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The absurd thing every Brazilian dev faces: a foreign credit card for AI

#beginners #tutorial #ai #api

While Brazil's government announces national AI supercomputers, many developers here still can't pay for the OpenAI API — no international card, no PIX accepted. It doesn't have to be this way.

If you are a developer in Brazil — or anywhere without easy international payment — you know the pain: OpenAI, Anthropic and others require an international credit card for API billing, and many regions simply don't have one or get declined constantly.

The practical workaround: an API gateway. You keep using the same models (GPT, Claude, Gemini) and the same SDK — you just point base_url to a provider that accepts local payment methods:

from openai import OpenAI

client = OpenAI(
    base_url="https://api.example.com/v1",
    api_key="your-key",
)

resp = client.chat.completions.create(
    model="gpt-4o-mini",
    messages=[{"role": "user", "content": "Hello!"}],
)
print(resp.choices[0].message.content)
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What to check in a provider:

  • Local payment (PIX in Brazil, etc.) with instant credit?
  • The models you actually need?
  • Transparent per-million-token pricing?
  • Uptime and support in your language?

Access to frontier AI shouldn't depend on which credit card you have.

Want to try these models in your project? **ModelKiwi* gives you access to GPT, Claude and Gemini with PIX payment (no international credit card needed) and free credits to start: https://www.modelkiwi.com. WhatsApp: +5521999500402 — and join our channel: https://t.me/ModelkiwiOfficial.*

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