Choose a routing strategy
Priority tries models in order. Intelligent routing scores prompt complexity. Custom routers use weighted benchmarks.
Hosted gateway
Merge Gateway
Use one inference API with model routing, budgets and data controls. Choose ordered failover, intelligent selection or a custom benchmark-weighted routing policy.
Sources reviewed . Documentation review; not a performance benchmark or runtime test.
What can you do with Merge Gateway?
Scope customer access
Projects and embedded customers can have scoped keys, policies, budgets and controls.
Inspect the served route
Responses identify the serving model and vendor, with cost reporting on supported endpoints.
Before you integrate
Use an inference key rather than a management key. Check model eligibility against vendor, region, credential and data-retention restrictions.
Test against your own workload
Compare successful responses, latency and the total bill, including retries and fallbacks. Verify streaming, tool calls and structured output on the routes you plan to use. These are evaluation steps, not claims that every feature is supported.
Check model-provider incidents →Pricing and model access
Model rates, platform fees, credits and eligibility can change. Check the publisher’s current terms before choosing a route. Our calculator estimates model token costs; it does not quote a negotiated Merge Gateway bill.
Check Merge Gateway documentation ↗Sources and corrections
Suggest an update →Compare related routing products
Selected by product type and shared routing capabilities.
OpenRouter →
Access models through one API and control which inference providers serve a request. Provider preferences and fallbacks help manage availability.
Vercel AI Gateway →
Route requests across providers and fallback models with visibility into routing attempts, latency, token usage and cost.
Cloudflare AI Gateway →
Manage model requests with logging, caching and rate limits, plus fallback providers for errors or configured timeouts.