Bloomberg reported that Stripe has agreed to buy OpenRouter for more than $7 billion. That price is roughly 50 times OpenRouter’s annualized revenue, which is reported at $140 million.
What OpenRouter does and its scale
OpenRouter is a routing platform for AI model calls: it directs requests across more than 400 different models and serves over ten million developers. According to reported figures, the platform handles about 55 trillion tokens per week. OpenRouter charges a 5.5% platform fee on every dollar of AI compute that passes through it.
Notably, the company was valued at $1.3 billion just 82 days before this deal.
Why this matters for Stripe
Stripe’s traditional revenue comes from card payments: it typically takes roughly 2.9% on a standard card transaction, and its net take rate is lower after interchange and network fees. By contrast, OpenRouter collects 5.5% on each dollar of AI compute routed through its platform, without returns, logistics, or physical‑goods handling.
Currently, OpenRouter pays Stripe processing fees out of that 5.5% cut. With the acquisition, the fee stream remains inside the Stripe organization, allowing Stripe to capture that margin directly.
Strategic implications and risks
Paying roughly 50 times revenue suggests Stripe was not merely buying middleware; it was swapping a payment processor’s take rate for a routing platform’s take rate. Reportedly, OpenRouter’s transaction base has multiplied within months, implying the 5.5% revenue stream could expand much faster than traditional payment revenue, and with lower collection costs.
Points to watch going forward:
- The public reporting does not disclose full deal mechanics such as payment structure or timing of payouts.
- The long‑term value depends on continued growth in AI compute usage and the volume of model calls routed through OpenRouter.
In sum, Stripe has paid a large premium to obtain a higher‑percentage cut of an expanding AI‑compute transaction base, shifting from roughly a 3% share of e‑commerce transactions toward a 5.5% share of AI compute.
