How to Use OpenRouter with OpenClaw?

OpenRouter is a multi-provider API gateway that gives you access to 200+ AI models through a single API key. It's the Swiss Army knife approach — one key, any model, any time.

Sign up at openrouter.ai, add credits, and generate an API key. Then configure OpenClaw to use OpenRouter as the provider.

The killer feature: you can switch between Claude, GPT-4o, DeepSeek, Gemini, Llama, Mistral, and hundreds more without changing your API key. Just change the model name in the config. OpenRouter handles routing, billing, and load balancing.

OpenRouter also offers automatic fallback. If your primary model is down, it can automatically route to a backup model. This is invaluable for 24/7 agent uptime.

Pricing includes a small markup over direct provider prices (typically 0-20%). For the convenience of a single billing and instant model switching, most users find this acceptable.

OpenRouter is ideal for: experimenting with different models, production setups that need high availability, and users who want to compare models without managing multiple API accounts.

openclaw config set provider openrouter
openclaw config set model anthropic/claude-sonnet-4
openclaw config set apiKey sk-or-your-openrouter-key