Together AI vs Zylo vs OpenRouter: aggregator cost comparison

By the Zylo team · Updated June 5, 2026 · 6 min read

Together AI, Zylo and OpenRouter are three ways to reach many models over one HTTP API, and all three are OpenAI-compatible. They overlap, but their cost models and sweet spots differ. Here is a fair, builder-focused comparison.

At a glance

Competitor details change frequently — verify current terms with each provider.

When to pick each

• Together AI — strong if your work centers on open-weight models, or you want hosting and fine-tuning in one place.
• OpenRouter — when you need the broadest catalogue, including niche models.
• Zylo — when you want frontier and cost-efficient models with transparent base pricing (no usage markup; 25% fee only at credit top-up), built-in web-extract, and local payments.

Cost model is the real difference

Breadth and features matter, but at scale the cost model dominates. Zylo's base-rate billing with no usage markup makes per-token cost predictable; for the math on credit fees and markups, see the real cost of credit-purchase fees.

Try it with one change

from openai import OpenAI

client = OpenAI(api_key="ZYLO_KEY", base_url="https://api.zyloai.net/v1")

response = client.chat.completions.create(
    model="claude-opus-4.8",
    messages=[{"role": "user", "content": "Hello from Zylo!"}],
)
print(response.choices[0].message.content)

All three are OpenAI-compatible, so you can A/B them by changing base_url and the model id. See Zylo's live pricing.