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How we pick AI vendors for the directory

The criteria AgentExample uses to decide whether an AI model vendor makes it into the /models directory — and which categories we deliberately skip.

Aug 8, 2026AgentExample TeamAgentExample Team

There are hundreds of LLM vendors out there. We don't add them all. Here is the filter.

Required to be listed

  1. Has a self-serve API or subscription page — no enterprise-only sales calls required
  2. Public pricing visible without logging in (or with a free tier that exposes the per-token rate)
  3. OpenAI / Anthropic compatible API surface — devs can swap baseURL and try in under 5 minutes
  4. Stable for at least 3 months — not a beta, not a hackathon project
  5. Has a real, public-facing product — not a research-only model

In but with caveats

  • Pay-as-you-go with no subscription — listed with pricingModel: 'pay-as-you-go' and a clear "see official page for live rates" callout
  • Token-pack-only vendors — listed with pricingModel: 'token-pack' and the same live-prices callout
  • Free-only vendors — listed with pricingModel: 'free-only' and a clear note about quota + rate limits

Deliberately not listed

  • GPU / hardware vendors (Moore Threads, Cambricon, etc.) — not LLM providers, even if they power some
  • Closed-source enterprise platforms without public pricing
  • Region-locked vendors that don't accept international sign-up
  • Vendors with active fraud reports or known billing issues

How we decide a vendor's pricing model

We map each vendor to one of three categories on the detail page:

  • coding-plan — fixed monthly subscription, primary CTA is "Subscribe"
  • token-pack — pre-paid token bundles, primary CTA is "Top up"
  • pay-as-you-go — pure usage billing, primary CTA is "Get API key"
  • free-only — no paid tier, primary CTA is "Get free API key"

The badge and section title on the detail page change based on this. We never call a pay-as-you-go vendor's section "Coding Plans" because that misleads the reader.

When we add or remove

  • Add when a new vendor meets all 5 required criteria
  • Remove when a vendor shuts down, is acquired, or has its pricing page change so fundamentally that our entry is no longer accurate
  • Refresh quarterly — we re-check pricing pages and update the detail page if anything moved

If you think we missed a vendor (or got one wrong), open a ticket.