AI gateway · prepaid · OpenAI-compatible

The cheapest model that can still do the job.

Curiosity traffic does not need frontier models, and builders rarely do either. idlidu.dev routes to the shallow end by default, charges you a named markup on what actually ran, and stops dead at your prepaid cap. Pin a frontier model any time you mean to pay for one.

Start with prepaid credit See what it costs

Example route bottom

model: Ministral 3B
tier: tier-0
tokens in: 4,200
tokens out: 380
provider list: $0.000183
markup: 1.5×
you pay: $0.000275

A worked example, not a benchmark — the rates come straight from the catalogue and the markup from the billing constant.

≥85%

Stays in the shallows

Target share of unpinned steps served by Tier-0 and Tier-1 models. Spend falls through routing, not through a thinner margin.

1.5×

One named markup

Provider list price times a number we print. No silent usage padding, no inflated token counts, no opaque pool.

Surprise postpaid

Prepaid only. The gateway refuses the call that would exceed your balance or a key's hard limit, including across parallel trees.

Drop-in, not a rewrite

It is the OpenAI API. Change the base URL, keep your SDK, your types and your retries. model: "bottom" picks the cheapest capable model; any catalogue id pins it instead.

Quickstart 24 models

python 9 free-tier models in the pool

from openai import OpenAI

client = OpenAI(
    base_url="https://gateway.idlidu.dev/v1",
    api_key="idl_...",
)

r = client.chat.completions.create(
    model="bottom",      # cheapest capable model, or pin an id
    messages=[{"role": "user", "content": "Summarise this diff"}],
)

print(r.usage)           # what ran, and what it cost

idd · ego · sego

Three Artificial Intelligence Aggregator Agents run on it

Drive, reality and limits, after Freud's three-part model of the mind. One catalogue underneath all three, and three different answers to the question every other tool settles quietly in a system prompt you never see: who decides what you are allowed to want?

The three agents

idd private

Drive. No policy layer, by design.

ego in build

Reality. Proposes, then proves. Launches here.

sego in design

Limits. Guardian-set, for under-18s.