VirtualHotBar

TL;DR: Moved my multi-model API usage to Tokeness (tokeness.io), a third-party API gateway. One key covers GPT, Claude, Gemini, Grok, DeepSeek, GLM and Kimi; prepaid CNY billing (7:1) with business invoices; per-1M-token prices listed openly in the console; genuinely usable free tier. Main caveats: GPT/Claude are blocked for mainland China IPs (their own compliance decision, not a bug), it's a relay so your prompts pass through their servers, and prices aren't locked. Full breakdown below.

Background

I run Claude Code and Codex CLI daily, and was maintaining separate accounts for OpenAI, Anthropic and DeepSeek — three billing systems, three key dashboards, plus payment friction without an international card. A few weeks ago I consolidated onto Tokeness. Not affiliated with them; just sharing what I found, since multi-model gateways get discussed here a lot.

What it is

A relay/gateway: you point your tools at https://n.tokeness.io/v1, they forward to the official APIs. Both OpenAI-compatible and native Anthropic protocols are supported, so Claude Code, Codex CLI, Cursor, Cline, Dify, n8n etc. are a one-line base_url change (they have ~20 integration guides at docs.tokeness.io).

from openai import OpenAI

client = OpenAI(
api_key="YOUR_TOKENESS_KEY",
base_url="https://n.tokeness.io/v1",
)
resp = client.chat.completions.create(
model="deepseek-v4-flash", # copied exactly from their model marketplace
messages=[{"role": "user", "content": "hello"}],
)
The good

One key for everything. New models land fast — kimi-k3, grok-4.5, the gpt-5.6 series, gemini-3.6-flash are all live as of late July.
Pricing transparency is better than most resellers: every model shows input/output price per 1M tokens in the console. No "30% of official, do the math yourself" nonsense.
deepseek-v4-flash is updated to the official 0731 release and billed 40% below official pricing. It's been solid for agent workloads in my testing.
Free tier that actually works: tokeness/free routes to ~200B-param models (DeepSeek V4 Flash class). Enough to test your whole integration without paying.
Business invoices + per-request usage logs (status, model, cost per call). If you expense API costs, this matters.
They run an impact program — 10M to 5B free tokens/month for OSS/nonprofits, with public rules (docs link).
The bad

GPT, Claude and some others don't work from mainland China IPs. They announced this June 15 as a compliance move. Overseas networks are fine; Chinese models work from anywhere. Weirdly, publishing this restriction makes me trust them more than resellers promising "direct Claude access from China," but it's a hard limitation depending on where you are.
It's still a third-party relay. They claim they only forward and retain nothing — you can't audit that. My rule: personal projects fine, customer data/prod secrets go through official APIs only. Same rule I'd apply to any reseller.
Prices aren't locked. They state upfront that pricing follows upstream costs, FX and channel policy. gpt-5.6-luna dropped 80% recently, but cuts can presumably reverse.
"Original models, no dilution" is their claim. I ran basic sanity checks (identity questions, known-answer reasoning prompts, response field structure) and nothing looked off, but YMMV.
Who it's for

Multi-model users who want one bill and proper invoicing, and have the network situation for GPT/Claude sorted. Not for anyone whose core need is "Claude directly reachable from mainland China" — they're explicit that this isn't that.

They also have a referral program (20% of a friend's first top-up) — mentioning for completeness, deliberately not posting my link.

Anyone else using it? Curious how their stability holds under heavier agent workloads.