OpenRouter tokens and spend
OpenRouter handled about 23T tokens a day over the past week, 35× as many as a year earlier, and we estimate its customers are spending about $4.1B a year on them. Over the past four weeks, models from Chinese labs supplied 57% of the tokens and models from US labs took 66% of the dollars.
Spend is our estimate of what customers pay for the models at list prices, annualized; OpenRouter itself keeps a fee of about 5.5%. Forecasts are pack 007’s base case, growth halving every six months; ranges run from its low case to its high case.
US and Chinese models, past four weeks
Share of tokens and of estimated spend, Sep 23 to Oct 20, by where each model’s developer is based.
Tokens a day
Seven-day averages since January 2025, log scale, by where each model’s developer is based. Each model’s tokens are counted with its own tokenizer.
By month
| Month | Tokens a day | US | China | Other |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oct 2026 (1–20) | 24T | 24% | 60% | 16% |
| Sep 2026 | 19T | 27% | 58% | 14% |
| Aug 2026 | 12T | 30% | 62% | 9% |
| Jul 2026 | 8.0T | 30% | 61% | 8% |
| Jun 2026 | 6.3T | 32% | 53% | 15% |
| May 2026 | 4.0T | 40% | 45% | 15% |
| Apr 2026 | 3.2T | 44% | 45% | 10% |
| Mar 2026 | 2.7T | 46% | 44% | 10% |
| Feb 2026 | 1.8T | 53% | 39% | 8% |
| Jan 2026 | 1.0T | 65% | 23% | 13% |
| Dec 2025 | 839B | 66% | 20% | 15% |
| Nov 2025 | 885B | 72% | 16% | 12% |
| Oct 2025 | 721B | 76% | 14% | 9% |
| Sep 2025 | 714B | 74% | 16% | 10% |
| Aug 2025 | 483B | 60% | 29% | 11% |
| Jul 2025 | 380B | 68% | 23% | 9% |
| Jun 2025 | 323B | 76% | 16% | 8% |
| May 2025 | 318B | 80% | 12% | 7% |
| Apr 2025 | 276B | 75% | 14% | 12% |
| Mar 2025 | 205B | 80% | 12% | 7% |
| Feb 2025 | 125B | 80% | 9% | 11% |
| Jan 2025 | 72B | 81% | 6% | 13% |
Daily tokens by region: openrouter-daily-by-region.csv; by lab: openrouter-daily-by-lab.csv
Spend, annualized
Our estimate of what customers spend on the models through OpenRouter, seven-day averages × 365, log scale, by where each model’s developer is based.
By month
| Month | Spend, a year | Per million tokens | US | China | Other |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oct 2026 (1–20) | $4.2B | $0.48 | 65% | 25% | 10% |
| Sep 2026 | $3.5B | $0.50 | 66% | 26% | 8% |
| Aug 2026 | $2.4B | $0.54 | 72% | 21% | 7% |
| Jul 2026 | $2.5B | $0.86 | 77% | 15% | 7% |
| Jun 2026 | $2.2B | $0.98 | 80% | 13% | 7% |
| May 2026 | $1.5B | $1.04 | 78% | 11% | 11% |
| Apr 2026 | $1.2B | $1.00 | 72% | 17% | 11% |
| Mar 2026 | $954M | $0.97 | 68% | 24% | 8% |
| Feb 2026 | $574M | $0.88 | 77% | 16% | 7% |
| Jan 2026 | $362M | $0.97 | 86% | 5% | 9% |
| Dec 2025 | $249M | $0.81 | 84% | 5% | 10% |
| Nov 2025 | $220M | $0.68 | 86% | 6% | 8% |
| Oct 2025 | $205M | $0.78 | 88% | 5% | 7% |
| Sep 2025 | $203M | $0.78 | 89% | 4% | 7% |
| Aug 2025 | $197M | $1.12 | 87% | 6% | 7% |
| Jul 2025 | $160M | $1.16 | 91% | 3% | 6% |
| Jun 2025 | $130M | $1.10 | 92% | 2% | 6% |
| May 2025 | $112M | $0.96 | 92% | 2% | 6% |
| Apr 2025 | $96M | $0.95 | 93% | 2% | 6% |
| Mar 2025 | $86M | $1.15 | 94% | 1% | 4% |
| Feb 2025 | $61M | $1.34 | 93% | 1% | 5% |
| Jan 2025 | $43M | $1.63 | 94% | 1% | 5% |
China’s tokens, America’s dollars
Models from Chinese labs first passed US models in weekly tokens in the week of March 23, 2026, and have led every week since the week of April 27, 2026. Over the past four weeks Chinese models supplied 57% of tokens and took 24% of the dollars; US models had 24% of tokens and 66% of the dollars. In the four weeks before, the split was 62% and 28% for China, 29% and 65% for the US.
The gap is price. DeepSeek supplied the most tokens, 26%, and took 3% of the dollars. Anthropic took the most dollars, 36%, from 5% of the tokens, and OpenAI 24% from 9%. Counting free tokens at $0, the average million tokens cost $0.47 over the past four weeks, against $0.76 a year earlier. Most of that fall is mix: cheaper models, many of them Chinese, took share. At last year’s list prices, the past four weeks would have averaged $0.50.
Other is 19% of tokens. It includes unreleased models served free under code names (9% of tokens), OpenRouter’s row for models outside the top 50 (7%), and labs based elsewhere or that we couldn’t place. Free versions of released models count with their developer at $0; with the unreleased ones, they were 15% of tokens.
By lab, past four weeks
Labs with at least 1% of tokens or of dollars, by dollars. Free versions count with their developer at $0.
| Lab | Based in | Tokens | Dollars | Tokens a day | Spend, a year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Anthropic | US | 5.3% | 36.4% | 1.3T | $1.5B |
| OpenAI | US | 8.6% | 23.6% | 2.0T | $943M |
| Tencent | China | 6.2% | 6.8% | 1.5T | $270M |
| StepFun | China | 3.2% | 5.2% | 745B | $206M |
| US | 3.4% | 4.3% | 802B | $171M | |
| Moonshot | China | 1.1% | 3.4% | 269B | $137M |
| DeepSeek | China | 26.2% | 3.3% | 6.2T | $133M |
| Z.ai (Zhipu) | China | 10.2% | 2.7% | 2.4T | $106M |
| Typesafe | Other | 2.0% | 2.4% | 479B | $96M |
| Xiaomi | China | 7.3% | 1.8% | 1.7T | $72M |
| Meta | US | 1.5% | 0.6% | 359B | $24M |
| MiniMax | China | 1.5% | 0.5% | 364B | $19M |
| Nvidia | US | 4.5% | 0.0% | 1.1T | $0 |
| Everyone else in the top 50 | 3.7% | 1.3% | 874B | $54M | |
| Outside the top 50 (OpenRouter’s long-tail row) | Mixed | 6.6% | 7.8% | 1.6T | $311M |
| Unreleased models under code names | Unknown | 8.6% | 0.0% | 2.0T | $0 |
Where it’s heading
History is seven-day averages; the forecast starts from the latest four-week average. Dashed: pack 007’s base case, growth halving every six months. Shading: its low and high cases, halving every three and every twelve months. Log scale.
Month by month
| Month end | Tokens a day | Low–high | Spend, a year | Low–high |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oct 2026 | 32T | 32–32T | $4.5B | $4.5–4.5B |
| Nov 2026 | 45T | 44–46T | $5.1B | $5.1–5.1B |
| Dec 2026 | 63T | 58–65T | $5.8B | $5.6–5.9B |
| Jan 2027 | 84T | 72–92T | $6.4B | $6.0–6.6B |
| Feb 2027 | 110T | 85–120T | $7.0B | $6.4–7.4B |
| Mar 2027 | 140T | 98–170T | $7.6B | $6.7–8.3B |
| Apr 2027 | 170T | 110–220T | $8.2B | $7.0–9.2B |
| May 2027 | 200T | 120–290T | $8.8B | $7.2–10B |
| Jun 2027 | 240T | 130–380T | $9.4B | $7.4–11B |
| Jul 2027 | 280T | 140–480T | $9.9B | $7.6–12B |
| Aug 2027 | 330T | 150–610T | $10B | $7.7–13B |
| Sep 2027 | 370T | 150–760T | $11B | $7.8–14B |
| Oct 2027 | 410T | 160–940T | $11B | $7.9–16B |
| Nov 2027 | 460T | 160–1,100T | $12B | $7.9–17B |
| Dec 2027 | 500T | 160–1,400T | $12B | $8.0–18B |
How the forecast works
Each forecast starts from the latest four-week average and its growth since the four weeks three months earlier: 15% a month for spend, against 31% in the three months before, and 46% for tokens, against 33%. As in pack 007’s base case, that monthly growth halves every six months. On it, spend reaches about $5.8B a year by the end of 2026 and $12B by the end of 2027, 3.0× the latest four weeks’ pace, still growing about 3% a month. Tokens reach about 63T a day and 500T. The token paths are steeper because tokens have grown faster than dollars, which assumes cheaper models keep taking share. Token paths are also less reliable: free and unreleased models were 15% of tokens over the past four weeks, and a launch can add a tenth or more to the count for a couple of weeks.
If growth halves every three months instead, spend reaches about $8.0B by the end of 2027; if it halves only once a year, about $18B. Three months out the paths are 8% apart, so the next few months won’t settle which one we’re on.
Compared with pack 007. Pack 007, published on October 18, had spend at about $6.0B a year in December 2026 and $18B in December 2027 with the same six-month halving. It measured growth from July’s average to the first 18 days of October, 21% a month for spend and 48% for tokens. The tracker uses four-week averages three months apart, which today give 15% and 46%.
Method
Tokens. OpenRouter’s rankings-daily dataset: the 50 biggest models each UTC day plus one row for everything else, prompt plus completion tokens, counted with each model’s own tokenizer. It covers public traffic only, not private or zero-data-retention requests. June 15, 2025 and July 15, 2025 are missing from the dataset and filled with the average of the days either side.
US and China. Each model is assigned to the country where its developer is based, as in pack 007; free versions count with their developer. OpenAI’s open-weight models count as US but are listed apart from OpenAI, since other companies serve them. Other is labs based elsewhere (such as Mistral, Upstage and Poolside), developers we couldn’t place, models served free under code names before launch, and the long-tail row. Code names stay in Other unless we reassign them; so far only Ox Alpha has been, to Z.ai, as in pack 007.
Spend. Each model’s tokens are priced at its OpenRouter list price, assuming 10% are output and half of input is billed at cached rates, the mix that reproduces Sacra’s estimate of OpenRouter’s July 2026 revenue at its 5.5% fee. Prices have been recorded every day since October 19, 2026. Before that, each model is at the first price we recorded, retired models at their last list price, and OpenAI’s GPT-5.6 Luna and Sol at their launch prices until their cuts on July 31 and August 21, 2026, as in pack 007. Free versions and unreleased models count at $0. Models without a price are priced at their lab’s median that day, or at the day’s average paid price if the lab has no priced model, and the long-tail row at the day’s average paid price; together they were 9% of tokens in the past four weeks. OpenRouter often lists a model at its cheapest host’s price, so this understates what some customers pay.
Forecast. Two year-ends, this year’s and next, rolling forward each January. The starting level is the latest four-week average, dated at the middle of its window; g is the monthly growth between it and the four-week average three months earlier. Growth in the m-th month after the start is g × 2−(m−1)/6 in the base case, and halves every three and every twelve months in the low and high cases: pack 007’s three paths.
Updates. OpenRouter’s data is pulled and the tracker re-run twice a day; the date at the top is the last run.
Changes. Oct 19, 2026: Tracker started, with OpenRouter data from January 2025 and pack 007’s pricing and grouping by country.
Source for token data: OpenRouter (openrouter.ai/rankings), as of 2026-10-21 12:00 UTC. Licensed under CC BY 4.0. Spend, shares and forecasts are our estimates. Not investment advice. See also the OpenAI and Anthropic revenue tracker, which uses the same data.