The cheapest LLM API is the one that always routes you to the lowest-cost healthy provider. UberLLM does exactly that across 380+ models: small open-weight models like DeepSeek, GLM and Qwen cost only a few cents per million tokens, and you reach all of them — plus GPT, Claude and Gemini — through a single OpenAI-compatible key with no inference markup. New accounts get free credits to start.
For most workloads, small open-weight models (DeepSeek, GLM-4.x, Qwen) served through UberLLM are the cheapest — often a few cents per million tokens. UberLLM routes to the cheapest healthy provider automatically.
Is there a cheaper alternative to the OpenAI API?
Yes — via UberLLM you can call GPT models at pass-through pricing, or switch to much cheaper open-weight models with one line of code (change the model id). Same OpenAI SDK.