LongCat
Meituan's LongCat AI — pay-per-token resource packs with OpenAI-compatible API
Why we recommend LongCat
Why we recommend LongCat (Meituan)
LongCat (longcat.chat) is Meituan's LLM API product launched in 2026. Unlike Zhipu / Qwen Coding Plans, LongCat is sold as pre-paid token resource packs — you top up at longcat.chat/platform/product and pay only for what you use, with no monthly fee.
This pricing model fits:
- Solo developers / side projects — no fixed commitment, no idle subscription bleed
- PoC and experiments — run a few evals or a quick demo without subscribing first
- Small teams with spiky usage — resource packs flex with actual demand
- Multi-vendor AI apps — keep LongCat as a fallback or alternative to OpenAI / Anthropic
Domain relationship. longcat.chat is the brand homepage + product intro; longcat.chat/platform/product is the resource-pack / API console. Same domain, role-divided by path.
Models and capabilities
LongCat ships a flagship model family covering:
- Text generation / chat — long context, multi-turn, complex instruction following
- Chinese-native strength — training data includes Meituan's production traffic (reviews / customer support / marketing copy), so the model is grounded for Chinese real-world tasks
- OpenAI-compatible API — Chat Completions protocol, swap baseURL to migrate from OpenAI
- Enterprise-grade stability — the public API runs on the same infrastructure that powers Meituan's internal AI usage
Resource pack vs Coding Plan: how to choose
| Dimension | LongCat resource pack | Typical Coding Plan (Zhipu / Qwen) |
|---|---|---|
| Billing | Pre-paid top-up + per-token deduction | Fixed monthly / annual fee |
| Best for | Spiky usage, PoC, evaluation | Stable high volume, heavy Coding Agent |
| Risk | Unused balance sits idle (no refund) | Idle months still cost the full subscription |
| API Key | One per user | One per user |
| Invoice | Per top-up | Monthly |
If your project makes 100+ stable API calls per day, compare Zhipu / Qwen Coding Plans — the per-month unit price is usually cheaper. If your project has bursty or unpredictable usage, LongCat resource packs are usually the lower-friction choice.
How to onboard
- Sign up / log in at longcat.chat/platform/product
- Buy a token resource pack in the console (SKU varies by quota)
- Create an API key
- Point your OpenAI SDK at the LongCat baseURL with the new API key
- First request succeeds — balance is deducted per token
Check the official page for the latest resource-pack SKUs and prices. LongCat's pack pricing changes with promotions / seasonal campaigns, so this page intentionally avoids hard-coding specific numbers. Visit longcat.chat/platform/product for live pricing.