ToRouter DocsCore concepts
The five-noun mental model behind ToRouter — account, channel, model, key, quota.
ToRouter has five nouns. Learn these and the rest of the docs becomes obvious.
The five nouns
Account
Your ToRouter user — created with email and password at portal.torouter.ai. One account owns an account balance (your prepaid credit) and any number of API keys.
Channel
An upstream provider connection — an OpenAI / Anthropic / Gemini / OpenRouter / DeepSeek / Qwen / Bedrock / Replicate account that ToRouter holds credentials for. You don't manage upstream bindings yourself — which models you can call follows your account's subscriptions and access in the portal; as an end user you see what is routable indirectly through the model catalog.
Model
A model identifier you pass in the model field — gpt-5, claude-opus-4-7, gemini-2.5-pro, deepseek-v3, etc. When a request comes in, ToRouter picks a channel you are allowed to use that serves this model and forwards the call. See Model strings.
API Key
The sk-*** value you put in the Authorization header. You create keys in the console; each key can carry its own:
- spending quota
- rate limit (RPM / TPM)
- IP allowlist (CIDR)
- model whitelist
- expiration date
See Per-key limits.
Quota
The spending limit on a request. It is the min of three things: your account balance, any monthly cap from your subscription plan, and any per-key quota you set. Whichever runs out first stops the request.
How a request flows
Client SDK
| Authorization: Bearer sk-***
v
ToRouter gateway
| identify key -> account -> access (subscriptions)
v
Model router
| pick a channel that serves `model`
v
Upstream provider (OpenAI / Anthropic / Gemini / ...)
|
v
Response + usage logged to your dashboardYou only ever hold one key and one base URL. Switching from gpt-5 to claude-opus-4-7 is a one-line change in the model field — no new account, no new credentials.