Pricing
prxy.monster prices the gateway, not your provider tokens. API-key users bring provider keys; providers bill those users directly. prxy.monster never marks up BYOK provider inference.
Comparison first
Public pricing mechanics as of May 4, 2026:
| Question | prxy.monster | OpenRouter | Portkey | Helicone | LiteLLM |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Who bills provider inference on BYOK? | Provider bills the customer directly. prxy does not settle or mark up BYOK inference. | OpenRouter says provider prices pass through; BYOK has a post-free-tier fee. | Public plans price recorded logs / requests and gateway features. | Public plans price subscription plus usage-based requests/storage. | Self-hosted OSS: operator pays providers directly. |
| Hosted billing unit | Gateway requests. | Model token prices / credits. | Recorded logs / requests. | Requests, storage, and plan tier. | OSS self-host; hosted/enterprise separate. |
| Provider-token markup on prxy-style BYOK | None. No provider-token line item from prxy. | FAQ says no inference markup; BYOK after 1M requests/month has a 5% fee tied to OpenRouter-equivalent model cost. | No public provider-token markup claim found; plan is not priced as prxy-style request-only BYOK. | No public provider-token markup claim found; plan includes usage-based gateway/observability costs. | No hosted markup in OSS mode. |
| Public itemized payment ledger | receipts.prxy.monster for settled agent-commerce receipts. | Not a public ledger. | Not a public ledger. | Not a public ledger. | N/A. |
Sources: OpenRouter FAQ, OpenRouter pricing, Portkey pricing, Helicone pricing, LiteLLM GitHub.
Two billing paths
| Path | Auth | Provider key | Provider invoice | prxy invoice |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| API-key BYOK | Authorization: Bearer prxy_... | You register or supply it | You pay the provider directly | Subscription + metered request overage |
| Managed MPP | Authorization: Payment ... | Not required from agent | Included in MPP price | $0.05 per settled call |
API-key routes do not mark up inference. Managed MPP is different: the agent may have no prxy account and no provider key, so the MPP price includes both PRXY pipeline execution and the upstream model call.
Receipts
For API-key BYOK routes, prxy billing and provider billing are separate: prxy bills requests, providers bill tokens. Lair shows prxy request usage; your provider dashboard remains the source of truth for provider tokens.
For managed MPP and future merchant endpoints, settlement returns an itemized Payment-Receipt header and the receipt can be looked up at receipts.prxy.monster/r/<id>. MPP discovery, the HTTP 402 challenge flow, /v1/agent/quote, and /v1/agent/sessions are live end-to-end. Production Stripe SPT settlement is gated on Stripe Link SPT GA + production-payment credentials.
Tiers
| Tier | Cost | Included usage | Overage | Production features |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0/mo | 1,000 requests/mo | None; hard cap | Local mode, core modules, community support |
| Pro | $20/mo | 100,000 requests/mo | $0.20 / 1k requests | All production modules, API-key management, module analytics |
| Team | $99/mo | 1,000,000 requests/mo | $0.10 / 1k requests | Team controls, audit logs, shared policies, priority support |
| Enterprise | Custom | Custom | Custom | Dedicated support, private deployment options, custom contracts |
One request means one HTTP call into the gateway. Streaming counts as one. Cached hits count as one. Failed upstream calls do not count.
Production, preview, planned
| Surface | Status | Notes |
|---|---|---|
API-key BYOK /v1/messages | Production | Anthropic Messages-compatible route. |
API-key BYOK /v1/chat/completions | Production | OpenAI Chat Completions-compatible route. |
| Built-in module pipeline | Production | See module matrix. |
| Local mode | Production | MIT local edition; no billing or cloud sync. |
| MPP discovery + 402 challenge | Live protocol surface | /.well-known/mpp and /v1/agent/messages challenge flow. |
| MPP production settlement | Gated on Stripe Link SPT GA | SPT verification and money movement code path exists. Production activation requires Stripe Link SPT GA + production-payment credentials. |
| MPP merchant endpoints for customers | Planned | Do not rely on it for production customer endpoints yet. |
| OpenAI Responses / Assistants / Realtime APIs | Planned or unsupported | See compatibility. |
Why no token markup on BYOK?
Token markup compounds with scale and makes cost attribution muddy. BYOK keeps the provider relationship direct: your provider key, your provider limits, your provider invoice.
prxy.monster charges for the gateway work around the provider call: pruning tool bloat, cache lookup, context preservation, pattern injection, routing, and spend controls.
Local mode
Local mode is free forever. It runs the gateway on your hardware with local storage and no hosted billing surface.
Local mode is not ad-supported or telemetry-supported. The container does not phone home. See Local mode privacy.