Every major Chinese AI lab — Zhipu, Alibaba, ByteDance, Moonshot, MiniMax — gates its official API console behind Chinese phone verification, real-name identity checks, and CNY payment rails. If you're outside China, this guide maps exactly what each provider requires and the fastest legal workaround for each model family.
| Vendor | Official console requirement | Key models on NovAI | Guide |
|---|---|---|---|
| Zhipu AI | Phone verification, CNY payment | GLM-5.3 ($1.25/$4.00, 1M ctx), GLM-4.7-Flash (free) | GLM guide |
| Alibaba | Real-name verification, Alipay/CNY | Qwen3-Max ($0.565/$2.65), Qwen3.8-Max, Qwen3.5-Flash ($0.048) | Qwen guide |
| ByteDance | Business verification, CNY payment | Doubao Seed 2.0, Seedream 5.0 ($0.027/img), Seedance video | Doubao guide |
| Moonshot AI | +86 phone, Alipay | Kimi K2.5 / K2.6 / K2.7 Code ($0.67/$3.40) | Kimi guide |
| MiniMax | +86 phone, CNY payment | MiniMax M3 ($0.30/$1.20), M2.7, M2.5 | MiniMax guide |
NovAI connects directly to each lab's official endpoint and resells access under a single OpenAI-compatible API — email signup only, USD billing (USDT TRC20, PayPal, card), zero platform fee, and provider-list pricing. 40+ models across text, vision, image, and video.
https://aiapi-pro.com/v1 and switch models freely.from openai import OpenAI
client = OpenAI(
api_key="nvai-your-key",
base_url="https://aiapi-pro.com/v1"
)
resp = client.chat.completions.create(
model="glm-4.7-flash",
messages=[{"role": "user", "content": "Hello! Which model am I talking to?"}]
)
print(resp.choices[0].message.content)You can validate your whole integration before spending a cent: GLM-4.7-Flash (agentic coding), GLM-4.1V-Thinking-Flash (vision reasoning), CogView3-Flash (images) and CogVideoX-Flash (video) are all free forever.
NovAI routes to the official provider endpoints — the same models, same outputs, same rate characteristics as going direct. Note that Chinese image models burn a visible “AI生成” label into output under China's labelling rules (full notice), and some models fix parameters such as Kimi K2's temperature=1.
40+ Chinese frontier models, one API key — email signup, USD billing, $2 free credit.
All of them through NovAI: GLM-5.3 and GLM-4.7-Flash (Zhipu), Qwen3-Max and Qwen3.8-Max (Alibaba), Doubao Seed 2.0 / Seedream 5.0 / Seedance (ByteDance), Kimi K2.5-K2.7 (Moonshot), and MiniMax M3 - one OpenAI-compatible API, email signup only.
No. NovAI bills in USD via USDT (TRC20), PayPal, or card. New accounts receive $2 free credit after email verification, and four models (including image and video generation) are free forever.
Yes. NovAI routes requests to each lab's official endpoint, so you get identical model outputs. Provider-list pricing with zero platform fee, and day-one access to new releases.