The OpenRouter alternative starts at $10, is drop-in compatible with the OpenAI SDK, and routes to 13 providers from a single prepaid balance.

SAN FRANCISCO, CA / ACCESS Newswire / May 30, 2026 / Blackmagic AI today launched a unified AI API gateway built to be the cheaper, faster OpenRouter alternative. With one API key and one prepaid balance, developers can call OpenAI, Anthropic, Google Gemini, Meta, Mistral, xAI, DeepSeek, Qwen, Black Forest Labs, Moonshot, Cohere, Perplexity and Stability AI - without managing 13 separate accounts, keys, or invoices.

The pitch is simple: most teams want the best model for each job, but they don't want the overhead of signing up for every vendor. Blackmagic AI removes that overhead. It is a single, OpenAI-compatible endpoint that works with the SDK developers already use.

One key. One bill. 13 providers.

Switching to the OpenRouter alternative takes one change: point the OpenAI SDK at the Blackmagic AI base URL and pass a Blackmagic key. No new SDK, no rewrite.

From there, users switch models by name - GPT, Claude, Gemini, Llama, DeepSeek, Qwen and selected image models - all billed against the same prepaid balance.

Cheaper, by design

Blackmagic AI starts at $10. There is no subscription, no enterprise minimum, and no stack of provider invoices to reconcile. Usage is metered consistently across every provider, and the dashboard shows real spend in dollars - not abstract credits.

Built-in tools include a chat playground, a searchable model catalog, per-key spend limits, and usage logs that record model, tokens, status, latency and cost on every request.

Safer than juggling provider keys

With the OpenRouter alternative from Blackmagic AI, upstream provider keys never leave the company's servers. Customers authenticate only to Blackmagic AI, which brokers each call. Teams get a full multi-provider stack without scattering sensitive credentials across laptops, services and CI pipelines - and a single point of revocation if a key is ever exposed.

Why now

AI teams have moved to a "best model for the job" workflow: reasoning on one provider, coding on another, images on a third. Comparing GPT against Claude, or swapping DeepSeek for Qwen, should be a one-line change - and with Blackmagic AI it is. As new frontier models ship, they appear in the same gateway, so teams never pay the recurring tax of onboarding each vendor by hand.

"Developers shouldn't sign up for a dozen vendors and reconcile a dozen bills just to ship," said a spokesperson for Blackmagic AI. "We built the cheaper, better OpenRouter alternative - one key, one balance, one dashboard, honest pricing."

Availability

Blackmagic AI is available now at blackmagic.engineering. Users can create an account, top up from $10, generate a key, and make their first OpenAI-compatible call in minutes.

About Blackmagic AI

Blackmagic AI is a unified AI API gateway and the cheaper, better OpenRouter alternative. One API key and one prepaid balance route to OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Meta, Mistral, xAI, DeepSeek, Qwen, Black Forest Labs, Moonshot, Cohere, Perplexity and Stability AI. The platform is drop-in compatible with the OpenAI SDK and supports text, code and image models. Learn more at blackmagic.engineering.

Media Contact
Blackmagic AI
Contact Person Name: James Will
City & Country: San Francisco, CA
Press Email: press@blackmagic.engineering
Web: https://blackmagic.engineering

SOURCE: Blackmagic AI