What is the cheapest way to access the OpenAI API?

ClaudeStore offers pay-as-you-go OpenAI API access with no subscription and crypto or card payment. You pay published OpenAI token rates from your ClaudeStore credit balance — start with the smallest package.

Is there a subscription or minimum?

No subscription and no waitlist. Buy credits once and spend them across Claude and OpenAI models with a single universal key.

How do I keep OpenAI API costs down?

Keep a task inside one session to benefit from caching, cap max output tokens, and use GET /v1/models to pick the right model for the job.

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Cheapest OpenAI API — Pay-as-You-Go, No Subscription

The cheapest way to use the OpenAI API: pay-as-you-go credits, crypto or card, no subscription and no waitlist. One key shared across OpenAI and Claude models.

TL;DR

No subscription, no waitlist. Buy credits once and spend them on the OpenAI API and Claude models with a single universal key. OpenAI requests are billed at the published token rates.

How to keep costs down

Stay in one session — repeated context is cached and billed at a heavy discount.
Cap output tokens — output is the expensive part; set a sensible max_tokens.
Pick the right model — use GET /v1/models and choose the smallest model that does the job.
Start small — buy the smallest credit package to test, then scale.

Get started

Create an sk-cs4 key, switch it to the Codex tier, and call https://api3.claudestore.store/v1. See OpenAI API Access for the quick start and How Billing Works for the credit model.

Ready to start?

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