Ramp launches Router, its AI routing service, in the US; free through 2026
| Source: Techmeme | Original article
Ramp has launched Router, an AI model routing service it used internally for three years, now available in the US and free through 2026.
Ramp, the corporate expense‑management platform, has opened its internally‑used AI model routing engine to the public. Branded simply as **Router**, the service lets developers and enterprises send a single API request and have it automatically dispatched to the most suitable large‑language model (LLM) from a catalog of providers. The launch, announced on Wednesday, includes a free‑usage tier that runs through the end of 2026 and an introductory $26 credit for new accounts.
Ramp says the router has already slashed its own inference spend by roughly a third, and early customers report up to 40 % lower costs for comparable workloads. By handling model selection, token accounting and routing behind a single endpoint, Router aims to simplify multi‑model strategies and give firms tighter control over exploding AI bills.
The move follows a wave of “toll‑house” offerings that bundle access to multiple LLMs under one roof – most notably Stripe’s OpenRouter acquisition announced earlier this month. Ramp’s entry signals that fintech players are expanding beyond core financial services into AI infrastructure, leveraging their existing enterprise relationships to capture a slice of the rapidly growing model‑as‑a‑service market.
What to watch next: the breadth of models and providers Ramp will support, pricing beyond the free tier, and whether the company will publish the methodology behind its “semantic‑fit” tests that determine the optimal model for each request. Competitors such as Callosum, which recently raised a $100 million seed round to match AI tasks with models and chips, may respond with their own routing solutions, intensifying the emerging market for AI cost‑management platforms.
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