> A company like OpenRouter that promises the cheapest tokens by the minute becomes essential on the low-cost margin.
replyOkay, I can see that, but if their value is just cost optimization, their ability to mark up the tokens becomes increasingly difficult as well. Or, people will build a router themselves to avoid paying the markup, possibly with reduced features, but someone will open source it. Heck, Claude or GPT can probably one-shot it these days. Either way, I think the whole OpenRouter model is going to struggle unless the market stays frothy.
First, cost optimization directly contributes to how much markup they can charge. Say on average they deliver savings of 20%, that is excess value OR/Stripe can mostly capture.
replyAlso, you don't need to mark up tokens much if you're a commodity volume business. Think of Costco and their margins & membership fees. Not everything has to be high margin, not everything has to be a SaaS subscription.