To begin using OpenRouter, first create an account on the platform. Once registered, you will need to add credits, which serve as deposits for LLM inference. After funding your account, you can immediately start utilizing the chat room for testing or generate API keys to integrate the service into your applications. Comprehensive quickstart and enterprise guides are available, offering code samples to help you get started quickly. New users receive a small free allowance for initial testing. Additionally, numerous free models are available, though they typically come with low rate limits, such as 50 requests per day, making them unsuitable for production use. To increase the rate limit for free models to 1000 requests per day, simply purchase at least 10 credits. OpenRouter operates on a credit system, denominated in USD. Pricing is applied per model and may vary for prompt, completion, images, and reasoning tokens. The platform passes through provider pricing without any markup, charging only a small fee when credits are initially purchased. There are no minimum spending requirements or lock-ins for pay-as-you-go plans. Accepted payment methods include major credit cards, AliPay, and USDC crypto, with PayPal integration currently in progress. Please note that unused credits may expire after one year. Refunds for unused credits can be requested within 24 hours of purchase via the Credits page, though platform fees and cryptocurrency payments are non-refundable. For technical assistance, join their Discord community and post in the #help forum. For billing and account management inquiries, contact support@openrouter.ai. OpenRouter prioritizes privacy, offering custom data policies to restrict prompt routing and explicitly avoids logging prompts and completions by default. However, users are advised to review the privacy policies of individual model providers.