2026 comparison

RouterPlus vs Portkey

Portkey is an AI gateway and observability platform that routes to provider accounts you connect, with plans priced by logged requests. RouterPlus sells the inference itself: one key at each provider's price, with reserved capacity and sourced providers.

Portkey

// your provider accounts
const client = new OpenAI({
  baseURL: "https://api.portkey.ai/v1",
  apiKey: process.env.PORTKEY_API_KEY,
});

RouterPlus

// one key, inference included
const client = new OpenAI({
  baseURL: "https://api.routerplus.com/v1",
  apiKey: process.env.ROUTERPLUS_API_KEY,
});

I need inference Book a call Open in console

1 key¹for every catalog model, at each provider's price
0%²inference fee on bring-your-own-key, at any volume
1 wk–12 mo³terms for capacity reserved across providers

Feature by feature

Feature	Portkey	RouterPlus
Inference	NoRoutes to provider accounts you connect⁴	YesOne key sells inference on every catalog model¹
Cost on your own keys	PartlyPlan fee: free to 10k logs, $49/mo to 100k, then $9 per 100k⁵	Yes0% on BYOK, any plan, any volume²
Routes on	PartlyFallbacks, load balancing and retries you configure⁵	YesYour evals + your production traffic
Capacity	NoLimited to your provider accounts⁴	YesDedicated endpoints under contract, 1 week to 12 months⁶
Token pricing	NoEach provider's own rate, per account⁴	YesNegotiated, shopped across providers
Provider sourcing	NoYou find and contract each provider	YesWe find, load-test and contract providers for you
Contractual SLA	PartlyListed with the Enterprise plan⁵	YesYes, written into your contract

Portkey facts from its own pricing and docs, checked November 5, 2026.

Where RouterPlus pulls ahead

01
Inference on one key
Portkey needs an account with every provider you call. With RouterPlus, one key and one balance cover every catalog model.¹
Each provider's price, no markup
02
Capacity that's yours
Portkey sends calls to the provider accounts you hold, at their limits. RouterPlus reserves throughput across providers on one contract.⁶
Terms from 1 week to 12 months
03
Providers, sourced for you
We find providers, load-test them on your traffic, negotiate the price and keep a backup lined up.
Teams tried 3–4 providers before us and kept our first match

Pricing

As published, checked November 5, 2026.

Portkey

Priced by logged requests

Developer: free, 10k recorded logs a month, logs kept 3 days⁵
Production: $49 a month for 100k logs, then $9 per extra 100k⁵
Enterprise: custom pricing; tokens billed by your provider accounts⁵

RouterPlus

Pay per token, no markup

Prepaid credits at each provider's listed price, no per-token markup¹
0% when you bring your own OpenAI, Anthropic, Azure or Bedrock account²
Reserved capacity quoted per contract⁶

Switch in one line

-  baseURL: "https://api.portkey.ai/v1",
-  apiKey: process.env.PORTKEY_API_KEY,
+  baseURL: "https://api.routerplus.com/v1",
+  apiKey: process.env.ROUTERPLUS_API_KEY,

Keeping Portkey for tracing or prompts? RouterPlus is OpenAI-compatible, so you can connect it to Portkey as a provider.

Questions teams ask

Is RouterPlus better than Portkey?

RouterPlus is the better fit when you want the inference and the gateway in one place: one key at each provider's price, 0% on your own keys, reserved capacity and providers sourced for you. Portkey routes to provider accounts you set up and bills by logged requests.¹⁵

What is the difference between RouterPlus and Portkey?

Portkey is a gateway and observability layer over provider accounts you connect. RouterPlus is a hosted gateway that also sells the inference, so one key and one balance cover every model in its catalog.⁴¹

Which is cheaper, RouterPlus or Portkey?

Portkey charges a plan fee by logged requests, from free to $49 a month for 100k logs plus $9 per extra 100k, and providers bill tokens separately. RouterPlus adds no per-token markup to provider prices and charges 0% on your own keys.⁵¹²

Can RouterPlus replace Portkey?

RouterPlus covers model access, billing, spend caps and failover on one key. If your team depends on Portkey's prompt management, guardrails or tracing, keep Portkey and connect RouterPlus behind it as an OpenAI-compatible provider.⁵⁷

Does RouterPlus store my prompts?

Billing and analytics keep metadata only. Requests to shared endpoints go to an encrypted request log for up to 30 days, for debugging. Dedicated endpoints and organizations that opt out are never logged.⁸

How do I switch from Portkey to RouterPlus?

Point your client at https://api.routerplus.com/v1, use a RouterPlus key and map model names to RouterPlus catalog IDs. The OpenAI and Anthropic SDKs work unchanged.⁷

Sources

Checked November 5, 2026. Prices and plans change; each provider's page is the source of truth.

More comparisons

Get a free AI spend review

Send us your workload and current spend. We come back with providers and a price.

I need inference Book a call