What is Salad AI Gateway?
Salad AI Gateway is a managed LLM API service that gives you direct access to powerful open-source models through a single, OpenAI-compatible endpoint - with no infrastructure to deploy or manage. It is powered by SaladCloud’s distributed GPU network, bringing the same cost-efficiency of self-hosted models with the simplicity of a hosted API. Any tool or library that supports a custom base URL - Aider, OpenCode, OpenClaw, Cline, Cursor, Goose, Vercel AI SDK, and more - works with Salad AI Gateway out of the box.API Endpoint
Available Models
The following models are currently available:
Additional models will be added as the service moves toward general availability.
Access Model
Access is self-service and billed per token. Each AI Gateway key belongs to one user and one organization, and requests are billed to that organization’s credits; a positive balance is required to admit new requests.Billing
Pay-per-token requests use the published input and output token rates, with no concurrency limit. Usage draws from the credit balance of the organization associated with your key. Requests already admitted complete and are billed even if credits run out during generation or the key is revoked or regenerated. Follow Pay-Per-Token Onboarding to add credits and create your AI Gateway API key.Quick Start
The API follows the OpenAIv1/chat/completions format. Send requests using your organization-specific AI Gateway API
key in the Authorization header. This is not the account API key used with Salad-Api-Key:
<your-ai-gateway-api-key> with the key created for the organization you want to bill.
Use with OpenAI-Compatible Tools
Because Salad AI Gateway exposes a standard OpenAI-compatible endpoint, you can use it with any tool that supports a custom base URL. We have integration guides for many popular agentic tools - Cline, Aider, OpenCode, OpenClaw, Kilo Code, Roo Code, Continue, Goose, Hermes Agent, and more. In guides with both backends, follow the Salad AI Gateway tab. Self-hosted Container Engine deployments use different endpoints and authentication. For AI Gateway, set your organization-specific AI Gateway key in the tool’s API key field (sent asAuthorization: Bearer) and point the base URL to
https://ai.salad.cloud/v1. Do not add a Salad-Api-Key custom header.
Cline
VS Code AI coding agent
Aider
CLI AI pair programmer
OpenCode
Terminal coding agent
OpenClaw
Always-on AI assistant
Kilo Code
VS Code coding agent
Roo Code
VS Code AI coding agent
Continue
VS Code + JetBrains coding assistant
Vercel AI SDK
TypeScript AI app framework
Goose
CLI + desktop AI agent
Hermes Agent
Self-improving AI agent with MCP
Why Salad AI Gateway?
- No Infrastructure - no container groups to deploy, no replicas to manage, no cold starts to worry about
- Always on - our distributed GPU network ensures high availability and reliability
- OpenAI-compatible - easy integration with any OpenAI-compatible tool
- SaladCloud Pricing - 90% cost savings vs traditional providers
- Data Privacy - your data is never used for training
- Powered by Sustainable Computing - utilizing otherwise wasted GPU resources to reduce carbon footprint