OpenRouter alternative for Russia — pay in USDT, no routers
On OpenRouter the cheaper tiers are usually quantized — you judge the quality yourself. RuAPI gives you the best original model directly: pay in USDT, one first-party upstream with no quantization, Claude Code out of the box with no router.
$ curl https://www.ruapi.ai/v1/chat/completions \
-H "Authorization: Bearer sk-..." \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{
"model": "claude-sonnet-5",
"messages": [{"role": "user", "content": "Hello"}]
}'Only BASE_URL and KEY — zero business code changes.
What RuAPI fixes where OpenRouter is awkward from Russia
Pay in USDT, not a card or USDC.
OpenRouter takes cards and USDC; from Russia a card often does not go through, and people hold USDT. RuAPI takes USDT directly — TRC20 / BEP20 / Polygon.
One first-party upstream, no quantization.
On OpenRouter the cheapest provider often serves a quantized (FP8 / INT4) build that changes request to request. RuAPI is a direct first-party or hyperscaler upstream (Anthropic, AWS, Azure), fp16, predictable behavior.
Claude Code on DeepSeek — no router.
OpenRouter native endpoint only works with Anthropic models; running Claude Code on DeepSeek needs a separate router. On RuAPI it works over the native /v1/messages with no proxy.
Key parameters
base_url
OpenAI-compatible: https://www.ruapi.ai/v1
Native Anthropic: https://www.ruapi.ai
Payment
USDT — TRC20 / BEP20 / Polygon
5 USDT minimum, no card
Models on one key
Claude, GPT, Gemini
DeepSeek, GLM, Qwen, MiniMax
RuAPI vs OpenRouter: who wins where
| RuAPI | OpenRouter | |
|---|---|---|
| Payment | USDT directly (TRC20 / BEP20 / Polygon) | Card, USDC (USDT via workarounds) |
| Upstream and precision | One first-party source, fp16, no quantization | Many providers, sometimes FP8 / INT4 |
| Claude Code on non-Anthropic (DeepSeek) | No router | Needs an external router |
| Support | In Russian, Telegram | In English |
| What you get for it | Original, fp16 | Cheaper, but often quantized (FP8 / INT4) |
| From Russia without VPN | Yes | Yes |
FAQ
See also: ProxyAPI alternative · Pay API with crypto