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Overview

Cheap Model DocsAPI CompatibilityGPT ModelsRouting and Provider PolicyModel CategoriesPricing and Credits

API Compatibility

How Cheap Model supports OpenAI-compatible requests, Claude messages, and async multimodal tasks.

What compatibility means here

Cheap Model supports common integration styles through the same user-facing API key:

  • OpenAI-compatible requests such as /v1/chat/completions
  • Claude-style messages such as /v1/messages
  • async image, video, audio, and music tasks such as /v1/images/generations, /v1/videos/generations, and /v1/audios/generations

This keeps routing explicit: only registered models are forwarded, and unknown model names are rejected. Use versioned model names such as gpt-5.5, claude-sonnet-4-5-20250929, and gemini-3.1-pro-preview. Routing is pinned per registered model, not through family shortcuts such as gpt, claude, or gemini.

In practice, most migrations start with three changes:

  • updating credentials
  • pointing your client at Cheap Model connection settings
  • choosing the models and routing behavior that fit each workload

Claude-style requests

Use your Cheap Model key in the Anthropic-style x-api-key header:

curl https://cheapmodel.org/v1/messages \
  -H "x-api-key: cm_xxx" \
  -H "anthropic-version: 2023-06-01" \
  -H "content-type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "model": "claude-sonnet-4-5-20250929",
    "max_tokens": 1024,
    "messages": [{"role":"user","content":"Hello"}]
  }'

Async multimodal tasks

Image, video, and music calls return a task ID. Query it through /v1/tasks/{task_id}:

curl https://cheapmodel.org/v1/images/generations \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer cm_xxx" \
  -H "content-type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "model": "gpt-image-2",
    "prompt": "A cinematic wide-angle shot of a futuristic city skyline",
    "size": "16:9",
    "resolution": "2k"
  }'

What usually stays the same

  • one application-level integration path for multiple providers
  • the broad request and response shape your client already expects
  • the ability to keep product code focused on prompts, tools, and business logic

What usually changes

  • model names and provider availability
  • latency and price tradeoffs by workload
  • provider selection rules when you require strict upstream control
  • observability expectations if you want cleaner cost and usage visibility

Migration checklist

  1. Confirm which workload types matter first: text, image, video, audio, or functional APIs.
  2. Map approved providers and models for each workload.
  3. Decide which models must stay pinned to a specific upstream.
  4. Validate billing, logging, and routing expectations before you scale traffic.

Related docs

  • Routing and Provider Policy
  • GPT Models
  • Model Categories
  • Pricing and Credits

Cheap Model Docs

Product documentation for routing, compatibility, model coverage, and pricing.

GPT Models

See Cheap Model's supported GPT text models, platform pricing, official pricing, and usage examples.

Table of Contents

What compatibility means here
Claude-style requests
Async multimodal tasks
What usually stays the same
What usually changes
Migration checklist
Related docs