Live model IDs in Dash
166
Aggregator comparison
ChinaAPI and OpenRouter, compared on facts you can check.
Both services put many models behind one OpenAI-compatible key. They differ in what the catalog is for, how the rate is set, what it costs to put money in, and which endpoints the base URL serves. Those are the rows below. Which model is better is not a row here, because we have not measured it.
Positioning
Chinese model discovery with a broader live API catalog.
ChinaAPI's live Dash directory listed 166 model IDs on 2026-09-26, including Chinese families alongside Claude, GPT, and Gemini. This marketing site publishes 65 dedicated Chinese model pages from 11 vendors. For 6 of those vendors, our hubs explain access barriers such as a mainland-China entity or phone number at the vendor's own console.
The table compares published pricing, payment and API facts. Check both live catalogs before choosing a model; we do not rank model quality here.
Dedicated Chinese model pages
65
Chinese vendors with pages
11
OpenAI-compatible endpoint families
5
Base URL
https://api.chinaapi.ai/v1
Side by side
9 rows, every one of them sourced.
ChinaAPI counts and Paid prices were read from the public Dash catalog on 2026-09-26. OpenRouter cells paraphrase its own documentation on the retrieval dates given under sources. Checkout and both live catalogs are authoritative for current prices.
| Dimension | ChinaAPI | OpenRouter |
|---|---|---|
| Dedicated Chinese model pages | 65 model pages from 11 Chinese vendors in the marketing catalog. Dash also lists foreign models; this site's page count is narrower than the live Dash catalog. | Not stated here. We could not source a dated, re-checkable count, so we publish none — see the known gaps below. |
| Total live model IDs | 166 in the public Dash catalog on 2026-09-26; check the live catalog for changes. | See OpenRouter's live model directory for its current count; we do not freeze a competing count here. |
| How the rate is set | Standard model rates follow providers' international list prices at 100%. After a first top-up, eligible models have a separate Paid rate. Media models show a transparent USD service rate; any service margin is included in the displayed rate, never added afterward. | OpenRouter's documentation says the price you pay for inference is the underlying provider's own rate, passed through unchanged. |
| Fee on adding credit | Card and cryptocurrency top-ups add credits at face value with no separate ChinaAPI top-up fee. Local-wallet price points already include channel fees; the actual payment amount is shown at checkout. | OpenRouter's current pricing page lists a 5.5% platform fee for its Standard plan when purchasing credits. Other plans have different terms; check the current pricing page before buying. |
| Paid price after first top-up | 51 model IDs had a Paid face on 2026-09-26. Its per-unit reduction from Standard ranged from 0% to 30%; some Paid faces match Standard. Current prices are in Dash. | OpenRouter prices inference at its published provider rates; this ChinaAPI tier is not an OpenRouter plan comparison. |
| Payment methods | Dashboard Wallet offers Stripe card checkout, UPay and NOWPayments crypto checkout, and eligible local wallets. Xnova card checkout appears where offered. Redemption codes remain an optional offline or business route. | OpenRouter's support page says it accepts major credit cards, AliPay and USDC cryptocurrency payments. |
| Key management | One key and one base URL cover every vendor in the catalog, so adding a model is a configuration change rather than a new account, a new console and a new invoice. | OpenRouter authenticates with an API key sent as a bearer token, and documents a separate class of management keys for creating and administering keys programmatically. |
| OpenAI-compatible surface | One base URL serves /v1/audio/speech, /v1/audio/transcriptions, /v1/chat/completions, /v1/images/generations, /v1/video/generations, because the catalog spans text, image, video and audio models. | OpenRouter's documentation describes itself as a drop-in replacement for OpenAI, and states that it implements the OpenAI API specification for the completions and chat completions endpoints. |
| Where you can sign up | Sign-up needs no mainland-China company entity and no mainland-China phone number. A new dashboard account starts with $2 of trial credit. | Not stated here. We found no published eligibility list to cite — see the known gaps below. |
Compatibility
What one base URL actually serves.
This list is generated from the catalog, so it grows when the catalog does. Text, image, video and audio models all answer on the same key.
POST https://api.chinaapi.ai/v1/audio/speechPOST https://api.chinaapi.ai/v1/audio/transcriptionsPOST https://api.chinaapi.ai/v1/chat/completionsPOST https://api.chinaapi.ai/v1/images/generationsPOST https://api.chinaapi.ai/v1/video/generations
If your code already targets an OpenAI-compatible client, switching is a base URL and a key. Nothing else in the request changes.
The two base URLs, for reference:
https://api.chinaapi.ai/v1https://openrouter.ai/api/v1
curl -X POST https://api.chinaapi.ai/v1/chat/completions \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $CHINAAPI_API_KEY" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{
"model": "deepseek-v4-pro",
"messages": [{"role": "user", "content": "Hello from ChinaAPI"}]
}'Scope
Why there is no quality column here.
Every row on this page is a number you can check against a published source: a price, a context window, or a statement about who may open an account. There is no row for reasoning, coding or instruction-following, because we have not measured them. Our bench harness is not published yet, and until it is, a ranking from us would be a preference presented as a measurement.
That is a real limitation, not a hedge, so here is the position it leaves us with: use this page to rule options out on cost, context and account eligibility, and use your own evaluation set to choose among whatever survives. If a comparison page tells you which model is smarter and shows you no task, no sample count and no failure definition, it is selling something.
Known gaps
What we could not verify, and therefore did not write.
A missing row is a deliberate choice. Each gap below is something a comparison page is expected to state and that we could not source from a page we can re-check, so we left it out rather than fill it in from memory.
OpenRouter
How many Chinese models OpenRouter lists. Their catalog is a live listing that changes without a dated, citable page, so any number here would be a snapshot we could not honestly date or re-check. The only model count on this page that we stand behind is our own, and it is generated from our catalog.
OpenRouter
Which countries and territories can open an OpenRouter account. We did not find a published eligibility list equivalent to the ones OpenAI and Anthropic maintain, so we make no claim either way.
Related comparisons
Same rule everywhere: checkable facts only, no quality ranking.
Sources and updates
ChinaAPI model names, context values and USD prices on this page are generated from the ChinaAPI model catalog on September 27, 2026. Live pricing in the dashboard is authoritative.
Third-party figures were read from each vendor's own documentation on 2026-08-10, 2026-09-26. That is a dated snapshot, not a live feed: the vendor's own page stays authoritative, and rates change without notifying us. Check the source before you commit a budget to a number here.