What Are Reverse Groups?

When browsing model prices on this site, you may notice that the same model from the same platform has multiple groups with vastly different prices. The cheaper groups are usually "reverse groups."

What is Reverse Engineering

Popular models like Claude and GPT require payment when used via API, but many third-party software applications offer free or low-cost access to these models.

"Reverse engineering" refers to using technical methods to bypass these applications' protective measures, disguising your requests as if they originate from within the software, thereby using the model quota they provide from outside the application.

Many platforms extensively use reverse engineering techniques to offer low prices.

In addition to exploiting free quotas through reverse engineering, there is a related approach that utilizes subscription plan quotas (such as Claude Max 20x and ChatGPT Pro 20x). These channels offer better quality at a slightly higher price than reverse channels. See: What are Claude Max and GPT Pro?.

Common Reverse Engineering Sources

Common sources for reverse engineering include:

Official web interfaces of various models, such as Claude AI and ChatGPT, which allow a certain number of free conversations without payment
Google Antigravity editor, which offers a certain amount of free usage, and its paid pricing is very low
AWS Kiro editor, which offers a certain amount of free usage
Amazon Q, a Claude-based model that offers a certain amount of free usage

These software applications offer free quotas to attract traffic to themselves, so they implement a series of protective measures to prevent external access. However, reverse engineering can bypass these protections, enabling platforms to offer model services at extremely low costs.

Why Are Reverse Groups So Cheap

Because reverse engineering exploits free or low-cost quotas from third-party software, platforms barely need to pay for the model calls themselves — only technical maintenance costs. As a result, reverse group prices are typically only 10% of official API prices, or even lower.

Risks of Reverse Engineering

While reverse groups offer attractive prices, they come with significant risks:

Reduced quality. Reverse channels may include built-in system prompts, restrict certain features, or prevent the model from thinking too long, resulting in lower quality compared to other channels
Can stop working anytime. The software being reverse-engineered continuously strengthens its protective measures. Once a reverse method is blocked, the corresponding group becomes temporarily unavailable
Price fluctuations. Due to the uncertain stability of reverse channels, platforms may frequently adjust prices

Filtering Out Reverse Groups

If you don't want to see reverse groups, you can enable the "Filter reverse groups" option. When enabled, all groups marked as reverse are hidden from the price table — the prices you see may be slightly higher, but quality is better guaranteed.

Practical Advice

Production use with stability requirements: Choose official or cloud service channel groups — slightly more expensive but stable and reliable
Limited budget, but quality matters: Try official subscription groups, but it's recommended to have a backup platform ready for quick switching when an official subscription group fails
Limited budget, can tolerate slightly lower quality: Try reverse groups, but it's recommended to have a backup platform ready for quick switching when a reverse group fails
When in doubt: Enable "Filter reverse groups" and start with official subscription or cloud service groups