UniAPI Review: Pricing & Comparison

Two routes, so you don’t have to guess about network conditions

Most relay platforms have a single API endpoint, and access from mainland China is a matter of luck. UniAPI explicitly provides two routes:

• Mainland-optimized route: hk.uniapi.io — a Hong Kong node specifically optimized for mainland access, no proxy needed
• Global route: api.uniapi.io — an overseas node suited to teams with existing proxy infrastructure or servers abroad

There’s also an easily overlooked plus: status.uniapi.ai is UniAPI’s independent status monitoring page, showing real-time availability of each node and the main models. You can add this URL to your monitoring system and set up alerts, instead of finding out something’s wrong only after users complain.

Tiered discounts: breaking down the billing formula

UniAPI’s billing formula:

Actual cost = token count × official model rate × channel discount × tier discount

Two layers of discount stack together:

Discount layer	Description	Example
Channel discount	Same model, different upstream prices	Azure channel ~50% off, OpenAI official channel ~32% off
Tier discount	Higher top-up amount/call volume unlocks a bigger extra discount	Up to an additional ~15% off

A worked example: Claude Opus 4.8’s official price is $5/M input tokens (≈¥36/M). Through the Azure channel (50% off) stacked with the tier discount (15% off), that comes out to roughly ¥15.3/M — about 42.5% of the official direct price.

The exact discount structure and tier thresholds follow the live configuration on the official site — we’d recommend logging into the dashboard to check current pricing before estimating costs.

Three protocols + multimodal, all under one account

Core LLMs (three native protocols):

# Anthropic native (configure directly in Claude Code, full Prompt Caching support)
export ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL="https://hk.uniapi.io"
export ANTHROPIC_API_KEY="your key"

# OpenAI format (GPT/DeepSeek/domestic models)
export OPENAI_BASE_URL="https://hk.uniapi.io/v1"
export OPENAI_API_KEY="your key"

# Gemini native (configure directly in Gemini CLI)
export GEMINI_BASE_URL="https://hk.uniapi.io"

Multimodal extensions (same account, same endpoint):

Type	Available models
Image generation	Midjourney, FLUX, Replicate
Music generation	Suno (AI music creation)
Video generation	Kling

Multimodal content is accessed through the UniAPI endpoint, saving you the hassle of separately maintaining a Midjourney Discord account, a Suno account, and so on.

Native Anthropic protocol support means the cache_control field for Prompt Caching doesn’t get stripped by a translation layer — in practice this can save a considerable amount of token cost in scenarios like large codebase analysis.

Model coverage

Claude Fable 5, Opus 4.8 (Anthropic native), GPT-5.5, the o-series, Gemini 3.1 Pro (Gemini native), DeepSeek V4, Qwen3 — the mainstream flagships are all there, with full Suno/Midjourney/Kling multimodal coverage.

Which teams it suits

Scenario	Is UniAPI a fit?
Daily Claude Code usage	Yes (native Anthropic protocol, zero adaptation)
Midjourney + LLM combined workflows	Yes (unified multimodal entry point)
Need an independent status page for monitoring	Yes (status.uniapi.ai)
Chasing the absolute lowest price	Consider TokenRiver (1¥=$1 rate, ~14% of official price) instead
Need a DPA enterprise compliance agreement	Contact UniAPI’s sales team directly to confirm

On pricing transparency, UiUiAPI publishes each model’s discount rate quantitatively on its official site, which is better suited to scenarios where you want to precisely calculate cost before topping up, rather than estimating from stacked channel discounts.

Information verified 2026-06-13. Discount structure and tier thresholds follow live information on the uniapi.ai official site.

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