DEV Community: Kevin Wang

Built an OpenRouter-style API gateway — ~500 signups, almost nobody pays. What am I missing?

Kevin Wang — Tue, 20 Oct 2026 07:57:17 +0000

Hey folks —

I built A2Agent, a pay-as-you-go LLM API gateway similar to OpenRouter, but focused on Chinese open-weight models:

DeepSeek / GLM / Kimi / Qwen / MiniMax
One API key, OpenAI + Anthropic compatible
Priced below official vendor rates, no top-up fee, credits don’t expire
New accounts get $5 free credit (no card)
Where I am now

~500 registered users
Very few people top up after the free credit
People can sign up and create keys, but paid conversion is near zero
What I’m trying to figure out
Is this mainly:

Wrong audience (people want GPT/Claude, we don’t have them)?
Free $5 is enough to try and leave?
Trust / payment friction?
Weak differentiation vs OpenRouter / official APIs?
Something else in the product or docs?
Ask
If you’ve used OpenRouter or similar gateways: after free credit, what made you actually pay — or what made you never come back?

Honest takes welcome. Site: a2agent.me

My 3 launch mistakes killed my traffic — one month in, should I keep going or pivot?

Kevin Wang — Mon, 12 Oct 2026 04:27:13 +0000

Hey folks,

I need some help. I'm a builder, and I recently developed and launched a platform called a2agent. A month in, the results are pretty discouraging, and I'm trying to figure out whether to keep grinding or change direction.

Looking back, I think I made three classic mistakes:

I picked a brand name that collides with someone else's hot keyword. Unfortunately, "a2agent" conflicts with Google's A2A protocol — so people easily assume my product is related to it when it's not. Not a great way to start a brand.
I optimised for the hottest keyword. I went after "cheapest AI model." The main keyword and its long-tail variants are expensive and hyper-competitive, so my brand-new site gets basically zero organic traffic.
I launched in the hottest niche. LLM API gateway is arguably the most crowded space right now. Great potential, insane competition.

The result: low user numbers, poor conversion, and honestly I'm not even 100% sure why — which means I can't fix it properly.

So I have two questions for you all:

Should I keep going, or is it time to rethink?
If I keep going, how do I actually diagnose what's wrong? What methods or tools would you use? And are there growth levers I'm not seeing? I'd really appreciate any honest thoughts, experiences, or even a bit of tough love. Thanks everyone!

Qwen just confirmed both drops: • Qwen4-27 • Qwen4-max Open weights shipping together. Gateway ready when they land.

Kevin Wang — Sat, 10 Oct 2026 11:25:21 +0000