Economics

SearchRouter follows the OpenRouter credit model, adapted for search infrastructure: pass-through provider prices, prepaid credits, and a visible platform fee on credit purchases.

Choice: purchase fee, not take-rate

We charge a 5.5% fee when credits are purchased. We do not add a markup on each routed request. If Brave costs 6 credits and Exa costs 12, those are the amounts debited. The fee is paid up front so usage accounting stays comparable to the underlying vendor invoice.

Alternative we rejected for v1: a 5–10% take-rate on every call. That model is simpler to explain as “we tax usage,” but it distorts provider ranking (the cheapest vendor is no longer cheapest after the tax) and hides the platform margin inside request prices. A purchase fee keeps routing honest.

Units

• 1 credit = $0.001 of pass-through cost
• Platform fee = 5.5% of the USD purchase
• A $10 pack funds $9.45 of credits (9,450 credits)

What this MVP does not settle

Live vendor invoices, tax, and prepaid card processing are out of scope. The purchase endpoint is a ledger stub: it applies the same quote math you will use when Stripe (or equivalent) is wired. Provider catalog prices are estimates and should be reconciled against each vendor’s current public price list before production billing.