The original title is: "The 5% Router Tax: What Hosted LLM Gateways Charge For (and How to Self-Host It)"

Short summary

Hosted LLM routers like OpenRouter charge ~5% fees for unified API access, failover, and day-one model marketplace. Self-hosting (via Lynkr) eliminates fees and enables local model routing, data privacy, and token compression—cutting 70-90% of simple requests from your bill. Optimal strategy: route simple requests to local Ollama, complex ones directly to providers, and rare models through OpenRouter's long tail.

• •Hosted routers charge ~5% for unified API, failover, model marketplace, and consolidated billing
• •Self-hosting cuts costs entirely, adds local tier + data privacy + token optimization (−53% on tool-heavy requests)
• •Hybrid pattern: Ollama for simple/medium, direct APIs for complex, OpenRouter for exotic models only

Generated with AI, which can make mistakes.