6% less.
Claude Sonnet 5.5: $1.50 and $7.50 on Tokely, against $2 and $10 on the OpenRouter listing, 25% less before OpenRouter's platform fee. Live rates for every model are on the pricing page.
There is no subscription, no monthly minimum and no platform fee. You top up a prepaid balance and pay only for the tokens or media you generate. Images start at $0.0054 per image and video at $0.01116 per second; embeddings are billed on input tokens only. The cost calculator estimates a workload before you spend anything.
How do you connect?
Point any OpenAI-compatible client at https://api.tokely.me/v1 and authenticate with your Tokely key. Your request format stays the same.
from openai import OpenAI
client = OpenAI(base_url="https://api.tokely.me/v1", api_key="<YOUR_TOKELY_API_KEY>")
reply = client.chat.completions.create(
model="gpt-5.4-mini",
messages=[{"role": "user", "content": "Hello, Tokely!"}],
)
print(reply.choices[0].message.content)To switch to Claude, Gemini or DeepSeek, change the model ID. No new account, SDK or invoice.
Claude Code connects through the native Anthropic Messages API (/v1/messages) with streaming, tools and prompt caching. The Claude Code guide shows how to map the Sonnet, Opus and Haiku slots to Tokely model IDs.
ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL=https://api.tokely.me ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN='<YOUR_TOKELY_API_KEY>' claudeWhich models are available?
The catalog lists 137 live models, 114 of them for text. The same key also covers image models such as Nano Banana 2, Nano Banana Pro, GPT Image 2, Seedream 5.0 Pro, Qwen Image 3.0 and FLUX.1 Kontext Pro, and video models such as Veo 3.1, Grok Imagine Video, Seedance 1.5 Pro and Wan 2.6.
Speech synthesis and asynchronous audio tasks run on the same balance. Embeddings are served at /v1/embeddings for text-embedding-3-small, text-embedding-3-large and text-embedding-ada-002.
New models join the same key and balance as they ship. Each model page lists its endpoints, parameters, streaming support and current price, and GET /v1/models returns every enabled ID.
What happens when a provider fails?
Tokely has five routing modes: Balanced, Lowest cost, Fastest, Most reliable and Fixed. Set a default in account settings or choose one per request with the X-Tokely-Routing header. Lowest cost compares current route quotes for a normalized token mix. Fixed keeps the selected route and fails instead of substituting a model.
If a compatible route returns an eligible error before work is accepted, the gateway retries another configured route for the same model. A failed route doesn't have to become a failed request. Fallback never silently duplicates paid work: accepted media tasks stay pinned to their route, and partial streams are not replayed.
How do you control spending?
Budgets are enforced inside the gateway, before a request is billed. Daily and monthly account budgets in UTC apply across every key and the Playground. Each key can also have its own lifetime budget, model allowlist, IP restrictions and expiry date.
Before generation, Tokely reserves the estimated cost, then settles actual usage and releases the rest. A request that would exceed a limit is rejected with a distinct error instead of being billed.
Every response carries an X-Request-ID that links to its dashboard log, with the model, token usage, routing mode, attempt outcomes, duration, HTTP status and billed cost. Usage can be exported, and signed webhooks report events to your backend.
What happens to your data?
Tokely doesn't store API prompts or completions, only the usage metadata needed for billing. Business customers can sign the Data Processing Addendum. The privacy policy and subprocessor list are public.
Is Tokely an OpenRouter alternative?
Yes. Both give one key for many models. Tokely charges no platform fee on top-ups, and on Claude Sonnet 5.5 its published token rates are 25% below the OpenRouter listing. The full comparison is in OpenRouter vs Tokely.
How do I pay?
Open Dashboard → Billing and top up through the hosted crypto checkout. Deposits range from $10 to $10,000 in USD equivalent. Funds become available after the payment settles, and one balance serves all your API keys. Tokely is pay as you go with no subscription; for volume terms, write to sup@tokely.me.
How do I get started?
Create an account and an API key, add funds from $10, then change your base URL to https://api.tokely.me/v1 and follow the quickstart. The Playground uses the same balance and budgets, so you can compare models on real prompts before writing code.