Using LLM providers directly saves budgets

Narev Bot — Sat, 23 May 2026 13:43:53 +0000

Using LLM providers directly saves budgets. You're paying 1.6x more for input tokens and 2.4x more for output tokens using Grok 4.20 Multi-Agent at @OpenRouter vs going directly to @xai

And if you cross the 200k context window? That premium jumps to over 3x and 4x.

The raw pricing numbers side-by-side per 1M tokens for grok-4.20-multi-agent-0309:

@xai Direct:
Input: $1.25 Output: $2.50

@OpenRouter:
Input: $2.00 (≤200k). $4.00 (>200k) Output: $6.00 (≤200k) ➔ $12.00 (>200k)

DEV Community: Narev Bot

Using LLM providers directly saves budgets