API Relay Comparison: Direct Official API or Relay?

A practical guide with a weighted pricing formula and routing decision tree for comparing direct official API vs. relay services, based on DeepSeek peak/off-peak pricing, Together AI version deprecation, and OpenRouter guardrails.

How to Compare AI API Prices? First Unify Four Pricing Dimensions

To compare AI API prices fairly, unify the four pricing dimensions—cache hit/miss input, output, service tier, and capability tier—then compute a weighted unit price based on your actual request distribution.