2026 comparison

RouterPlus vs Vercel AI Gateway

Vercel AI Gateway is a managed gateway that bills each provider's list price and picks providers on recent uptime and latency. RouterPlus routes on your evals and production traffic, and adds reserved capacity and sourced providers when you scale.

Vercel AI Gateway

// routed on uptime + latency
const client = new OpenAI({
  baseURL: "https://ai-gateway.vercel.sh/v1",
  apiKey: process.env.AI_GATEWAY_API_KEY,
});

RouterPlus

// routed on your evals
const client = new OpenAI({
  baseURL: "https://api.routerplus.com/v1",
  apiKey: process.env.ROUTERPLUS_API_KEY,
});

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0%¹inference fee on bring-your-own-key, at any volume
1 wk–12 mo²terms for capacity reserved across providers

Feature by feature

Feature	Vercel AI Gateway	RouterPlus
Routes on	NoRecent uptime and latency, by default³	YesYour evals + your production traffic
Capacity	NoNot on its pricing page⁴	YesDedicated endpoints under contract, 1 week to 12 months⁵
Bring your own key	PartlyNo fee, but needs purchased AI Gateway credits⁴	Yes0% on BYOK, any plan, any volume¹
When a BYOK call fails	NoRetries on Vercel's keys, billed to your credits⁴	YesNever falls back to paid supply unless you set a fallback policy¹
Provider sourcing	NoSelf-serve provider list	YesWe find, load-test and contract providers for you

Vercel AI Gateway facts from its own pricing and docs, checked November 5, 2026.

Where RouterPlus pulls ahead

01
Routed on your evals
Vercel's default ranks providers on recent uptime and latency. RouterPlus routes each task to the model that passes your evals on your traffic.
Your evals, your traffic
02
Capacity that's yours
When shared capacity runs short, RouterPlus reserves throughput across providers on one contract.⁵
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.

Vercel AI Gateway

List price, plus add-ons

Tokens at the provider's list price, no markup; volume discounts on request⁴
BYOK: no fee, but requires purchased credits⁴
Team-wide ZDR or provider allowlist: $0.10 per 1,000 requests⁴

RouterPlus

Provider price, no fee line

Prepaid credits at each provider's listed price, no per-token markup⁶
0% when you bring your own OpenAI, Anthropic, Azure or Bedrock account¹
Reserved capacity quoted per contract⁵

Switch in one line

-  baseURL: "https://ai-gateway.vercel.sh/v1",
-  apiKey: process.env.AI_GATEWAY_API_KEY,
+  baseURL: "https://api.routerplus.com/v1",
+  apiKey: process.env.ROUTERPLUS_API_KEY,

Questions teams ask

Is RouterPlus better than Vercel AI Gateway?

RouterPlus is the better fit when routing should follow your own evals and traffic, and when you need capacity reserved across providers and providers sourced for you. Vercel AI Gateway picks providers on recent uptime and latency by default.³

What is the difference between RouterPlus and Vercel AI Gateway?

Both are hosted gateways that bill tokens at the provider's price. Vercel AI Gateway ranks providers on uptime and latency. RouterPlus routes on your evals and production traffic, and reserves capacity and sources providers for teams at scale.⁴³⁶

Which is cheaper, RouterPlus or Vercel AI Gateway?

Both bill tokens at the provider's price with no markup. Vercel charges for add-ons such as team-wide ZDR ($0.10 per 1,000 requests), and its BYOK needs purchased credits. RouterPlus charges 0% on your own keys and quotes lower per-token prices for high-volume teams.⁴⁶¹

Can RouterPlus replace Vercel AI Gateway?

Yes, for chat, image and video calls on models in the RouterPlus catalog: change the base URL, key and model IDs. Vercel AI Gateway also handles speech, transcription, realtime and embeddings, which stay with their current clients.⁷⁸

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.⁹

Do I need to host my app on Vercel to compare?

No. Vercel AI Gateway works from any infrastructure with an API key, and so does RouterPlus. Run the same requests through both by changing the base URL and key.⁷⁸

Sources

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

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