# Vercel AI Gateway Vercel AI Gateway is [[Vercel]]'s managed [[AI Gateway]] service. It provides a single API endpoint and API key to access hundreds of AI models from 40+ providers ([[Anthropic]], [[OpenAI]], Mistral, Google, xAI, Deepseek, Groq, and others). It was battle-tested internally powering [[Vercel v0]] before being made available externally. ## Key Features - **Unified API**: one endpoint (`ai-gateway.vercel.sh/v1`), one key, hundreds of models. Switch providers by changing a model string (e.g., `anthropic/claude-opus-4.6`) - **Automatic failover**: if a provider goes down, requests reroute automatically to an alternative. Works with [[Bring Your Own Key (BYOK)]] too; falls back to system credentials if the user's key fails - **[[Bring Your Own Key (BYOK)]]**: use your own provider API keys with zero markup, configured at dashboard level or per-request - **[[Model routing]]**: control provider priority order and restrict to specific providers - **Model fallbacks**: configure backup models when the primary is unavailable - **Observability**: built-in dashboard with requests by model, time-to-first-token, token counts, spend tracking, per-project breakdowns, and exportable logs - **Caching**: automatic provider-appropriate caching strategies - **Low latency**: gateway routing adds under 20ms overhead ## Pricing - Free tier: $5/month credit included (starts on first request) - Paid: pay-as-you-go with zero markup on token prices; you pay the provider's list price - BYOK: completely free; no Vercel surcharge ## SDK Integration The gateway is deeply integrated with Vercel's AI SDK (v5+) via the `@ai-sdk/gateway` package. It's also compatible with the OpenAI Chat Completions API format, so any OpenAI-compatible client can point at the gateway endpoint. ## Comparison to Alternatives Compared to [[OpenRouter]], LiteLLM, and Portkey, Vercel AI Gateway differentiates through zero markup pricing, tight [[Next.js]]/Vercel ecosystem integration, and automatic failover with BYOK fallback. Trade-offs: managed-only (no self-hosted option), narrower model catalog than OpenRouter or LiteLLM, and weaker observability/governance features compared to Portkey. ## Timeline - May 2025: alpha launch - September 2025: general availability with pay-as-you-go pricing and BYOK support ## References - https://vercel.com/ai-gateway - https://vercel.com/docs/ai-gateway - https://vercel.com/blog/ai-gateway ## Related - [[Vercel]] - [[AI Gateway]] - [[OpenRouter]] - [[Model routing]] - [[Bring Your Own Key (BYOK)]] - [[AI Agents]]