Pricing
How a single request turns into a credit charge — from the host's listed price to what lands on your invoice.
Priced per request
Pied Piper bills per request, in credits. Every host sets a credits_per_requestprice for its normal queue. When dispatch routes your request to a host, that host's price is what you pay — the borrower spends it and the host earns it.
The default price
So hosts don't have to guess, new listings default to roughly half of OpenRouter's reference pricefor the equivalent model (a 50% discount), converted into credits at the live credit value. Hosts can override the default up or down. There's a small floor so requests always cost at least a minimal amount of credits.
Priority multiplier
Each host also sets a priority multiplier. A borrower who sends X-Pied-Piper-Priority: true (targeting that host with X-Pied-Piper-Host) pays price × multiplier to jump the line. Normal-queue requests never pay the multiplier.
| Field | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Normal queue | 1× | The host's listed credits_per_request. |
| Priority | × multiplier | Listed price times the host's priority multiplier — guarantees you skip its queue. |
Credits and the live rate
Prices are denominated in credits, and credits have a live USD value shown in the header (the $1 ≈ N credits pill). The platform recently rescaled credits to be 1000× finer, so per-request prices land on clean, legible numbers instead of tiny fractions. The conversion uses a live market rate, so the USD equivalent of a credit moves with the market.
Worked example
- A host lists a model at
20 creditsper request on the normal queue. - You send a plain request → you're charged 20 credits, the host earns 20.
- You send it with priority and the host's multiplier is
3×→ you're charged 60 credits and skip the queue.
Settling up
Charges and earnings flow through your credit balance. Buy credits to spend, or withdraw what you've earned, from the wallet.