An AI API without KYC: an email, a top-up, a key
What no-KYC means for a model API, what we ask for at sign-up and what we store, and why no-KYC and no-log are two different promises.
An AI API without KYC is one that never asks for a government ID, a phone number or a business registration before you pay and call a model. Here the sign-up is an email address and a prepaid top-up from $10, by card or crypto. That key reaches 469 chat models, Claude and GPT among them, through one base URL. This page says exactly what we ask for and what we store, and separates no-KYC from no-log, which search results tend to mix up.
01What no-KYC means
KYC, know your customer, is the identity check a bank runs before it opens an account. Applied to a model API, it means the provider wants to know who you are before it sells you tokens: a phone number from a supported country, a passport scan, a tax identifier, a company registration.
An email is a mailbox, not an identity: nothing on it says who holds it. That is the line this service draws. It says nothing about logging, which is the next section.
02What RelaySwitch asks for
- An email address. It opens the account and is where receipts and notices go. No name field, no phone, no document.
- A top-up. Prepaid from $10 by card (Apple Pay, PayPal) or crypto (USDT, USDC, BTC, ETH, SOL). The card checkout is run by the payment processor under its own terms; a crypto payment goes to the address the checkout shows.
- Nothing at the key. The console creates, renames, pauses and revokes keys. Each key can carry a monthly spend limit; past it, requests answer 402 until the month turns or you raise it.
03What is stored, and what is not
Stored: the email; for each top-up the amount, the method and the payment's own reference (a transaction hash for crypto, a processor reference for card); each key with its name, status and limits; one usage record per request with the request id, the model, the token counts and the charge; the ledger of balance changes.
Not stored: request and response bodies. Prompts and completions pass through the service and are not written anywhere or used for training. The privacy page is the same list in the form that binds us.
04The same models, at these prices
The flagships below are on the key at the live price, next to the developer's own list price where the catalog has one. USD per million tokens.
| Model | Ours in / out | Developer list in / out | Under list |
|---|---|---|---|
| Claude Opus 5.5 | $2.80 / $10.00 | $4.00 / $20.00 | 30% in, 50% out |
| Claude Sonnet 5.5 | $1.20 / $3.00 | $2.00 / $10.00 | 40% in, 70% out |
| GPT-5.5 | $1.80 / $9.00 | $5.00 / $30.00 | 64% in, 70% out |
| Gemini 4 Argon | $0.60 / $3.00 | $2.00 / $10.00 | 70% |
Read from the catalog at render; the Models page has every row.
05The first request
from openai import OpenAI client = OpenAI(base_url="https://api.relayswitch.io/v1", api_key="YOUR_RELAYSWITCH_KEY")reply = client.chat.completions.create( model="claude-sonnet-5-5", messages=[{"role": "user", "content": "Say hello in five words."}],)print(reply.choices[0].message.content)Any OpenAI SDK, the Anthropic SDK for the Claude ids, Claude Code, Cursor: the guides show where the two values go in each.
Questions
- Is there a completely free AI API here?
- No. Every request bills per token from prepaid credit, which starts at $10 with no subscription. Free tiers are a different question from whether a provider asks who you are.
- Is an AI API without KYC the same as a no-log AI API?
- No. No-KYC is about what the provider asks for before you pay; no-log is about what it keeps after a request. Here the two are separate facts: no government ID or phone number at sign-up, and no request or response bodies stored.
- Can I use the Claude models without an Anthropic account?
- Yes. The Claude ids on this key answer the Anthropic format and the OpenAI format with an email and prepaid credit as the whole sign-up. Claude Sonnet 5.5 is $1.20 in and $3.00 out per million tokens here today.
- Which payment methods need no identity check?
- All of them: Card, Apple Pay, PayPal, USDT, USDC, BTC, ETH, SOL. The card checkout is run by the payment processor, which holds the card details; RelaySwitch sees the email, the amount and the processor's reference.
An email, a top-up, a key
No identity check for any payment method.