Ramp launches AI router as Stripe reportedly eyes $7B OpenRouter deal
ramp launched router, a service that routes api requests to models from openai, anthropic, and others, entering a market suddenly consolidated by stripe's rumored acquisition of openrouter.
ramp, valued at $44 billion, introduced router, a us-based ai model gateway available for free through 2026, to help developers route inference requests across eight providers including openai, anthropic, and xai. the service prioritizes spend management, offering strategies to direct complex queries to premium models and cheaper prompts to lower-tier options, while storing data for one year by default. this launch creates a direct rival to openrouter and follows reports that stripe is acquiring that startup for roughly $7 billion, signaling a race among financial infrastructure companies to control the growing volume of ai model traffic.