How Startups Should Choose an AI API Router for Property Moderation Tasks

For property-management startups using AI moderation, selecting the right single-key API router requires more than comparing raw token prices across providers like OpenAI, Claude, and Gemini. The true cost metric is cost per accepted classification, which accounts for inference fees, retries, invalid outputs, and operational labor. Developers are advised to build a frozen replay set of around 500 diverse moderation reports to benchmark each router candidate under identical conditions. Tools like OpenRouter, Portkey, and LiteLLM each serve different operational needs, ranging from managed routing to self-hosted gateways and direct adapters. The core decision revolves around portability and policy control, not simply finding the lowest per-token price.