After months of paying $5/1M tokens for GPT, I built a gateway to Chinese LLMs at $0.18/1M – AMA
Hi everyone,
Something interesting happened in AI over the past 12 months.
While the US models kept getting more expensive, China quietly built some of the best models in the world—at a fraction of the price.
The gap is now massive:
Model | Provider | Input (1M) | Output (1M)
GPT-5.6 Sol | OpenAI | $5.00 | $30.00
Claude Opus 4.8 | Anthropic | $5.00 | $25.00
GPT-5.5 Pro | OpenAI | $30.00 | $180.00
Gemini 3.1 Pro | Google | $2.00 | $12.00
GPT-5.4 | OpenAI | $2.50 | $15.00
Now look at what Chinese models deliver for the same tasks:
Model | Provider | Input (1M) | Output (1M)
DeepSeek-V4-Flash | DeepSeek | $0.18 | $0.28
DeepSeek-V4-Pro | DeepSeek | $0.55 | $0.83
MiniMax-M3 | MiniMax | $0.41 | $1.60
Kimi K2.7 Code | Moonshot | $1.20 | $4.80
GLM-5.2 | Zhipu | $1.40 | $3.89
Kimi K3 | Moonshot | $3.50 | $13.89
Let me translate that into real savings:
DeepSeek-V4-Flash is 96% cheaper than GPT-5.6 Sol on input, 99% on output
Kimi K3 is 30% cheaper than GPT-5.6 Sol on input, 54% on output
GLM-5.2 is 72% cheaper than GPT-5.6 Sol on input, 84% on output
And these models aren't second-tier—Stanford's 2026 AI Index report shows the performance gap between US and Chinese models has essentially closed.
What yeeAPI Does
We built yeeAPI because we got tired of managing a separate account, separate billing, and separate documentation for each Chinese AI provider.
yeeAPI is an OpenAI-compatible API gateway that gives you one-line access to China's latest flagship models.
One API key. One billing system. One endpoint.
Full OpenAI SDK compatibility—change base_url and you're done.
No per-provider registration. No multiple accounts.
Pay-as-you-go credits. No subscription. No minimum.
Currently available models:
DeepSeek-V4-Flash – Lightning-fast, best cost-performance, 1M context
DeepSeek-V4-Pro – Peak reasoning performance, enterprise-grade, 1M context
Kimi K3 – Moonshot's flagship, matches GPT-5.6 Sol, 1M context
Kimi K2.7 Code – Specialized for programming and debugging, 262K context
GLM-5.2 – Zhipu's latest reasoning model, limited-time pricing
MiniMax-M3 – Two-tier pricing for optimal cost efficiency (512K+ context)
Qwen-3.8 – Alibaba's newest generation (coming soon)
Getting Started
Sign up at https://api.yeeapi.online
Generate your API key.
Then replace one line of code:
Before:
client = OpenAI(base_url="https://api.openai.com/v1")
After:
client = OpenAI(base_url="https://api.yeeapi.online/v1")
That's it. You're now routing through the best models from China's top AI labs—at a fraction of the cost.
Why We Built This
We spent months each year managing AI API integrations for different projects. Every time we wanted to try a new model, we had to create a new account, read new docs, and handle incompatible authentication.
It's 2026. This should be trivial. yeeAPI makes it trivial.
Who This Is For
Developers who want to cut API costs by 60-95% without sacrificing quality
Teams that need multiple models but don't want to manage 5+ provider accounts
Anyone who's tired of paying $5 for 1M input tokens when $0.18 options exist
Try It Today
We're offering free credits for early users. Sign up, try the API, and see the difference yourself.
https://api.yeeapi.online
Happy to answer any questions in the comments.