Frequently Asked Questions

The easiest way is through an AI API gateway like NovAI. It provides a single OpenAI-compatible API endpoint at https://aiapi-pro.com/v1 that forwards your requests to 17+ Chinese AI model providers.

Here's how simple it is:

No Chinese phone number, no VPN, no Alipay needed. USDT accepted; credit card payments coming soon.

No. NovAI provides a fully OpenAI-compatible API. If you're already using the OpenAI Python SDK, just change two values:

base_url = "https://aiapi-pro.com/v1"
api_key = "nvai-your-key-here"

Your existing code works immediately. It supports streaming, function calling, vision models, and all standard OpenAI features.

Yes! Two ways to try for free:

• GLM-4.6V-Flash — completely free model, unlimited usage, 20 requests/minute
• $2.00 welcome credit — given to all new users upon email verification, enough to test premium models

No credit card required. Sign up free →

Chinese AI models are 60-80% cheaper than Western alternatives. Here's a comparison:

See full pricing comparison →

Yes. NovAI currently accepts USDT (TRC20) for API credit top-ups, with credit card payments coming soon.

Most Chinese AI providers only accept Alipay or WeChat Pay, which require a Chinese bank account. NovAI bridges this gap — pay from anywhere in the world.

• Minimum top-up: $5
• Credits never expire
• First top-up bonus: $5+ = $1 extra credit

No. NovAI charges zero platform markup. You pay exactly what the upstream provider charges.

Compare with competitors:

Yes, significantly. NovAI servers are in Hong Kong with direct peering to Chinese AI providers.

For applications serving Asian users, NovAI reduces latency by 60-70%.

17+ models from 5 providers, all through one API key:

• ByteDance Doubao Seed 2.0 — Pro, Lite, Code (GPT-4-class, fast, code-specialist)
• DeepSeek — V4 Pro, V4 Flash (reasoning, math)
• Alibaba Qwen — Qwen3-Max, Qwen3.6-Max, Qwen3.7-Max, Qwen-Plus (multilingual, agentic)
• Zhipu GLM — GLM-4.6V Flash, GLM-4.6V, GLM-5, GLM-5.1, GLM-5.2, GLM-5V-Turbo (vision, autonomous coding)
• MiniMax — Text-01 (long-context generation)

NovAI is cheaper for Chinese AI models because it charges 0% platform markup:

Plus lower latency from Hong Kong servers (75ms vs 207ms).

Each model family has different strengths:

• DeepSeek-V4 — Best for reasoning, math, and scientific tasks
• Qwen3.7-Max — Leads in multilingual, agentic, and tool-use tasks
• GLM-5.1 — 8-hour autonomous coding, best for long-running development tasks
• Doubao-Seed-2.0-Pro — GPT-4-class general performance at lower cost
• GLM-4.6V-Flash — Free multimodal model for vision tasks

With NovAI's single API key, test all models side-by-side with the same prompts.

Unofficial relays (“中转站”) resell shared upstream API keys at a discount. The typical failure modes:

• Shared quota & bans — hundreds of users on one key; when the provider detects abuse the key is banned and your integration dies overnight.
• Silent downgrades — requests quietly routed to cheaper or older models (“降智”) while you pay flagship prices.
• No billing trail — token counts and costs cannot be verified against the provider's official pricing.
• Runaway risk — prepaid balances are lost when the relay disappears; there is no entity to hold accountable.

Three structural differences:

• Official direct endpoints — NovAI is a certified ecosystem partner of Volcano Engine (ByteDance) and Zhipu AI. Requests go straight to provider infrastructure; no reseller hops.
• Dedicated quotas — your traffic runs on NovAI's own provider accounts, never on a shared black-market key pool.
• Auditable billing — every call is logged in your dashboard with tokens, latency and cost, matched against provider list prices.

You can verify our partnership badges on the homepage, and compare every listed price with the provider's official rate card.

A quick due-diligence checklist:

• Ask where the API keys come from — official partner accounts, or pooled third-party keys.
• Check that prices match the upstream provider's official rate card (deep discounts usually mean shared keys).
• Verify per-call usage logs with token counts and latency are available.
• Start with a small top-up and confirm refund policy before committing volume.
• Prefer providers with a registered business entity and public partnership certifications.