Small business▲+10Since September 2026: 10% → 20%, +10 points. Inside the 11-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked.
20%from 10% in September 2026
Inside the floor by 1 pointRank 3 of 51, unchanged
1 category · RankedOpenRouter
125Judge labels
17First choices
29Negative labels
14 / 14Models named it
1Category
October 2026 Edition. Every number here is derived from the raw labels under vendor table v2026-10.8, every buyer segment counted.
Best standing
21% in LLM gateways for small business buyers
Rank 3 of 69 in the mid-market standingaccepted challenger
1 of 14 models made it the first choice on the direct prompt; 17% of its 42 labels there were negative.
What the models named instead of OpenRouter →By buyer segmentStrongest at small business.
Small business3 of 53
21%53 labels
accepted challenger
Mid-market3 of 69
9%42 labels
accepted challenger
Enterprise87 of 87
0%30 labels
criticized challenger
In llm gateways · each standing computed within its segment · bars are 0 to 100 · the accent bar is the product's own best reading
Standing by category
Every category where a model named OpenRouter for a mid-market B2B company. Share is first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts; rank is within every product named in that category.
| Category | Function | Share | Rank | Negative rate | Labels | Quadrant | Since September 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| LLM gateways and observability | Data platform | 9% | 3 of 69 | 17% | 42 | accepted challenger | ▲+8Since September 2026: 2% → 10%, +8 points. Inside the 11-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked. |
Movement
Since September 2026, OpenRouter held within the floor in its one category: no change cleared 11 points.
Best category · LLM gateways · by segment
Mid-market▲+8Since September 2026: 2% → 10%, +8 points. Inside the 11-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked.
10%from 2% in September 2026
Inside the floor by 3 pointsRank 7 → 3 of 54
Enterprise▼−2Since September 2026: 2% → 0%, −2 points. Inside the 11-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked.
0%from 2% in September 2026
Inside the floor by 9 pointsRank 13 → 75 of 75
All categories · Mid-market
| Category | September 2026 | Now | Change | Reading | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| LLM gateways | 2% | 10% | ▲+8Since September 2026: 2% → 10%, +8 points. Inside the 11-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked. | Within noise | Rank 7 → 3 of 69 |
Shares here are read over the models both editions asked, so they can differ by a point or two from the standing above, which counts every model in this edition.
The floor is 11 points of share, measured: how far the models move a leader on their own when the same questions are asked twice with nothing changed. A larger change is movement; a smaller one is noise, and both are shown. Movement is read over the twelve models both editions asked; GPT-6 Luna, Muse Glimmer 30B joined this edition and are in the standing but not yet in the comparison. How the floor is measured · The editions
By model
How each model treated OpenRouter across every prompt where it was named for a mid-market B2B company. Fourteen models, six prompts per category.ShowHide
By model
How each model treated OpenRouter across every prompt where it was named for a mid-market B2B company. Fourteen models, six prompts per category.
ShowHide| Model | First choice | Alternative | Mention | Negative | Labels |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claude Haiku 4.5 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 3 |
| GPT-5.4 mini | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 3 |
| Gemini 3.5 Flash | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| Perplexity Sonar | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 3 |
| Grok 4.20 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 5 |
| Mistral Small | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 3 |
| DeepSeek V4 Flash | 1 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 4 |
| Llama 4 Maverick | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 |
| Qwen 3.7 Flash | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Kimi K2 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 2 |
| GLM 4.7 FlashX | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 |
| MiniMax M2.5 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 3 |
| GPT-6 Luna | 0 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 3 |
| Muse Glimmer 30B | 1 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 4 |
By framing
Which of the six questions produced the naming. By model says how often; this says asked what. The first-choice count on the right carries the marks of the models that produced it.
FramingLabels by classFirst choices
Direct16 labels4
Paraphrase8 labels2
Comparative36 labels14not counted in share
Budget-constrained31 labels9
Scale-constrained8 labels2
Negative26 labels3not counted in share
First choiceAlternativeMentionNegative125 labels in all, every segment counted; 17 of the 34 first choices count toward share, since the comparative and negative framings do not. The bar is one segment per label class, to scale within the framing.
What the models said for it
Verbatim evidence the judge attached to positive labels.
“For most mid‑market B2B companies, I’d start with OpenRouter or Portkey to get a managed gateway quickly” GLM 4.7 FlashX · LLM gateways · direct prompt · first choice
“Start with OpenRouter. It is the easiest way to get access to multiple models with zero setup.” GLM 4.7 FlashX · LLM gateways · budget prompt · first choice
“and OpenRouter if you want the lowest-ops path with immediate access to many models” Perplexity Sonar · LLM gateways · budget prompt · first choice
“LiteLLM (free, open-source) and OpenRouter (low-fee pay-as-you-go) are top choices.” Mistral Small · LLM gateways · budget prompt · first choice
And against it
Verbatim evidence attached to negative labels. A warning on a product with few labels is a warning; on a product with many, it is one voice among them.
“It is considered a high-risk option for data residency as its default catalog includes Chinese-hosted models.” Llama 4 Maverick · LLM gateways · negative prompt · hard negative
“avoid OpenRouter for anything with sensitive/PII data” DeepSeek V4 Flash · LLM gateways · negative prompt · hard negative
“OpenRouter, for confidential or regulated prompts: Not a blanket "avoid," but check both the gateway settings and the selected model provider.” GPT-6 Luna · LLM gateways · negative prompt · soft negative
“In practice that means on a gateway like OpenRouter you should be cautious if you: do not enable the Zero Data Retention filter” Muse Glimmer 30B · LLM gateways · negative prompt · soft negative
Named alongside
The products named in the same answers as OpenRouter, over the 125 answers that named it. Took the first choice instead counts the answers where the other product was the first choice and OpenRouter was named but was not.ShowHide
Named alongside
The products named in the same answers as OpenRouter, over the 125 answers that named it. Took the first choice instead counts the answers where the other product was the first choice and OpenRouter was named but was not.
ShowHideProductSame answerTook the first choice insteadHead to head
A head-to-head page exists where both products are among a category's top eight. The other rows are the same fact without a page behind them, so they link to the product instead.
What carried it into the answer
The sites and pages cited by the answers that named OpenRouter. A fact about retrieval, not a lever on the model.
Citations exist only for the models that return a source list, five of the fourteen in this edition, so these counts come from 122 of the 125 answers that named OpenRouter and are not a share of its labels.
Domains cited
openrouter.aiYour site85
getmaxim.ai63
respan.ai50
dev.to49
truefoundry.com42
cloudzero.com41
dataiku.com40
llmgateway.io37
portkey.ai36
dupple.com35
393 of the 478 domain citations in answers naming OpenRouter came from somebody else's page.
Pages cited
Pages are listed as the models cited them.
Search and answers
openrouter.ai ranks 7 on Google for the category's searches. In the answers, OpenRouter takes 9% of first choices and LiteLLM takes 31%.ShowHide
Search and answers
openrouter.ai ranks 7 on Google for the category's searches. In the answers, OpenRouter takes 9% of first choices and LiteLLM takes 31%.
ShowHideIn search
Google, US estimatesPosition for “llm gateway”
7
Position for “llm gateways”
–
not in the top ten
- Searches for its name, Google
- 135,000 a month (“openrouter”)
- AI search demand for its name, est.
- 655 a month
- Organic visits to its site
- about 225,878 a month
- Searches its site ranks for
- 8,625 · 1,526 in the top three
- Sites linking to it
- 16,378
- Paid Google search
- No ads found in the estimate; that does not mean it runs none
In answers
This editionShare of first choices
9%
rank 3 of 69 in LLM gateways
Segment leader
31%
LiteLLM
- First choices
- 17 across its categories
- Named in
- 125 answers
- Its own site cited
- in 122 of the answers that named it
Search figures are US estimates from DataForSEO, read September 28, 2026; AI search demand is its modeled, directional estimate, not a count of queries to any assistant. The answers are this edition's. Two measurements side by side: neither is read as the cause of the other.
What it publishes
ShowHide
What it publishes
ShowHideAddresses on openrouter.ai
5,539
subdomains included
Content
3,565
counted in the table below
Documentation
346
Product · Integration
0 · 17
| Kind | Pages | Last 90 days | 2025-10 to 2026-09 | Latest | Categories named |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Comparison | 3,268 | 3 | 2026-09-22 | ||
| Report or ebook | 136 | undated | Observability | ||
| News or press | 70 | 12 | 2026-09-22 | ||
| Blog | 64 | 32 | 2026-09-29 | LLM gateways | |
| Template or tool | 12 | 0 | 2026-06-22 | ||
| Podcast or video | 12 | undated | |||
| Case study | 2 | 1 | 2026-09-15 | ||
| Glossary or explainer | 1 | 1 | 2026-09-21 |
Most recent
- 2026-09-29Image to video models compared blog
- 2026-09-28What Is Qwen 3.8? Models, Weights, Licenses, and Cost blog
- 2026-09-23How to Use Jev: Moderation with the Jev API in TypeScript blog
- 2026-09-23Best Embedding Models in 2026: RAG, Multilingual, Code, and Image blog
- 2026-09-22What Is Nemotron 3.5 Lightning? Specs, Context, and API blog
- 2026-09-22Is Jev as Accurate as Frontier Models at Classification? comparison
How it is countedHide how it is counted
Every page openrouter.ai exposes, subdomains included. Kind is read from the address and title. The last 90 days, the latest date and the twelve months count pages by when they were published, from the site's feeds, a date in the address, or the page's own publication date, read from up to a hundred of its most recently changed pages; a page that says only when it last changed is counted in its kind but not in when, so the recent counts are a floor, and a kind none of whose pages gives a publication date reads undated. Read September 29, 2026.
Follow OpenRouter
An email the morning each edition publishes: where this product moved, where it held, and by how much against the noise floor. One address, confirmed by a click; a stop link in every email.
Already following? Everything you follow, with a stop for each.
The company
OpenRouter is its own company.ShowHide
The company
OpenRouter is its own company.
ShowHideIn its own words
Stated by the vendor, not checked- Positioning
- The unified interface for every model. Find the best models & prices for your prompts
- For
- indie hackers, AI native startups, growing teams, and enterprises
- Price stated
- Better prices, better uptime, no subscriptions. openrouter.ai
- Starting price
- Free openrouter.ai/pricing
- Free plan or trial
- Free openrouter.ai/pricing
- Integrations claimed
- 80 openrouter.ai · 1 openrouter.ai/blog/case-studies pages disagree
- Certifications
- SOC 2 Type 2
- Hosting
- EUUS
- Customers named
- ReplitHermes AgentKilo CodeNVIDIAFramerZoomLovableAMD
What OpenRouter's own pages state, read September 28, 2026: openrouter.ai, openrouter.ai/pricing, trust.openrouter.ai, openrouter.ai/blog/case-studies. A claimed page can correct any of them.
Is this your product?
Claim this page
Claiming is free and changes nothing in the data. A claimed page shows a verified contact who is told when each edition publishes and when OpenRouter's standing changes by more than the noise floor; the right to propose corrections to the vendor table, meaning names the judge wrote that should or should not read as OpenRouter, applied by version and listed in the change log; and a one-line description supplied by the vendor and marked as such.
What a new claim receivesHide what a new claim receives
A new claim receives the current edition's vendor brief for OpenRouter by email, built from the raw record of the edition. It shows:
- where OpenRouter is named, by buyer and by framing, and which cells hold its first choices;
- the claims the models make when they name it, ranked, with the strongest and the weakest quoted;
- its vocabulary against the segment leader's, and the pages the models cited;
- who was chosen in the answers that did not name OpenRouter, and every reason the record gives;
- a battlecard for each top rival: the head-to-head split, why they win, and the reservation quoted against them;
- one page of published figures cleared to show a buyer.
Badges
Wins only: a badge exists where OpenRouter is ranked in a category's top three this edition. Three sizes, one file each, light and dark; the code is under each.ShowHide
Badges
Wins only: a badge exists where OpenRouter is ranked in a category's top three this edition. Three sizes, one file each, light and dark; the code is under each.
ShowHideOpenRouter is among the products AI models recommend first in LLM gateways and observability this edition. Each badge says so in the buyer's words, names the edition, and links to the standing. The next edition issues a new badge; this one stays true as a record of October 2026.
Wide · 320 × 104 Website, beside other badges
Square · 240 × 240 LinkedIn, slides
Compact · 200 × 56 Email signature, footer
Badges read on light and dark pages. Alt text carries the claim, the category, the edition and the index, so it stays a citation where the image does not load.