Listing Criteria
How we select platforms for listing, and how we keep evaluating their activity afterwards
GetCheapAI lists dozens of third-party platforms, API relays and resellers, but only a subset is shown by default. You can check "Show all platforms" to see more. This article explains our listing criteria, how we evaluate activity after listing, and the logic behind which platforms appear by default.
Listing Criteria
To ensure price data is useful for reference, we only list platforms that are actively operated. Platforms that lack maintenance often have outdated pricing, and displaying this data affects price accuracy.
We use publicly available signals to judge whether a platform is actively operated, such as:
- Whether it has documentation and a public pricing page
- Whether it has an announcement channel that is regularly updated
- Whether it has support channels such as a user community
After Listing: Ongoing Activity Evaluation
The number of platforms grows quickly — new ones keep appearing, and older ones keep going quiet. Meeting the criteria at listing time does not mean a platform still meets them later.
So listing is only the starting point. After listing, we continuously combine several signals to judge whether a platform is still active:
- Announcement channels: whether they are still being updated
- User community: whether there is still active discussion and support response
- Referral data: changes in sign-ups tracked through referral links — the metric we consider the most objective and hardest to manipulate
Together these determine how a platform is displayed on our site. This evaluation is ongoing, so a platform's display status is adjusted dynamically rather than decided once.
Activity Tiers and Display
Based on the evaluation above, we group listed platforms into four tiers:
| Activity | How it is displayed |
|---|---|
| Consistently active | Shown by default, with a "Popular" badge |
| Moderately active | Shown by default |
| Limited activity | Not shown by default; visible after checking "Show all platforms" |
| No longer active | Not shown anywhere on model detail pages |
To be clear, being classified as "no longer active" only affects model detail pages — it does not mean the platform is delisted. Its detail page remains available, and it can still be found in the platform directory by clicking "show all".
Newly Listed Platforms
Newly listed platforms have not yet accumulated enough data for evaluation, so we give them a grace period:
- Within 30 days of listing: marked with a "New" badge in the pricing table
- Within 15 days of listing: shown by default
After the grace period, the platform returns to the regular evaluation described above, and its display depends on actual activity. Both time windows expire automatically.
Why We Have a Default Display Mechanism
All platforms that meet the listing criteria appear in the full list, but only a subset is shown by default, for two reasons:
- Data sampling and deduplication: Within the same price range, there are often multiple platforms with similar pricing — showing all of them leads to redundant data. When determining default display, we sample across price ranges to retain representative data points, making price information clearer and more efficient.
- Focusing on data quality: Each platform requires ongoing tracking of price changes, tier adjustments, limited-time promotions, and more — all currently done manually. By limiting the number shown by default, we can prioritise accurate data for those platforms.
In addition, platforms shown by default need to support referral link tracking, since this is an important way for us to collect user behaviour data. Platforms that don't support tracking still appear in the full list, but cannot be included in the default display. To keep the evaluation fair, we do our best to give each platform comparable visibility.
A Note on Transparency
This site receives usage credits from some platforms through referral links, which are used to maintain site operations (such as onboarding new platforms, analysing pricing data, and maintaining website code). However, display decisions are based on the activity evaluation described above, not on how much is given.
In other words, the referral mechanism serves a dual purpose for us:
- Collecting user behaviour data (primary purpose) — helping us judge whether a platform is still active.
- Receiving usage credits (secondary outcome) — maintaining site operations.
We are committed to maintaining objectivity in our listings, and we welcome public scrutiny.
Apply for Listing
If you'd like to list a platform, please reach out via our Contact Us page. We'll evaluate it against the criteria outlined above.