Providers Overview
ModelReins supports 7 providers out of the box. The Director routes jobs to the best provider based on complexity, cost, and availability. Each worker registers with its provider type, and subscriptions enforce compliance limits.
Provider comparison
Section titled “Provider comparison”| Provider | API Key Required | Cost Tier | Best For | Local/Cloud |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claude | Yes | $$ | Complex reasoning, code generation | Cloud |
| OpenAI | Yes | $$ | General purpose, embeddings, vision | Cloud |
| Gemini | Yes | $ | Long context, multimodal, free tier available | Cloud |
| Ollama | No | Free | Privacy, offline work, zero cost | Local |
| LM Studio | No | Free | High-volume local, GUI model management | Local |
| OpenRouter | Yes | $–$$$ | Model variety, fallback routing | Cloud |
| 1minAI | Yes | $ | Budget batch processing, simple tasks | Cloud |
Cost tiers
Section titled “Cost tiers”- Free — No API costs. Hardware electricity only. Ollama and LM Studio run entirely on your machine.
- $ — Under $0.01 per typical job. Gemini free tier, 1minAI, and OpenRouter with budget models.
- $$ — $0.01–$0.10 per job. Claude Haiku, GPT-4o-mini, Gemini Pro.
- $$$ — $0.10+ per job. Claude Opus, GPT-4o, Gemini Ultra. Reserved for complex tasks.
Choosing a provider
Section titled “Choosing a provider”Start local. The Companion installs Ollama automatically during setup. Your first jobs run at zero cost with no API key.
Add a cloud provider for quality. When you need better output — complex code, nuanced summaries — add a Claude or OpenAI subscription in the dashboard. The Director routes only the jobs that need it.
Use OpenRouter as a fallback. It aggregates dozens of models and handles rate limits across providers. Good insurance for production workloads.
Mix and match. A single fleet can use all 7 providers simultaneously. The Director routes cheap jobs to local models, complex jobs to cloud, and respects every subscription’s concurrent limit.
Subscriptions and compliance
Section titled “Subscriptions and compliance”Each cloud provider connection is a subscription with a concurrent job limit. The Director never sends two jobs to the same subscription at the same time unless the plan allows it. Local providers (Ollama, LM Studio) have no subscription limits.
Add subscriptions from the dashboard at app.modelreins.com.
See each provider’s page for specific setup instructions.