Provider	Popular Models	Input	Output	China Available	Free Tier
OpenAI	GPT-4o, GPT-4o-mini	GPT-4o: $2.50/M, GPT-4o-mini: $0.15/M, o1: $15/M, o3: $10/M	GPT-4o: $10/M, GPT-4o-mini: $0.60/M, o1: $60/M, o3: $40/M	❌ Proxy required (export control restrictions for China users)		View Details →
Anthropic Claude	Claude Sonnet 5, Claude Opus 4.8	Sonnet 5 (intro): $2/M, Sonnet 5/4.5: $3/M, Opus 4.8: $5/M, Haiku 4.5: $0.80/M	Sonnet 5 (intro): $10/M, Sonnet 5/4.5: $15/M, Opus 4.8: $25/M, Haiku 4.5: $4/M	❌ Proxy required (US export controls)		View Details →
Azure OpenAI	GPT-4o, GPT-4o-mini	GPT-4o: $2.50/M, GPT-4o-mini: $0.15/M, o1: $15/M, o3: $10/M	GPT-4o: $10/M, GPT-4o-mini: $0.60/M, o1: $60/M, o3: $40/M	⚠️ Available via 21Vianet (restricted model set)		View Details →
OpenRouter	GPT-4o, Claude Opus/Sonnet/Haiku	$0.010 to $150.00 per 1M tokens, median $0.435 (across 310 models, free models excluded)	$0.030 to $600.00 per 1M tokens, median $1.560 (across 310 models, free models excluded)	⚠️ Partial (not blocked in China but unstable)		View Details →
DeepSeek	DeepSeek-V3, DeepSeek-R1	DeepSeek-V3: ¥0.14/M token (≈$0.02), R1: ¥0.14/M	DeepSeek-V3: ¥0.28/M token (≈$0.04), R1: ¥0.28/M	✅ Direct access in China		View Details →
Gemini Multimodal	Gemini Omni Flash (multimodal, 1M context, audio+video+text), Nano Banana 2 Lite (image generation, $0.034/1K tokens)	Omni Flash: $0.15/M input tokens (multimodal); Nano Banana 2 Lite: $0.034/1K image tokens; Veo 3.1: $0.10/sec video	Omni Flash: $0.60/M output tokens (multimodal); Nano Banana Pro: $0.12/1K image tokens	❌ Proxy required (Google AI Studio not directly accessible from mainland China; requires stable proxy)	Free tier: Gemini Omni Flash 15 RPM, Veo 3.1 2 generations/day, Imagen 4 10 images/day — no credit card required	View Details →
Google Gemini	Gemini 2.5 Pro, Gemini 2.5 Flash	2.5 Pro: $1.25-10/M, 2.5 Flash: $0.15-1.25/M, 2.0 Flash: $0.10/M	2.5 Pro: $5-40/M, 2.5 Flash: $0.30-5/M, 2.0 Flash: $0.40/M	❌ Proxy required (Google Cloud not accessible in CN)		View Details →
Perplexity AI	Sonar Pro, Sonar	Sonar Pro: $3/M, Sonar: $1/M	Sonar Pro: $15/M, Sonar: $1/M	❌ Proxy required		View Details →
Meituan LongCat	LongCat-2.0 (1.6T MoE), LongCat-2.0 INT4	OpenRouter: $0.60/M token (48B active MoE)	OpenRouter: $2.40/M token (48B active MoE)	✅ OpenRouter / Hugging Face self-host		View Details →
Alibaba Cloud Bailian	Qwen3.5-Max, Qwen3.5-Plus	Qwen3.5-Max: ¥4/M, Qwen3.5-Plus: ¥2/M, Qwen3.5-72B: ¥4/M, QwQ: ¥2/M	Qwen3.5-Max: ¥12/M, Qwen3.5-Plus: ¥6/M, Qwen3.5-72B: ¥12/M, QwQ: ¥8/M	✅ Direct access in China		View Details →
Baidu ERNIE (文心一言)	ERNIE 4.5 Turbo, ERNIE 4.0 Turbo	ERNIE 4.5 Turbo: $0.003/M tokens, ERNIE 4.0 Turbo: $0.012/M	ERNIE 4.5 Turbo: $0.003/M, ERNIE 4.0 Turbo: $0.012/M	✅ Direct access in China		View Details →
Moonshot AI Kimi	Kimi K2.7 MoE, Kimi K2 MoE	K2.7: ¥1/M, K2: ¥0.6/M, K1.5: ¥0.3/M	K2.7: ¥4/M, K2: ¥2/M, K1.5: ¥1.2/M	✅ Direct access in China		View Details →
Mistral AI	Mistral Large 2, Mistral Small	Large 2: $2/M, Codestral: $1/M, Ministral 8B: $0.10/M	Large 2: $6/M, Codestral: $3/M, Ministral 8B: $0.10/M	❌ Proxy required		View Details →
Zhipu AI GLM	GLM-4-Plus, GLM-4-Air	GLM-4-Plus: ¥50/M, GLM-4-Air: ¥0.5/M, GLM-4-Flash: ¥0/M（免费）	GLM-4-Plus: ¥50/M, GLM-4-Air: ¥0.5/M, GLM-4-Flash: ¥0/M（免费）	✅ Direct access in China		View Details →
Cohere	Command R+, Command R7	Command R7: $2.50/M, Command R: $0.50/M, Embed: $0.10/M	Command R7: $10/M, Command R: $1.50/M	❌ Proxy required		View Details →
Cloudflare AI Gateway	通过 Gateway 路由到 20+ Provider 任意模型	免费层: 100万次请求/月；超出 $0.20/100万次 + Provider 自身费用	按请求计费，不按 token 计；Gateway 本身加价 $0.20/100万请求	✅ Global CDN (China edge via partners)		View Details →
Tencent Hunyuan	Hunyuan Turbo, Hunyuan Turbo S	Turbo S: ¥0.8/M tokens, Turbo: ¥1.2/M, Lite: ¥0.3/M	Turbo S: ¥0.8/M tokens, Turbo: ¥4.8/M, Lite: ¥0.3/M	✅ Direct access in China		View Details →
Fireworks AI	Llama 3.3 70B, Firefunction-v2	Firefunction-v2: $0.90/M, Llama 3.3 70B: $0.90/M, DeepSeek-R1: $2.00/M	Firefunction-v2: $0.90/M, Llama 3.3 70B: $0.90/M, DeepSeek-R1: $2.00/M	❌ Proxy required		View Details →
Portkey	通过 Gateway 路由 200+ Provider 任意模型	免费层: 10000 次请求/月；Hobby $49/月(10万请求)；Growth $199/月(100万)	按请求计费，类似 Gateway 模式	❌ Proxy required		View Details →
Black Forest Labs	FLUX.2 [pro], FLUX.1.1 [pro]	FLUX.2 [pro]: $0.05/MP, FLUX.1.1 [pro]: $0.04/MP, FLUX.1 [schnell]: $0.003/MP, FLUX.1 Fill: $0.05/MP	Flat per-megapixel billing, no tier-based markup	❌ Proxy required (AWS US-East + EU-Frankfurt deployment)		View Details →
ByteDance Doubao	Doubao-Seed-2.0 (旗舰推理), Doubao-Seed-2.0-lite (高性价比)	Seed-2.0: ¥0.8/M, Seed-2.0-lite: ¥0.5/M, Seed-2.0-mini: ¥0.15/M	Seed-2.0: ¥2/M, Seed-2.0-lite: ¥1/M, Seed-2.0-mini: ¥0.6/M	✅ Direct access in China		View Details →
xAI Grok	Grok-3	Grok-3: $2/M tokens	Grok-3: $10/M tokens	❌ Proxy required		View Details →
LiteLLM	通过 Proxy 转发 100+ Provider 任意模型	开源免费自部署；LiteLLM Cloud 按量计费	开源免费自部署；LiteLLM Cloud 按量计费	✅ Open-source self-hosted, no restrictions		View Details →
SiliconFlow	Qwen/Qwen3.5-Plus, Qwen/Qwen2.5-72B-Instruct	¥0.4-2/1M tokens (Qwen2.5-7B ~¥0.4, Llama 3.3 70B ~¥2)	¥0.4-2/1M tokens	✅ Direct access in China	¥1-200 free credits on signup (varies by promo), enough for 1-20M tokens	View Details →
Jina AI	jina-embeddings-v3, jina-embeddings-v2-base-en	Embeddings v3: $0.02/M tokens (10K free); Reranker v3: $0.018/M tokens (10K free); Reader: $0.02/M tokens (free up to 1M tokens); CLIP-v1: $0.02/M tokens	Flat per-million-token billing, no tier-based markup; batch discount of 50% available on all endpoints	❌ Proxy required (AWS US-East + EU-Frankfurt deployment)		View Details →
Block AI (b.ai)	GPT-4o, GPT-4o-mini	主流模型 + 0-10% 加价（如 GPT-4o $2.5→$2.75/M）	主流模型 + 0-10% 加价	✅ Direct access in China		View Details →
Groq	Llama 3.3 70B, Llama 3.1 405B	Llama 3.3 70B: $0.59/M, DeepSeek-R1: $0.89/M, Mixtral 8x7B: $0.15/M	Llama 3.3 70B: $0.79/M, DeepSeek-R1: $0.89/M, Mixtral 8x7B: $0.15/M	❌ Proxy required		View Details →
fal.ai	FLUX.2 [pro] / [dev] / [schnell], Kling Video 2.1 / 2.0	FLUX.2 [pro]: $0.05/MP (image), $0.08/sec (video); Kling 2.1: $0.10/sec; HunyuanVideo 1.5: $0.08/sec	Flat per-second / per-megapixel billing, no tier-based markup	❌ Proxy required (AWS US-East deployment)		View Details →
FreeModel	DeepSeek V3 / R1, Qwen 2.5 / QwQ-32B	Model-dependent (platform markup TBD)	Model-dependent	✅ Available in China	Credits on registration (amount TBD)	View Details →
Cerebras	Cerebras Llama 3.3 70B, Cerebras Llama 3.1 405B	$0.10/M to $0.60/M tokens（所有模型统一 $0.60/M input）	$0.10/M to $0.60/M tokens（统一 $0.60/M output）	❌ Proxy required		View Details →
AI21 Labs (Jamba)	Jamba 1.5 Mini, Jamba 1.5 Large	Jamba 1.5 Mini: $0.20/M tokens, Jamba 1.5 Large: $2/M tokens	Jamba 1.5 Mini: $0.20/M tokens, Jamba 1.5 Large: $2/M tokens	❌ Proxy required		View Details →
APIKEY.FUN	GPT-4o, Claude 3.5 Sonnet	主流模型，价格约为官方 API 的 60-80%	主流模型，价格约为官方 API 的 60-80%	✅ Direct access in China		View Details →
DeepInfra	Meta-Llama-3.3-70B-Instruct, Meta-Llama-3.1-405B-Instruct	Llama 3.3 70B: $0.49/M, DeepSeek-V3: $0.99/M, DeepSeek-R1: $1.09/M	Llama 3.3 70B: $0.73/M, DeepSeek-V3: $0.99/M, DeepSeek-R1: $1.09/M	❌ Proxy required		View Details →
NVIDIA NIM	Nemotron-3 Ultra 550B (a55B), Nemotron-3 Super 120B (a12B)	Partner-dependent (Nemotron-3 Ultra 550B: $0.50-0.90/1M tokens)	Partner-dependent (Nemotron-3 Ultra 550B: $1.70-3.60/1M tokens)	❌ Proxy required (US-based platform, export control restrictions apply)	Free serverless API endpoints for prototyping (no credit card required, generate API key to start)	View Details →
Amazon Bedrock	Claude Opus 4.8 / 4.7 / 4.6 / 4.5, Claude Sonnet 4.6 / 4.5 / 4	Claude Sonnet 4.5: $6/M, DeepSeek V3.2: $0.62/M, Mistral Large 3: $0.50/M, GPT-5.5: $5.50/M, GPT-5.4: $2.75/M, Grok 4.3: $1.25/M, Qwen3 235B: $0.23/M, Kimi K2.5: $0.60/M	Claude Sonnet 4.5: $30/M, DeepSeek V3.2: $1.85/M, Mistral Large 3: $1.50/M, GPT-5.5: $33/M, GPT-5.4: $16.50/M, Grok 4.3: $2.50/M, Qwen3 235B: $0.91/M, Kimi K2.5: $3/M	❌ Proxy/VPN required for mainland China users (Bedrock not available in AWS China regions)	AWS Free Tier offers up to $200 credits for new customers (valid 6 months). No permanent free tier for Bedrock.	View Details →
Replicate	Llama 3.3 70B, DeepSeek-R1	模型调用按运行时长 + GPU 型号计费，$0.00025/s/A100起步	按运行时长计费（非 token 计费模式）	❌ Proxy required		View Details →
SambaNova	Llama 3.3 70B, Llama 3.1 405B	Llama 3.3 70B: $0.50/M, DeepSeek-R1: $0.80/M, Qwen 72B: $0.40/M	Llama 3.3 70B: $0.50/M, DeepSeek-R1: $0.80/M, Qwen 72B: $0.40/M	❌ Proxy required		View Details →
01.AI Yi (零一万物)	Yi-Lightning (智能路由 → DeepSeek-V3/Qwen3-30B-A3B/Yi-Lightning), Yi-Vision-v2 (视觉理解，路由 → Qwen2.5-VL-72B/Yi-Vision-V2)	¥0.99/1M total tokens (Yi-Lightning, input+output combined billing)	¥0.99/1M total tokens (combined billing, no input/output distinction)	✅ Direct access in China (Chinese company, supports domestic registration + Alipay/WeChat Pay)	Free rate limit tier on registration (limited RPM/TPM), no free initial credits	View Details →
Anyscale	Llama 3.3 70B, Llama 3.1 405B	Llama 3.3 70B: $0.39/M, DeepSeek-R1: $1/M, Mixtral 8x22B: $0.90/M	Llama 3.3 70B: $0.39/M, DeepSeek-R1: $1/M, Mixtral 8x22B: $0.90/M	❌ Proxy required		View Details →
DigitalOcean Gradient	Llama 3.3 70B, Llama 3.1 405B	Llama 3.3 70B: $0.50/M, DeepSeek-R1: $0.80/M	Llama 3.3 70B: $0.50/M, DeepSeek-R1: $0.80/M	❌ Proxy required		View Details →
MiniMax (Hailuo AI)	MiniMax-01 (Lightning / Turbo / Pro), MiniMax-Text-01	MiniMax-01 Lightning: ¥0.2/M tokens, Turbo: ¥0.8/M, Pro: ¥2/M, M3: ¥1.5/M	MiniMax-01 Lightning: ¥0.2/M tokens, Turbo: ¥0.8/M, Pro: ¥2/M, M3: ¥1.5/M	✅ Direct access in China		View Details →
Stability AI	Stable Diffusion 3.5, Stable Diffusion XL	SD3.5: $0.0065/image, SDXL: $0.01/image, Stable Code: $0.50/M tokens	按图像/视频/音频输出计费，非 token 计费	❌ Proxy required		View Details →
Novita AI	Llama 3.3 70B, Llama 3.1 405B	Llama 3.3 70B: $0.59/M, DeepSeek-V3: $1.00/M	Llama 3.3 70B: $0.79/M, DeepSeek-V3: $1.00/M	⚠️ Partial (Singapore node, acceptable latency from China)		View Details →
Baseten	Llama 3.3 70B, Llama 3.1 405B	Per-second GPU billing (H100: $1.89/hr, A100: $0.83/hr, L40S: $0.54/hr)	Model-dependent (inference time × GPU rate)	⚠️ Partially available (stable proxy recommended in China)	$30 in inference credits on signup (valid 30 days); custom model hosting free tier: 1 deployed model	View Details →
Lepton AI	Llama 3.3 70B, Llama 3.1 405B	Llama 3.3 70B: $0.80/M; Llama 3.1 405B: $3.50/M; Qwen 2.5 72B: $0.80/M; DeepSeek-R1: $2.00/M	Same rate as input for most models (symmetric pricing)	⚠️ Partially available (ap-northeast-1 Tokyo region is closest; China access requires proxy)	$5 in credits valid for 30 days (enough to fully evaluate any flagship model)	View Details →
Hugging Face	Llama 3.3 70B, Llama 3.1 405B	推理 API: $0.04-0.60/M tokens 取决于模型	推理 API: $0.04-0.60/M tokens	❌ Proxy required (huggingface.co blocked in China)		View Details →
ElevenLabs	Eleven Multilingual v2, Eleven Turbo v2.5	TTS: $0.03-0.30/1K chars depending on model/quality; STT: $0.47/hour; Sound Effects: $0.04/request	Same as input rate per model	⚠️ Partially available (stable proxy recommended in China)		View Details →
Jina AI	jina-embeddings-v5-text-small, jina-embeddings-v3	Embeddings: $0.05/1M tokens (Prototype), $0.045/1M tokens (Production); Reader/Search: token-based same pool	Reranker: $0.50/1k queries	⚠️ Partially available (proxy may be needed)		View Details →
Ideogram	Ideogram 3.0, Ideogram Turbo	Ideogram 3.0: $0.04/image (standard), $0.08/image (Turbo)	4 images per generation (default), additional images via paid credits	❌ Proxy required		View Details →
Deepgram	Nova-3 (STT, Monolingual), Nova-3 (STT, Multilingual)	STT: $0.0043-0.012/min; TTS: $0.015-0.030/1K chars	N/A	⚠️ Partially available (proxy required, no mainland China data center)		View Details →
Voyage AI	voyage-4-large, voyage-4	voyage-4-large: $0.12/M, voyage-4: $0.06/M, voyage-4-lite: $0.02/M, voyage-context-3: $0.18/M, voyage-code-3: $0.18/M, voyage-multimodal-3.5: $0.12/M	（embedding API — no output tokens; rerank-2.5: $0.05/M tokens, rerank-2.5-lite: $0.02/M tokens）	⚠️ Partial (site accessible from China, API stability in mainland China unverified)	200M free tokens per account (text embedding + reranker), 50M free tokens for legacy domain models	View Details →
Writer	Palmyra X5, Palmyra X4	Palmyra X5: $0.60/M, Palmyra X4: $2.50/M	Palmyra X5: $6.00/M, Palmyra X4: $10.00/M	⚠️ Partial (site accessible from China, API stability unverified)	14-day free trial, no credit card required (Starter plan)	View Details →
Aleph Alpha	Pharia-1-LLM-7B-control, Pharia-1-LLM-7B-control-aligned	Enterprise contract — no public per-token price (quote-based; PhariaAI on-prem deployment custom-priced)	Same — enterprise quote, no public per-token list	❌ Not applicable (German sovereign-AI vendor, subject to EU export controls)	No public free tier — self-serve signup creates an account, but pricing is enterprise contract only	View Details →
Cartesia	Sonic (real-time TTS), Sonic 2 (multilingual, voice cloning)	Sonic: $0.03/1K chars (Standard), $0.06/1K chars (Pro), $0.12/1K chars (Turbo); Sonic 2: $0.04-0.15/1K chars	TTS character-based pricing (output = audio), per-second for streaming	⚠️ Partially available (stable proxy recommended in China)	10,000 characters/month free tier (≈10 minutes), no credit card required	View Details →
Hume AI	EVI 3 (Empathic Voice Interface 3), OCTAVE TTS (voice design + cloning)	EVI 3: ~$0.096/min (pay-per-second); OCTAVE TTS: $0.048/1K chars; Expression Measurement: $0.0008/sec	Same as input (most endpoints symmetric)	Proxy required (US export controls)	Free credits on signup (amount per account), enough to trial EVI 3	View Details →
Together AI	DeepSeek V4 Pro, Qwen3.6-Plus / Qwen3.7-Max	$0.03-$1.74/MTok (model-dependent)	$0.12-$4.50/MTok (model-dependent)	❌ Proxy required (US-based service)	$1 initial credit on signup (requires payment method)	View Details →

Frequently Asked Questions

Which AI API is cheapest for Chinese developers? ▼

DeepSeek offers the lowest prices at ¥1/1M tokens input, directly accessible from mainland China without a proxy. Google AI's Gemini 2.5 Flash is also very competitive at $0.016/1M.

Can I use OpenAI's API in China? ▼

OpenAI's API is blocked in mainland China. You need a proxy or VPN service to access it, which adds complexity and reliability concerns.

Which AI API has the best free tier? ▼

Google AI (Gemini 2.0 Flash) offers unlimited free usage. DeepSeek gives $2 signup bonus, and OpenAI offers $5 free credit for new users.

What is the best AI API for production applications in China? ▼

For domestic China applications, DeepSeek is the top choice due to direct access, low pricing, and competitive model quality. For international products, OpenAI or Google AI offer more mature ecosystems.

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AI APIs Available in China

DeepSeek

Meituan LongCat

Alibaba Cloud Bailian

Baidu ERNIE (文心一言)

Moonshot AI Kimi

Zhipu AI GLM

Tencent Hunyuan

ByteDance Doubao

01.AI Yi (零一万物)

MiniMax (Hailuo AI)

International AI APIs

OpenAI

Anthropic Claude

Azure OpenAI

Gemini Multimodal

Google Gemini

Perplexity AI

Mistral AI

Cohere

Fireworks AI

Black Forest Labs

xAI Grok

Jina AI

Groq

Cerebras

AI21 Labs (Jamba)

DeepInfra

NVIDIA NIM

Amazon Bedrock

SambaNova

Anyscale

DigitalOcean Gradient

Stability AI

Lepton AI

ElevenLabs

Ideogram

Deepgram

Voyage AI

Writer

Aleph Alpha

Cartesia

Hume AI

Together AI

AI API Gateways & Aggregators

OpenRouter

Cloudflare AI Gateway

Portkey

LiteLLM

SiliconFlow

Block AI (b.ai)

fal.ai

FreeModel

APIKEY.FUN

Replicate

Novita AI

Baseten

Hugging Face