How to get an OpenRouter API key
Free to create, ready in about two minutes, and one key covers GPT, Claude, Gemini, Llama, Grok, DeepSeek and GLM.
What it is, and when to pick it
OpenRouter is a model aggregator: one account and one key give you every major model — OpenAI, Anthropic (Claude), Google Gemini, Meta Llama, Grok, DeepSeek and GLM — on a single bill. It is the recommended default here because it removes the choosing: start on a “:free” model with a zero balance, add $5 of credits only if you need bigger ones, and switch models without ever creating a second key.
Step by step
Create an account at OpenRouter — sign in with Google, GitHub, or email. No card is asked for. openrouter.ai
Open the Keys page and click “Create Key”. openrouter.ai/keys
Copy the key right away — OpenRouter shows it only once. It starts with
sk-or-v1-.Optional: add credits on the Credits page. A $5 top-up covers hundreds of tailoring runs (Mistral Small is about $0.005 per run), and models tagged “:free” need no balance at all. openrouter.ai/credits
What the key looks like
sk-or-v1-…Shown only once at creation — if you lose it, delete the old key and create a new one.
What it actually costs
- Creating the key is free; you pay nothing until a model actually runs.
- A typical tailored resume costs $0.002–0.01 — Mistral Small works out to about $0.005 per run.
- $5 of credits is hundreds of runs in practice.
- Models tagged “:free” (including solid small ones) need no balance at all.
Paste it into Practical Web Tools
In the AI resume tailor, choose OpenRouter in the provider list, paste the sk-or-v1-… key, and run — the first call doubles as a key check. Your key is kept in your browser, never sent to us. Open the AI resume tailor.
If something goes wrong
- 401 — “That key was rejected”
- The key was mistyped, clipped on copy, or deleted. Open openrouter.ai/keys, create a fresh key, and paste it again — full length, no leading or trailing spaces.
- 429 — “Provider rate limit hit”
- Wait the time the provider asked for, then run again — the tool never auto-retries. Persistent 429s on “:free” models are just the free queue at peak times; a paid model or another provider skips it.
- Could not reach the provider (network / CORS)
- OpenRouter verifiedly allows browser calls (Access-Control-Allow-Origin: *, checked 2026-11-14), so a CORS error usually means an extension or corporate proxy is rewriting requests — try a clean browser window or another network.