Claudexia vs Direct Anthropic API

Direct Anthropic and Claudexia both terminate at the same model weights. The choice is operational: who do you pay, how, and what's your account surface look like?

Account & onboarding

Payment methods

Direct Anthropic: corporate card, ACH, wire (US/EU). Pre-paid balance with $5 min top-up; tier-based monthly limits.

Claudexia: SBP (Russia), card (RU/CIS/EU), crypto (USDT TRC20/ERC20, BTC, ETH, TON). $1 min top-up; no tiers.

Latency

Claudexia adds ~30–60ms over direct Anthropic for the proxy hop on the EU edge. Streaming TTFT is preserved (no buffering). For p99 latency-sensitive workloads, direct can be the better choice.

Feature parity

Model availability parity

Both Claudexia and direct Anthropic expose the same Claude model lineup through Anthropic-compatible request formats. As Anthropic ships new versions (Sonnet 5, Opus 4.8, Haiku 4.5, computer-use beta), Claudexia adds them within hours. There is no model-availability gap to worry about. The model-id difference: Claudexia exposes stable gateway IDs for both anthropic-native (`claude-sonnet-5`) and openai-compatible (`claude-sonnet-5` via /v1/chat/completions) clients, so the same model can be reached by clients that only speak one dialect.

Code sample: switch in 2 lines

If you already have working Anthropic SDK code, the diff is two values. With the official Anthropic SDK:

import Anthropic from '@anthropic-ai/sdk'

const client = new Anthropic({
  // BEFORE: defaults to https://api.anthropic.com
  // AFTER: point at Claudexia
  baseURL: 'https://api.claudexia.tech',
  apiKey: process.env.CLAUDEXIA_API_KEY,  // sk_cdx_...
})

const msg = await client.messages.create({
  model: 'claude-sonnet-5',
  max_tokens: 1024,
  messages: [{ role: 'user', content: 'Hello' }],
})

The same swap works for the Python SDK, Go SDK, and any community SDK that exposes a base URL and API key.

SDK & client compatibility

Claudexia is wire-compatible with the Anthropic Messages API. Anything that speaks Anthropic — official SDKs, LangChain, Vercel AI SDK, Continue.dev, Cline, Cursor's BYOK mode, custom HTTPS clients — works without modification. For OpenAI-only clients (older OpenAI SDK code, some open-source agents), Claudexia also exposes /v1/chat/completions on the same base URL.

Rate limits & quotas

Direct Anthropic applies its account and model quota policy. Claudexia may also encounter provider account or channel limits. Its dashboard key API does not expose per-key RPM, TPM, concurrency, or budgets, so no fixed numeric quota or higher burst capacity is promised. Handle HTTP 429 in your client.

Compliance & data handling

Direct API access follows the selected supplier's terms. Claudexia uses an API supplier chain whose retention and training terms have not been fully verified. Direct API guarantees cannot be assumed for the gateway. A DPA needs a separately agreed annex listing actual recipients, processing locations and safeguards.

Pricing transparency

We don't hide the markup. The live /pricing page on Claudexia shows the per-1M-token rate you pay; comparing to anthropic.com/pricing tells you the exact margin. For most workloads in the RU/CIS region the markup is well below the cost of currency conversion + foreign card processing fees, so net cost can be lower on Claudexia than direct.

When to pick which

Direct Anthropic

Pick direct Anthropic when: you have an Anthropic-supported payment method, you need zero proxy latency, you want first-party support contracts, or your compliance requires a direct vendor relationship.

Claudexia

Pick Claudexia when: you can't pay Anthropic directly, you want pay-per-token without monthly minimums, you need RU/CIS payment rails, you want OpenAI-compat without writing a translator, or you want sub-org budgeting for multi-tenant apps.

FAQ

Will my code break when migrating from direct Anthropic to Claudexia?

No. Claudexia mirrors the Anthropic Messages API surface 1:1. Change ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL and the API key — that's it.

Are model versions identical?

Yes. claude-sonnet-5 on Claudexia is the same Anthropic model snapshot.

Is there a markup vs direct Anthropic?

Claudexia adds a small per-token markup that funds payment processing and infrastructure. The exact rate is on the public pricing page and may be lower than international card processing fees for RU/CIS users.

Does Claudexia store my prompts or completions?

No. Claudexia logs only token counts, model id, latency, and account id for billing and analytics. The actual message content is streamed through and not persisted.

Can I use prompt caching on Claudexia?

Yes — Anthropic's prompt caching headers (cache_control) pass through transparently. You see the same 90% input cost reduction on cached blocks as you would on direct Anthropic.

Does Claudexia support tool_use, vision, and JSON mode?

Yes — all Anthropic Messages API features pass through 1:1: tool_use, vision (base64 + url images), system prompts, stop sequences, temperature, top_p, top_k, metadata field, streaming SSE.

What about computer-use and the new agent skills API?

Computer-use beta is supported via the same anthropic-beta header. New Anthropic features land on Claudexia typically within 24–48 hours of GA.

Will I lose Anthropic-native error semantics?

No. Claudexia preserves Anthropic's error response shape (type, message, request id). If Anthropic returns 529 overloaded, you see the same status with the same retry-after header. SDKs that already handle Anthropic errors keep working.

Can I get a refund on unused balance?

Yes — unused balance is refundable per the public ToS. Direct Anthropic credits are non-refundable once posted.