Documentation

Everything you need to plug CheapAI into your tooling — setup guides for popular agents, API reference, FAQ.

Cursor

AI code editor

Cursor blocks BYOK (your own keys) on the Free plan — a paid Cursor Pro is required. Add a specific model by name manually; Cursor rejects some of the newest models, so pick an available one from the catalog. For Claude the Anthropic API Key override (below) is the most reliable path.

Create an API key — Keys page → click Create key, give it a name (e.g. cursor), copy the key into clipboard. Save it — we won't show it again in plaintext.

In Cursor open ⌘, (or Ctrl , on Windows/Linux) → in the Settings panel pick Models in the left sidebar.

Find the OpenAI section, toggle the switch ON and fill the two fields:

OpenAI API Key

YOUR_API_KEY

OpenAI Base URL — behind a CDN

https://cheapai.io/v1

OpenAI Base URL — no CDN

https://api.cheapai.io/v1

Click Verify — Cursor will ping our endpoint with a sample request. A green check means the key works.

In the same screen find Add model → enter the model ID you need (e.g. claude-sonnet-4-6, gpt-5.5, gemini-3-pro-high) and click Add. The full list of IDs is on the Models page.

Don't use the built-in model picker — Cursor pattern-matches names containing claude/opus/gpt and silently routes them to its own providers. Adding the model via «Add model» forces it through our base URL.

Open the chat (⌘L), pick the model from the dropdown above the input — and ask a question. If everything is wired up, you'll see a response within seconds.

Replace YOUR_API_KEY with a real key from the Keys section.