I got tired of paying a "you live in the wrong country" tax to use models that were supposedly available to everyone.
I build from Indonesia. Every time I wanted to try a new model, the code was the easy part. The hard part was the wrapper around it: a credit card that charges in dollars, a monthly plan sized for someone else's usage, seats I didn't need, and a separate account for every provider. To answer one question — is this model good for my app? — I had to sign up in three places and hope my spend didn't quietly balloon.
So I built the thing I wanted: Nexotao.
The idea is boring on purpose
One OpenAI-compatible API. One key. One balance in Rupiah. Behind it, every model I actually reach for — Claude, GPT, DeepSeek, Grok — switchable by changing a single string. Top up with QRIS or crypto, no international card. Pay per token, no subscription.
That's it. No plan to right-size, nothing that expires at the end of the month, no per-provider migration. I point one base URL at it and I'm done.
Why pay-per-token, not plans
Plans optimize for the vendor's predictability, not yours. If you're a solo dev or a small team, your usage is spiky — a burst while you build a feature, near-zero while you ship it. A monthly minimum punishes exactly that shape. Pay-per-token matches spend to reality: a model you tried once and dropped costs you nothing next month.
It also makes experimentation cheap, which is the whole point. I can run the same prompt against an ultra-cheap workhorse and a frontier flagship, on the same balance, and compare for cents instead of standing up two paid accounts.
Why QRIS and crypto first
Because "just use a credit card" is a privilege, not a default. A huge number of capable developers in Indonesia and across Southeast Asia don't have a card that works on US billing pages. QRIS is already in everyone's pocket. Meeting people where they already pay was non-negotiable.
On pricing (and why I won't put a number here)
Model prices move. Baking one into a post just means the post lies a month later. The live catalog — every model, Rupiah and USD, cheapest workhorse to frontier flagship — stays current here: harga API AI termurah → (full view: nexotao.com/harga).
If you want to try it
Create a key and top up in about a minute: dashboard.nexotao.com. If you've ever been blocked at the checkout page for living in the wrong place, this was built for you.
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