A cheaper OpenRouter alternative that takes crypto.
OpenRouter and Chernion both speak the OpenAI API, so either one is a two line change. The difference is what sits behind the key. Chernion sells the frontier models for a fixed fraction of official pricing, as low as 30%, and runs on a prepaid balance you fund with crypto or a card.
What Chernion pairs that a router does not.
- A real discount below official pricing, not a pass through. GPT and Claude run at 30% of list, Gemini at 40%, premium models at 50%.
- Crypto or card prepaid billing, credited automatically on confirmation, with no subscription and no minimum.
- A hosted chat over every model on the same balance, plus a terminal coding agent.
- An Anthropic Messages surface alongside the OpenAI one, so Claude Code works without a shim.
Chernion next to OpenRouter, fairly.
OpenRouter is a strong product. Its catalog is far broader and it routes across providers with failover, which is the right tool when you want one key over hundreds of models. Chernion is the right tool when you want the frontier models for less and want to pay with crypto.
| Chernion this site | OpenRouter | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | A fixed percentage of each provider's official price, as low as 30% for GPT and Claude. | Generally passes provider pricing through, so the win is breadth and convenience, not a discount below list. |
| Payments | Prepaid balance funded with crypto or a card, credited automatically on confirmation, no minimum. | Prepaid credits funded by card, with crypto available. |
| Model focus | The frontier closed models, GPT, Claude, and Gemini, at a discount. | A very large catalog across many providers, including open models, with routing and failover. |
| Hosted chat | A chat over every model on the same prepaid balance, with no monthly subscription. | Centered on the API and model routing. |
| Coding CLI | A terminal coding agent, billed from the same balance. | Not a first party feature. |
| Compatibility | The OpenAI API plus an Anthropic Messages surface, so Claude Code points straight at it. | OpenAI compatible across its catalog. |
When OpenRouter is the better choice.
A comparison is only useful if it is honest, so here is when to pick OpenRouter instead. If one of these is you, a router is the right call.
- You want the widest possible catalog. A router carries hundreds of models across many providers, including open weight ones Chernion does not host.
- You want automatic routing and failover across providers for the same model, so a single outage does not stop you.
- You need a niche or brand new model the moment it ships, before any single gateway curates it.
A real cut below list, not a markup.
Chernion prices each model at a fixed percentage of the provider's official API price, set by its group: 30% for GPT and Claude, 40% for Gemini, and 50% for the premium models. That is a genuine discount below list, which is the part a router does not do. The exact per model numbers are on the pricing pages and update live.
Switching is the same two lines.
If you already call OpenRouter or the OpenAI API, you change the base URL and the key and keep everything else, streaming and tool calls included. The walkthrough is in the guides, and the full reference is in the docs.