Stop prompting.
Start shipping.

One OpenAI-compatible endpoint to 11 LLM providers, zero token markup — with per-key spend caps, an alert before your model is deprecated or repriced, and logs that never store a prompt.

Try it now ↓ Get Started
Live Demo

Interactive Sandbox

No signup. No API key. Pick a vertical and see production-quality expertise in 10 seconds.

Playground

⚡
Select a vertical and send a message to get started
API Key:
⚡ 5 free tries remaining
Getting started

API key to production in 60 seconds

OpenAI-compatible SDK. No migration. No prompt engineering.

1
Bring your key
Any of 11 providers — Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, Groq, Cerebras, Mistral, Together, Fireworks, xAI, DeepInfra, OpenRouter. Sent per request, never stored; or save it encrypted if you prefer.
# Any provider works X-Provider-Key: sk-ant-... X-Provider-Key: sk-... X-Provider-Key: AIza...
2
Pick a vertical
Choose from 76 domain experts. Each comes with tuned prompts, tools, and routing.
# Just set the model name model = "copywriter" model = "financial-analyst" model = "code-reviewer"
3
Call the API
OpenAI-compatible endpoint. Works with any SDK, any language.
client = OpenAI( base_url="https://api.verticalapi.com/v1", api_key="vapi_...", )
Verticals

The Vertical Library

76 ready-made expert configurations — tuned prompts, tools and routing. Use them as-is or as starting points for your own. 10 free, all 76 on Pro.

Providers

Every major LLM provider, one endpoint

BYOK to OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini, Mistral, Llama, Grok, Groq, and more. Same OpenAI-compatible SDK, switchable per-request, zero markup on tokens.

OpenAI Anthropic Google Gemini Mistral Meta Llama xAI Grok Groq Cerebras Together AI Fireworks Perplexity Cohere OpenRouter Replicate DeepInfra NVIDIA NIM Lambda Labs Lepton OctoAI Databricks Mosaic Jamba AWS Bedrock Azure OpenAI Vertex AI AI21 Labs

See all 26 providers → verticalapi.com/verticals

Governance

Your LLM spend, governed at the gateway

The comparison pages answer "which model, at what price" — the gateway enforces the answer in production. Every feature below is live on the API today.

1
Per-key spend caps
A monthly token budget per API key. The request that crosses the line completes; the next one is refused with a clear 429.
PUT /v1/spend-cap {"monthly_tokens": 5000000}
2
Model alerts
For every model your key runs: deprecation warnings with a same-provider migration suggestion, and price changes before they land.
GET /v1/model-alerts # "Sonnet 5: introductory rate — # rises to $3/$15 on 2026-09-01"
3
Latency & cost, per model
p50/p95 latency and estimated cost for each model you use, computed only from verified prices — never an invented figure.
GET /v1/usage # by_model: p50, p95, est. cost, # prices_verified_on
4
Prompts never stored
Request logs are metadata only — model, tokens, latency, status. The usage table has no column for content, so your prompts cannot leak from here.
# usage_logs schema: model, tokens, latency_ms, status # no prompt/completion column
Compare

Compare with alternatives

Side-by-side breakdowns of every major provider, framework, and aggregator. Pick the right backend before you ship.

OpenRouter vs VerticalAPI
Token markup vs zero-markup BYOK. Aggregator vs vertical experts.
OpenAI vs Anthropic
GPT-4o vs Claude Sonnet. Pricing, latency, tool-use, context, real benchmarks.
OpenAI vs Google Gemini
GPT vs Gemini 2.5. Multimodal, 1M context, free tier vs paid scaling.
Groq vs Cerebras
Ultra-fast inference showdown. LPU vs WSE-3, tokens/sec, model coverage.
Llama vs Mistral
Open-weight champions. Llama 3.3 vs Mistral Large, license, fine-tuning.
AWS Bedrock vs Azure OpenAI
Hyperscaler battle. Multi-model gateway vs first-party Azure deployment.

All comparisons → verticalapi.com/vs

Use cases

Build any AI product, faster

Production-ready recipes for the patterns developers actually ship. Code, prompts, and routing included.

💬 Build a chatbot
Streaming, memory, persona — ship a Claude-grade chatbot in 50 lines.
📚 RAG pipelines
Embed, retrieve, ground. Vertical-tuned reranking and citation-aware answers.
🤖 Autonomous agents
ReAct loops, planning, tool routing — production agents without the framework bloat.
🔧 Tool calling
Reliable function calls across providers. Schema-validated, retry-aware, parallel.
🎨 Multimodal apps
Images, audio, PDFs — one endpoint across GPT-4o, Claude, Gemini vision.

All recipes → verticalapi.com/use-case

Quickstart

First call in your stack, in 60 seconds

Copy-paste quickstarts for every major language. OpenAI-compatible — no SDK lock-in.

Python
openai · httpx
JavaScript
node · deno · bun
cURL
raw HTTP
Go
net/http
Ruby
net/http · Faraday

Full docs → verticalapi.com/docs

Pricing

Developer-first economics

Your key, your tokens, zero markup. We charge for the intelligence layer, not the compute.

Free
$0
Get started instantly
  • 10 verticals
  • Bring your own key
  • OpenAI-compatible API
  • MCP server (IDE integration)
  • Community support
Get Started
Pro
$49/mo
For production workloads
  • All 76 verticals
  • All backends (Anthropic, Gemini, OpenAI)
  • MCP server (IDE integration)
  • Usage analytics dashboard
  • Priority support
  • 1M requests / month
Subscribe · $49/mo
Enterprise
$499/mo
SSO, audit logs, SLA
  • Everything in Pro
  • SAML SSO + audit logs
  • Private verticals
  • 99.9% uptime SLA
  • Named support contact
Subscribe · $499/mo

Full pricing details and comparison → verticalapi.com/pricing

Integration

Production-grade integration

Drop-in OpenAI SDK replacement. Python, Node, Go, Rust — if it speaks HTTP, it works.

example.py Python 
from openai import OpenAI

client = OpenAI(
    base_url="https://api.verticalapi.com/v1",
    api_key="your-verticalapi-key",
    default_headers={"X-Provider-Key": "sk-ant-..."}
)

response = client.chat.completions.create(
    model="copywriter",  # or any of 76 verticals
    messages=[{"role": "user", "content": "Write a tagline for my app"}]
)

print(response.choices[0].message.content)
IDE Integration

Native IDE intelligence

Plug 76 domain experts directly into Claude Desktop, Cursor, VS Code, or Windsurf via MCP. One config.

⚡
Claude Desktop
Add to your claude_desktop_config.json:
// ~/Library/.../claude_desktop_config.json { "mcpServers": { "verticalapi": { "command": "npx", "args": ["-y", "verticalapi-mcp"], "env": { "VERTICALAPI_KEY": "vapi_...", "PROVIDER_KEY": "sk-ant-..." } } } }
🛠
Cursor / VS Code
Add to .cursor/mcp.json or .vscode/mcp.json:
// .cursor/mcp.json { "mcpServers": { "verticalapi": { "command": "npx", "args": ["-y", "verticalapi-mcp"], "env": { "VERTICALAPI_KEY": "vapi_...", "PROVIDER_KEY": "sk-ant-..." } } } }
🎯
Then just ask
All 76 verticals become tools in your AI assistant:
"Review this code for security issues" → code-reviewer vertical activates "Write copy for my landing page" → copywriter vertical activates "Analyze this quarterly report" → financial-analyst vertical activates
Get your API key to start →