OpenRouter's Average Token Price Nearly Halved in 2026, Yet Daily Spend Tripled
maferase · reddit · 2026-10-14
Data from Tidelines.ai tracking OpenRouter (mostly agent traffic):
- The Token Price Index (Jan 2025 = 100) fell from 600 to the low 300s, meaning the average routed token costs roughly half as much — driven by cheap flash models taking over. DeepSeek V4.1 Flash alone accounts for 22.6% of all tokens at $1.20/M output.
- Volume grew from 1T to 23T tokens/day, with estimated spend hitting $47M/day, an all-time high.
Prices collapsed while total spend surged: volume is outrunning price declines.
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