T
TOpenRouter vs PolyAI
Pricing, features, platforms and who each one suits — side by side.
O
Choose OpenRouter if…
- you want a free plan to start with
- you're in its core audience: software developers, ai app and agent builders
P
Choose PolyAI if…
- you want to trial it before paying
- you're in its core audience: enterprise contact centers, customer service leaders
Side by side
Feature OpenRouter PolyAI
Pricing modelFreemiumContact for pricing
Starting price——
Free plan
Free trial
API
Open source
PlatformsWeb, APIWeb, API
CategoryLLM APIs & Model HostingVoice Agents
CompanyOpenRouterPolyAI Ltd
Full feature lists
O OpenRouter
- OpenAI-compatible chat completions endpoint
- Access to 600+ models from 80+ providers
- Automatic fallbacks around provider outages and rate limits
- Image, video, text-to-speech and speech-to-text endpoints
- Bring your own provider keys
- Budgets, spend controls and activity log export
- EU and US in-region routing
- Hosted MCP server for agent tooling
P PolyAI
- Audio-native Dialog-RSN-1 voice model with sub-300ms latency
- Dialog Studio for no-code to full-code agent building
- Voice, SMS, WhatsApp, web chat and email channels
- Guardrails, PII redaction and human-in-the-loop controls
- Test calls, simulated conversations and A/B tests
- Pre-built connectors plus any API or MCP server
- Bring your own carrier over SIP at no charge
- Data residency in US, UK, EU and APAC
Their home pages
What each vendor shows first: the pitch, the plans and the sign-up.
OpenRouter · openrouter.ai
PolyAI · poly.aiWhat you'd pay
The cheapest plan that fits, per month, billed yearly where the plan offers it.
OpenRouter
FreeFree
Standard5.5% fee on credit purchases
Business8% fee on credit purchases
EnterpriseCustom
PolyAI
Dialog-RSN-1 API2¢ per connected minute
PlatformCustom
Price changes we've recorded
We re-read each pricing page every month and log what changed.
OpenRouter
- Nov 8, 2026Standard: Pay-as-you-go, 5.5% fee on credit purchases → 5.5% fee on credit purchases; Business: Pay-as-you-go, 8% fee on credit purchases → 8% fee on credit purchases
PolyAI
- Nov 8, 2026Pricing model: Contact for pricing → Free trial
Strengths and limitations
OpenRouter
- No markup on provider token prices
- Free plan with 25+ free models
- BYOK fee-free up to $25,000 of monthly inference
- Payment by card, AliPay or USDC
- 5.5–8% platform fee on credit purchases
- Free plan limited to 50 requests per day
- SSO/SAML and SLAs only on Enterprise
PolyAI
- Published API price of 2¢ per connected minute, billed per second
- $100 free credit for new sign-ups for a limited time
- SOC 2, ISO 27001, PCI DSS and GDPR compliance
- No minimums on platform billing
- Platform pricing requires a sales quote
- API excludes telephony and orchestration
- API limited to 2 concurrent calls until a card is added
More comparisons
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Open-weight AI models, chat and coding agent you can run on your own infrastructure
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Facts from each vendor's public pages, prices checked Nov 8, 2026. Editorial policy