
get paid for your token usage @straitlyai prev @xynth_m 500+ DAU $63k MRR
San Francisco
Joined October 2024
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We just killed OpenRouter.
AI routers made $100+ million last year charging 5% markups on every dollar.
Today that ends.
Introducing Straitly the world’s first AI gateway that charges 0% markup on your tokens. No Stripe or Credit Card processing fees.
With one API key, you can access 142+ models from than 20+ providers.
Straitly auto handles handles provider failures via intelligent re-routing achieving a 99.98% success rate while still optimizing for cache hit rates.
To celebrate our launch we are giving up to 30% off your first $10k (yes, $10,000) of token spend, plus $100 in free credits upfront.
If you are an ambitious builder who's spending lots on tokens we want to hear from you!
Comment below what you're building + highest usage model, then head over to straitly.ai and fill out a form with your @x username.
$10k in free AI credits to all YC founders. Lets see how long this lasts.
deals.ycombinator.com/deals/…
All in! No better co-founder than your own brother.
hey, i’m Hashim! just moved to SF to go all in on my startup!
a little about me:
> studied Math+CS at UBC 🇨🇦
> worked on AI at @Meta
> infra at @AWS
> scaled my last startup @xynth_m to $700k ARR
> currently building @Straitlyai - OpenRouter but 79% cheaper, with my brother @Mutchtaba2
if you’re in SF (or anywhere else really), say hi 👋
looking to meet other founders, and engineers building in the AI infra and agent space
Good thing you don't need em
Straitly gives $20 for free upfront and upto 79% off of all leading AI models including Claude Opus 5.5, Fable 5.5, GPT 6 Astra, Deepseek and more.
There is no true exchange for tokens at the moment. OpenRouter/ Vercel are services masquerading as marketplaces. I have suppliers right now that can provide deepseek at 99.9% reliability at half the cost of openrouter cheapers, yet can't get listed on there. This inefficiency must be solved sooner or later.
Introducing JevRouter, world's first truly intelligent model router.
JevRouter delivers the performance of 6-astra and opus 5.5 at 40% of the cost.
We deploy hundreds of Jevs to build an embedding on your query, then map it a vector space against the benchmarks of every single model to find the best fit.
For our launch we are giving 30% off all models under JevRouter + $100 in free AI credits!
ps.
@theo give it a try and let us know your thoughts. Much better than @OpenRouter's gimick I promise !
Unreal line up fr. Kudos to @trq212 for the flick !
Legends. Was a great event!
the first time @kenanhsaleh from @a16z gave me fundraising advice was 4 years ago
the second time was last friday, @alifdotbuild to a room of 80 handpicked founders
both times, he dropped some absolute gems
we're hosting more events like this very soon, stay up to date @ lu.ma/alif
it’s crazy how quickly u run into the limitations of new ai models. i swear every time a new one comes out, it impresses u for the first 2 hours, only for u to adjust and inevitably run into a brick wall trying to get it to write an email. gpt-6-astra, fable, mythos all the same
and we're going ballisitic 🚀, just 1 day after launch lfggg
nitter.cf/Mutchtaba2/status/2097…
STOP PAYING FOR TOKENS !
START GETTING PAID INSTEAD
Introducing Straitly, the first AI service that PAYS YOU for using tokens
Unlike
> Openrouter charges 5.5% service fee
> Vercel charges 2.9% payment fee
> Anthropic gives you low rate limits
> OpenAI only lets you use GPT models
Straitly:
> PAYS YOU 5% CASHBACK on all closed-source models
> 10% CASHBACK on open-source models
> High rate limits
> 177 AI models
> 99.8% reliability
> ZDR
This means that you can save up to 25% on your token bills compared to using services like OpenRouter or Vercel, while still getting the same reliability and model choices
Since our waitlist launch 3 weeks ago we have processed ~150B tokens already, and are growing at 35% week over week
We're backed by @_LeapYear_, Sand Hill North, pif.co and other incredible angels in our mission to build the utility layer for all future token usage
This is just the beginning
Today Straitly is live and open for public access
Start getting paid today at straitly.ai
To celebrate, we are giving out $10k in free AI credits to 400 people
Comment below what your are building and what model you use the most, then head over to Straitly and sign up
We'll select the winners at the end of September !
New Merch @ycombinator demo day, shooting content all day with founders and investors all day! Come by and say hi 👋
STOP PAYING FOR TOKENS !
START GETTING PAID INSTEAD
Introducing Straitly, the first AI service that PAYS YOU for using tokens
Unlike
> Openrouter charges 5.5% service fee
> Vercel charges 2.9% payment fee
> Anthropic gives you low rate limits
> OpenAI only lets you use GPT models
Straitly:
> PAYS YOU 5% CASHBACK on all closed-source models
> 10% CASHBACK on open-source models
> High rate limits
> 177 AI models
> 99.8% reliability
> ZDR
This means that you can save up to 25% on your token bills compared to using services like OpenRouter or Vercel, while still getting the same reliability and model choices
Since our waitlist launch 3 weeks ago we have processed ~150B tokens already, and are growing at 35% week over week
We're backed by @_LeapYear_, Sand Hill North, pif.co and other incredible angels in our mission to build the utility layer for all future token usage
This is just the beginning
Today Straitly is live and open for public access
Start getting paid today at straitly.ai
To celebrate, we are giving out $10k in free AI credits to 400 people
Comment below what your are building and what model you use the most, then head over to Straitly and sign up
We'll select the winners at the end of September !
We racked up $13.3M in 48 hours after going viral on X, in annualized pledged token spend.
Here's the full breakdown of the results + answers to some questions about our 0% markup alternative to OpenRouter.
1. The result, what ~600K impressions on X got us:
> ~$1.11M/mo in pledged token spend
> 250B+ tokens/month in estimated volume
> 14 customers spending $50K+/mo on tokens
> 90+ customers doing $2K+/mo, carrying 94% of all pledged dollars
> 400+ customers doing $200+/mo
> 903 applications total, from 101 countries
2. Key findings on token spend habits:
> Where devs route tokens from: 61% OpenRouter, 57% direct from labs (Anthropic / OpenAI / Google), 31% smaller routers.
> What they spend on: 47% dev tools + coding assistants, 34% AI agents/automation, 3% data extraction.
> Throughput: 5% need 300+ req/min, 20% need 60+ req/min (exactly why the labs' rate limits suck)
> Top Regions: 19% USA, 18% India, 4% UK, rest spread across 98+ countries
3. Questions, comments, and concerns
> How do you guys make money?
This was by far the most asked question. The answer is simple, we buy large volume upfront from providers at below list cost and then sell it at list price w/o any markup. After absorbing the transaction fees we come out around 1.5% model blended margin. At $1.11M/mo of pledged spend, that's about $16K/mo take home. Not bad for our first month of existence. We expect to grow this by at least 50x within the next 12 mo's.
>What's ur moat ? What if OpenRouter does this tmr?
They're more than welcome to! Matter of fact they should. We're not going to pretend there's some insane technical moat. Routers are a commodity service and switching cost is zero. That cuts both ways: it's how we take their customers with a one-line config change. But they can't match us without deleting the revenue Stripe just paid $7B for. Our job is to grab as much market share as possible while it's open, and 0% markup is the easiest sale there is.
> Okay so its race to the bottom and ur gonna die out eventually ?
No, also routing is just the beginning! Ultimately, our vision is a marketplace where inference workloads and commit volume can be bid on. Imagine a customer putting up a listing of their projected monthly spend, say 50B Kimi-K3 tokens, and inference providers like Fireworks, DeepInfra, competitively bid on the contract, so the customer gets the fairest possible price. Flip side, where there's tons of demand for dedicated capacity, a provider lists their stock instead, ex: "we can serve 50B GLM 5.3 tokens/mo" and buyers bid on that. Then say you bought $100K in commits and your plans changed, you don't need them anymore, or they're worth more now than when you bought. You just resell them back to the market. Like with all marketplaces though, liquidity is the main concern. Who comes first, sellers or buyers? Our goal with Straitly is to gather that liquidity, and the 0% markup ofc helps that tremendously, every customer we onboard is a buyer already on the book. Once we attain a reasonable amount of liquidity on both sides, we'll bring a whole new dimension to this market.
ps. We'd love to meet everyone's demand but we're currently maxed out on capacity, in the process of acquiring more as I write this, so we're onboarding in batches, if you have not heard from us, do not worry we are working hard to get your share.
Apply here:
> Customers, 0% markup, 30% off your first $10K, $100 upfront: straitly.ai/apply/customers
> Providers, if you can serve tokens at scale we want you on: straitly.ai/apply/providers
Also: we're hiring engineers, if ur in SF, lets chat.
Here is a guide on how to setup straitly !
nitter.cf/straitlyai/status/2089…
Introducing Straitly.
The first truly 0% commission AI gateway.
One API key gets you:
- 142+ models
- 20+ providers
- Automatic failover, optimized for cache hit rates
- 99.98% success rate
Here is how to get started.
1. Request access at straitly.ai
2. Sign in with the link in your inbox
3. Top up your credits at exaclty list price(approved accounts start with $100 free)















