Routehook

About Routehook

Problem

Using several AI providers means several integrations, keys and invoices — and switching models usually means rewriting code. Image and video models add a second problem: a generation can run for minutes, fail halfway, and still have to be billed correctly.

What we built

A gateway that speaks the OpenAI and Anthropic wire formats, with provider adapters behind it, async jobs for image and video, per-key rate limiting, routing and failover between providers, a hold-then-settle billing ledger, a customer dashboard with a live playground, and an admin console.

Outcome

Live at routehook.ai with a public model catalogue and published per-request pricing.

• Gateway

  Change the base URL, keep the SDK

  The gateway speaks three wire formats, streaming or not, so an existing OpenAI or Anthropic client works by swapping two values.

  Chat CompletionsResponsesAnthropic Messages

  import OpenAI from "openai";
  
  const client = new OpenAI({
   baseURL: "https://api.routehook.ai/v1",
   apiKey: process.env.ROUTEHOOK_API_KEY,
  });
  
  // the same call, any model behind the gateway
  await client.chat.completions.create({ model: "openai/gpt-5", … });

• Response

  The cost comes back with the answer

  Every response carries what it cost, which provider answered, how many attempts it took and whether a fallback stepped in.

  HTTP/1.1 200 OKX-Routehook-Request-Id:req_9c41e2b7X-Routehook-Cost:0.004312X-Routehook-Provider:openaiX-Routehook-Upstream-Model:gpt-5X-Routehook-Attempts:2X-Routehook-Fallback:trueX-Routehook-Upstream-Latency-Ms:1874

• Ledger

  Hold, then settle

  The worst-case cost is held before a request leaves, and a database constraint refuses any hold the balance cannot cover. Afterwards the hold settles to the real cost.

  Balance$142.1800Holdworst case, reserved−$0.0400Settlethe real cost−$0.0043Releasethe rest of the hold+$0.0357Balance$142.1757ledger rows: append-only · update and delete rejected by trigger

• Queue

  Long generations run as jobs

  An image or video request returns a job at once. It can be polled, followed or cancelled, and a signed webhook fires when it finishes — retried with backoff if the receiver is down.

  Queued…POST /v1/queue/google/veo-3.1Generating…GET …/requests/:id/statusReadyGET /v1/queue/requests/:id

  

  webhook → X-Routehook-Webhook-Signaturenow+2s+4s+8s+16s+32s

• Limits

  Limits that hold across processes

  One atomic script in Redis keeps a bucket per key, so every API process sees the same count.

  600requests / min10in flight at once120 srequest timeout2upstream retriesplatform defaults, per account

• Errors

  Eight errors, named plainly

  Every failure maps to one stable code, so a client can tell a bad key from an empty balance from a provider that is down.

  invalid_api_keyinsufficient_creditsmodel_unavailablerate_limitedupstream_unavailableinvalid_requestnot_foundgone

• Notifications

  Seven alerts, two channels

  Each alert can reach the dashboard, the inbox, both or neither, and the choice saves as it is made.

  In-appEmailLow balanceUnused creditFailed requestsPayment receiptsAccount activityMonthly summaryProduct updates

1. 01

   Unified gateway

   One /v1 endpoint for chat, completions, embeddings, rerank, audio, images and video, with adapters for Anthropic, Gemini, OpenAI-compatible providers and the image, video and audio model hosts.

2. 02

   Billing you can trust

   A prepaid balance on an append-only ledger with hold-then-settle charging, usage per key and a per-request cost log. Stripe and crypto top-ups via webhooks.

3. 03

   Growth tooling

   Server-side ad conversion tracking for Meta, Reddit, X, Google Ads and GA4, plus an MCP server with OAuth for agent access.

• ClientOSAgency operations
• GrowthDeskLink-building operations