Managed Routing Service (MRS)
Cut your AI bill. Control the rest.
Innovative MRS lowers what you pay for AI inference and gives finance the visibility it has been missing. Darcy Dispatch, the platform behind it, sends routine work to fast, low-cost models, saves premium models for the work that needs them, and ties every dollar to the team, project, or client that spent it.
We only make money when we save you money. No savings, no fee.
Where your savings come from
Savings of typically 30–50% aren’t a discount. Most of what a team sends doesn’t need a frontier model, and our team does the rest of the work on every request, behind one endpoint, so none of the complexity lands on you.Measured against the two labs you'd otherwise pay.
For each tier, we pick one comparable model from Anthropic and one from OpenAI, by capability rather than by name, price your request at each model's standard rates, and use the higher cost. Promotional prices never count. Darcy Dispatch always shows the live reference models, their prices, and the math behind every savings figure.
Your most expensive model shouldn’t be answering your easiest questions.
Most AI tools send every request to the same premium model at the same premium price, whether it’s “write a commit message” or “plan our database migration.” That’s like billing partner hours for proofreading. Darcy Dispatch judges each request on its own. Routine, mechanical work goes to Swift at a fraction of the cost, and your premium spend goes only to the work that needs it.
One morning of requests
Routed by Auto| Request | Served by | On Dispatch | Baseline |
|---|---|---|---|
| Extract fields from an invoice | Swift | $0.0011 | $0.0120 |
| Fix the test that just failed | Frontier | $0.0427 | $0.0549 |
| Classify a support ticket | Swift | $0.0006 | $0.0065 |
| Rename a function across eight files | Swift | $0.0053 | $0.0576 |
| Plan a database migration | Frontier | $0.1288 | $0.1656 |
| Draft a reply to a customer | Swift | $0.0016 | $0.0180 |
| Write a commit message | Swift | $0.0013 | $0.0144 |
| Total inference | $0.1814 | $0.3290 | |
| Inference saved | 45% | ||
Inference cost only, before our share of the savings. Each request is compared with the higher of its cost on the Anthropic and OpenAI reference models for the tier that served it. Sample rates and data for illustration.
Cheaper where it’s safe. Frontier where it counts.
“Will cheaper models make our output worse?” It’s the first thing an engineer asks. Auto judges every request on its own. A failed tool call, an error to diagnose, or a plan to make goes to Frontier, while settled, mechanical steps stay on Swift. One hard turn never makes the whole session expensive.
Pin a tier whenever you need certaintySend darcy-frontier or darcy-swift instead of darcy-auto, and every request stays on that tier, from any tool, agent, or API. Admins can also turn tiers on or off for each team.
One agent session, turn by turn
Routed by AutoSample session for illustration.
The best price for performance, behind every tier
Our team shops the model market so you don’t have to. Behind Frontier and Swift we run a changing mix of sources, chosen for price and performance, and our own router sits in front of all of it. You never manage another vendor account, key, or contract.
- Leading commercial modelsFor the work that needs frontier capability.
- Open-weight and open-source modelsUsed wherever they match the quality at a lower price.
- Spare GPU capacityBrought online as it becomes available, when it lowers your cost.
Fewer tokens for the same work
Price per token is only half of the bill. Darcy Dispatch shows what each agent turn spends its tokens on, such as command output, file reads, long histories, and tools nobody uses, and recommends the fixes worth installing, like RTK or Headroom, ranked by what they save.
Your Technical Account Manager walks through those recommendations with you each month, and your statements show the savings once they’re in place.
Spend nobody owns, brought to light
A shared AI bill hides waste: keys nobody uses anymore, and spend no team will claim. Because Dispatch tags every request the moment it arrives, that spend has nowhere to hide.
Idle keys and unowned spend show up in your reports, and your Technical Account Manager flags them in your monthly review so you can shut them off or assign them.
Every new model, vetted before it reaches your work
New models ship constantly, and each one raises the same questions: Is it better? Is it cheaper? Is it safe to use? Every time a notable new model is released, our team does that work for you. We score it on independent intelligence, coding, and agentic benchmarks, test it on real agent workloads, and verify its terms. It joins a tier only if it matches what that tier serves today, at a better price, and either way we tell you what it means for your organization.
If it’s a new Anthropic or OpenAI model, it can replace that lab’s reference model in your savings benchmark right away, so the comparison never goes stale.
A new open-weight coding model
Released this weekSent to your team and reviewed with your TAM.
- Benchmarked and testedScored on independent intelligence, coding, and agentic benchmarks, then tested on real agent workloads.
- Terms verifiedNo training on your data, Zero Data Retention, and approved processing locations confirmed.
- Decision madeMatches what Swift serves today, at a better price, so it joined Swift for extraction and summaries.
- Impact explainedWhat changes for your workloads and your savings, in plain language.
- Baselines checkedReference model updated if it's a new Anthropic or OpenAI model.
Sample notice for illustration.
AI spend you can budget, forecast, and bill back
Showback, chargeback, and client invoices, all from one ledger. Darcy Dispatch includes the finance controls most AI vendors leave out, built into the Darcy Dispatch Console, so finance sees the same numbers your engineers do.
Automatic cost attribution
Darcy Dispatch tags every request the moment it arrives, from its key, its guardrail, and the request itself. When one tool or agent works across several clients or projects, Dispatch classifies each request and files it under the one it was for. Nobody tags by hand, and nothing piles up as unallocated.Chargeback and client re-billing
Break spend and savings down by person, team, tier, tag, or client over any window, then export to CSV for your ERP or billing system to charge AI costs back to departments or turn per-client totals into line items on a client invoice.Budgets that warn, then stop
Set monthly budgets by person or team. The owner is notified as spend approaches the cap, and requests stop when it is reached.Forecasting
See run rate, projected month-end spend, and credit runway, and review the forecast with your Technical Account Manager every month.Audit-ready savings statements
Every statement shows baseline cost, what you paid, and what you saved, with the model version and rates behind each comparison.Live report links for finance
Share a live spend and savings report with finance by link, no Dispatch login needed. Every request is tagged, priced, and reported within seconds, so the numbers are never a month-end surprise.One prepaid balance
Replace scattered AI vendor invoices and card charges with a single prepaid balance and no surprise usage bills.
Spend by tag
Export CSV| Team | September | Budget used | Budget |
|---|---|---|---|
| Engineering | $11,420 | 82% | $14,000 |
| Customer support | $7,310 | 91%Alert sent | $8,000 |
| Marketing | $3,960 | 79% | $5,000 |
| Finance and operations | $2,483 | 83% | $3,000 |
| Total, all in | $25,173 | $30,000 |
Sample data for illustration.
How MRS works
You keep building. We run the routing, watch the market, and measure every dollar we save you.
- 1
Connect & Tag
Point your existing apps, agents, and coding tools at the Darcy Dispatch endpoint, and every request is tagged automatically by team, project, or client. Your Technical Account Manager handles the setup, so you can be live in an afternoon. - 2
Route
Auto reads each request and sends it to the Frontier or Swift tier that fits the task. Pin a workload to one tier when it needs one. - 3
Measure
Every request is compared automatically with what it would have cost on comparable models from Anthropic and OpenAI for the tier that served it, using the higher of the two. - 4
Save & Report
You keep most of the difference. Every request shows up tagged, priced, and reported within seconds, and finance gets monthly statements by tag. We earn a share only when we save you money.
Darcy Dispatch does the routing
Darcy Dispatch does the work you would otherwise staff, script, or skip. It’s the platform our team runs for you, and it powers the finance controls above and the routing below. You use Auto, which picks between two model tiers on every request, or pin a tier yourself. Behind the tiers, we run a changing roster of vetted models, so you get current capability without renegotiating vendor contracts.
Auto
The default. Escalates when the work gets hard, and steps back down when it doesn’t.
- Failed tool calls, errors to diagnose, and plans go to Frontier
- Settled, mechanical steps stay on Swift
- One hard turn never makes the whole session expensive
Frontier
For the hard problems: demanding reasoning, coding, and agentic work.
- Multi-step agents and tool use
- Complex code generation and review
- Analysis of long or technical documents
Swift
For everything else, which is most of it. Fast, at a fraction of the price.
- Classification and data extraction
- Summaries and drafting
- Chat and customer support replies
Each tier is served by one or more underlying models that Innovative selects and updates as the market moves. Every provider behind them meets our Provider Standards.
Savings statement
September| Workload | Baseline | Served by | Net saved |
|---|---|---|---|
| Support agent | Swift reference, higher of two | Swift | $13,244 |
| Code review | Frontier reference, higher of two | Frontier | $6,909 |
| Document extraction | Swift reference, higher of two | Swift | $4,674 |
Sample data for illustration.
Routing controls
Let Auto decide, pin a workload to Frontier or Swift, or turn tiers on or off for each team.
An always-current baseline
Savings are measured against the standard prices of comparable models from Anthropic and OpenAI, updated as they ship models and change prices. Never a promotional price, and never a stale one.
One endpoint, many models
No separate vendor accounts, keys, or contracts to manage as models change.
Fewer tokens for the same work
See what each agent turn spends tokens on, get fixes like RTK or Headroom ranked by what they save, and see the savings measured once they’re in.
Works with the tools your teams already use
Bring your team’s tools. We’ll bring the router, the ledger, and the guardrails. Any tool that lets you set a custom API base URL can send its traffic through one Darcy Dispatch endpoint and credential, so you cut the cost of the coding assistants, agents, and apps your teams already rely on, and every request lands in the ledger for finance.
- Open Cursor Settings, choose Models, and expand API Keys.
- Turn on OpenAI API Key and paste your Dispatch key. Turn on Override OpenAI Base URL and enter your Dispatch Endpoint.
- Add the Auto, Frontier, and Swift model IDs as custom models, verify the key, and pick a Dispatch model in the chat model picker. Choose darcy-auto to let Dispatch pick the tier for each request.
Override OpenAI Base URL https://<your-dispatch-endpoint>/v1
OpenAI API Key <your-dispatch-key>
Custom models darcy-auto
darcy-frontier
darcy-swiftChat routes through Darcy Dispatch. Cursor's own features, such as Tab completion and some agent features, keep running on Cursor's models.
- Set the Dispatch Endpoint and your Dispatch key as environment variables, or put them in the env block of Claude Code's settings file to roll out to a whole team.
- Choose the Dispatch model Claude Code should use by default. darcy-auto lets Dispatch pick the tier for each request.
- Start Claude Code and run /status to confirm requests are going to your Dispatch Endpoint.
export ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL="https://<your-dispatch-endpoint>"
export ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN="<your-dispatch-key>"
export ANTHROPIC_MODEL="darcy-auto"
claudeUsing a settings file instead of shell variables keeps the configuration in place for every terminal and editor session.
- Update VS Code to version 1.122 or later. On Copilot Business or Enterprise, an administrator enables Bring Your Own Language Model Key in your Copilot policy settings.
- Run Chat: Manage Language Models, add a Custom Endpoint provider, and enter your Dispatch Endpoint and key.
- Add the Auto, Frontier, and Swift model IDs, then select a Dispatch model in the Copilot Chat model picker.
Provider Custom Endpoint
Endpoint https://<your-dispatch-endpoint>/v1
API key <your-dispatch-key>
Models darcy-auto
darcy-frontier
darcy-swiftCopilot Chat, agent mode, and tool calls route through Darcy Dispatch. Inline code suggestions stay on GitHub's models.
- Add a Darcy Dispatch provider to ~/.codex/config.toml and make it the default.
- Store your Dispatch key in the environment variable the provider names.
- Run codex in your project as usual.
model = "darcy-auto"
model_provider = "dispatch"
[model_providers.dispatch]
name = "Darcy Dispatch"
base_url = "https://<your-dispatch-endpoint>/v1"
env_key = "DISPATCH_API_KEY"
wire_api = "chat"Use a Codex profile if you want some projects on Dispatch and others on a different provider.
- Open the extension's settings and set API Provider to OpenAI Compatible.
- Enter your Dispatch Endpoint as the Base URL and paste your Dispatch key.
- Enter a Dispatch model ID. darcy-auto picks the tier for each request; pin darcy-frontier or darcy-swift when a workload needs one.
API Provider OpenAI Compatible
Base URL https://<your-dispatch-endpoint>/v1
API Key <your-dispatch-key>
Model ID darcy-autoThe same settings work in other OpenAI-compatible coding extensions, such as Continue.
- Point your existing OpenAI or Anthropic SDK client at your Dispatch Endpoint.
- Swap in your Dispatch key and a Dispatch model ID, such as darcy-auto.
- Ship. Your code, prompts, and tools stay the same.
import os
from openai import OpenAI
client = OpenAI(
base_url="https://<your-dispatch-endpoint>/v1",
api_key=os.environ["DISPATCH_API_KEY"],
default_headers={"X-Dispatch-Tags": "cost-center=support,client=acme"},
)
reply = client.chat.completions.create(
model="darcy-auto", # or pin "darcy-frontier" / "darcy-swift"
messages=[{"role": "user", "content": "Summarize this ticket."}],
)Also works with Continue, Zed, n8n, LibreChat, Open WebUI, LangChain, LlamaIndex, and any OpenAI-compatible client.
Dispatch tags every request automatically, so traffic from tools like Cursor and Copilot is attributed with no manual tagging. Your Technical Account Manager provides your Dispatch Endpoint, keys, and model IDs, and can help roll these settings out across your organization.
We only make money when we save you money
Our success is tied to yours. We earn a share of the savings we deliver against your baseline, and nothing else.
No platform fees, no seat licenses, and no setup charges. If routing doesn’t beat your baseline on a request, you pay only for the inference and we earn nothing on it.
One request, start to finish
1M input tokens and 100K output tokens at illustrative rates. The baseline is the higher of the Anthropic and OpenAI reference prices for the tier that served each part of the work.
- Everything you pay with MRS, inference and our fee included
- Yours to keep
That's 48% less on a single request. The savings come from sending the routine parts of the work to Swift. Across a month of real traffic, savings are typically 30–50%.
Customer story
Spinutech cut its AI inference spend by [40]%
Spinutech is a digital growth agency founded in Cedar Falls, Iowa, in 2000, with more than 160 team members serving clients across the country.
The challenge
Spinutech’s developers had settled on their preferred AI coding tools, while analysts, strategists, and account teams kept adopting a growing mix of AI services. Each tool came with its own API keys, vendor account, and billing relationship, so model spend was fragmented. That made it hard to see total spend, attribute usage to teams or client engagements, or set budget controls before money was spent. Getting premium models like OpenAI’s GPT family meant yet another account, set of keys, and invoice.
What changed
Spinutech pointed its AI tools, including Cursor and Claude Code, at Darcy Dispatch. Innovative’s team manages model selection and routing behind the scenes, so nothing changed in how Spinutech’s developers work. Spend is now tracked by team and by client engagement, which lets Spinutech attribute AI costs to client work.
The result
An estimated 40% reduction in overall AI spend, one bill and one dashboard, complete per-team and per-client usage visibility, and one-click access to OpenAI and other frontier models with zero developer disruption.
“MRS gave us one bill and one dashboard for all of our model usage. Our developers kept the tools they already liked, we gained simple access to OpenAI models, and our overall AI spend came down as a result. That made expanding AI across our client teams an easy conversation.”
Estimate your savings
See what typical savings of 30–50% could do to your AI budget this year.
What you pay model providers each month for API usage, including AI coding tools billed by usage.
Net of everything you pay with MRS. Results depend on your workload mix, and your TAM can model your actual usage.
- Monthly AI spend today
- $50,000
- Monthly cost with MRS, all in
- $30,000
- Annual AI budget today
- $600,000
- Annual AI budget with MRS
- $360,000
Your savings depend mostly on how much of your traffic is routine. Illustrative only. Actual savings depend on your workloads, routing choices, and the published rates in effect for each request, and are not guaranteed. An optional 12-month commitment raises your net savings. Your pricing is set on your order form.
Run by people who know your workloads
- Setup and configurationWorkloads and credentials, plus help pointing your tools at Darcy Dispatch.
- Routing tuned for savingsOngoing adjustments as your traffic and the model market change.
- Monthly savings and forecast reviewsA walkthrough of your statements, spend by tag, projected consumption and credit needs, and the efficiency fixes worth installing next, ready for your budget cycle.
- A real person to callYour first stop for support, Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Eastern.
- No training on your dataProviders are barred from using your prompts or outputs to train or improve any model.
- Compliance guardrailsPersonal data and secrets, such as email addresses and card numbers, are caught before any model sees them, then redacted or blocked according to each guardrail. Every catch is recorded in the audit log.
- U.S.-only processing, your choiceTurn it on for your account in Darcy Dispatch anytime, and your content is processed and stored only in U.S. data centers. U.S.-only routing costs more, so your savings will be somewhat lower while it’s on.
- Zero Data Retention on every tierEnforced on every request by default, not a setting you remember to turn on. Providers store none of your prompts or completions.
- Independent security attestationSOC 2 Type II, ISO/IEC 27001, or an equivalent for every provider service we use.
- Restricted-party screeningNo sanctioned providers, and none based in or controlled from countries of concern.
Simple, prepaid, predictable
No invoices and no surprise overages. Prepay for inference with credits, or bring your own provider keys, and pay our fee only on the savings we deliver.
Prepaid credits
Start with an initial credit purchase sized to your usage. Each request draws down your balance, and you’re never invoiced for usage beyond your credits.
Automatic recharge
When your balance falls to your recharge threshold, your card or ACH account is charged so service keeps running. You set the threshold and amount in Darcy Dispatch.
We earn only when you save
Our only managed-service fee is a share of the savings we deliver, charged monthly. Inference is billed at the published rate of the tier that serves each request.
Commit more, keep more
No minimum term or monthly purchase is required. A 12-month commitment, with a minimum monthly credits purchase charged on the 1st of each month and added to your balance, earns a bigger share of your savings. Recharges during the month are additional. Without a commitment, it’s month to month and you can stop anytime, no notice needed.
Credits that stay active
Credits stay good while your account is active, for up to three years. They expire after 30 days with no usage or no valid payment method on file.
Bring your own keys
Already have model provider accounts? Add your own keys and pay your providers directly. We charge only our share of the savings, and you can switch back anytime.
Questions, answered
Which models will my requests use?
You use Darcy Auto, which picks Frontier or Swift for each request, or you pin Frontier or Swift directly. Behind each tier, Innovative runs one or more vetted third-party models and changes them as better or cheaper options appear. We don’t publish the roster, but every provider meets our Provider Standards.
How do you measure my savings?
Automatically, with nothing for you to choose. For each tier, we designate one comparable model from each of Anthropic and OpenAI, chosen by capability rather than by name. For every request, we calculate what it would have cost at each model’s standard published prices and use the higher of the two as your baseline. Input, cached input, and output tokens are each priced at the model’s standard rate for that type, and promotional and batch prices are never used. Every request is priced and recorded the moment it’s made, so later price changes never rewrite your history. Because routing can send requests to different models, you may see fewer cache hits than with a single provider, and savings are always calculated on the caching you actually got. Darcy Dispatch shows the current reference models, their prices, and exactly how every savings figure is calculated.
How does Dispatch decide which model handles a request?
Auto judges every request on its own. Hard work, such as a failed tool call, an error to diagnose, or a plan to make, goes to Frontier. Settled, mechanical steps stay on Swift. Behind each tier, our team picks the best price for performance from commercial models, open-weight models, and spare GPU capacity, all held to our Provider Standards.
Will cheaper models hurt the quality of our work?
They shouldn’t. A new model joins a tier only if it matches what that tier serves today, at a better price, after it’s scored on independent intelligence, coding, and agentic benchmarks and tested on real agent workloads. Auto escalates the moment a task gets difficult, you can pin any workload to Frontier, and admins can turn tiers on or off for each team.
What happens when a new model comes out?
Our team scores it on independent benchmarks, tests it on real agent workloads, and verifies its terms. It joins a tier only if it matches what that tier serves today, at a better price, and we send you a short review of what it means for your organization. If it’s a new Anthropic or OpenAI model, it can replace that lab’s reference model in your savings benchmark right away.
What if routing doesn’t save money on a request?
Then there’s no fee on that request. You pay only for the inference at Darcy Dispatch published rates.
Can we bill AI costs back to departments or clients?
Yes. Darcy Dispatch tags every request automatically by team, project, or client. You can break spend and savings down by person, team, tier, tag, or client over any window and export it to CSV for your ERP or billing system, for internal chargeback or client invoicing.
How do tags get onto requests?
Automatically. Dispatch inspects each request as it arrives and tags it from its key, its guardrail, and the request itself, including requests from tools like Cursor and Copilot. Teams inherit tags from their guardrail, and when a shared tool or agent works across clients or projects, Dispatch classifies each request to decide which one it belongs to. Nobody tags anything by hand, and your own apps can add tags to individual requests as well.
Can we set budgets and forecast AI spend?
Yes. Darcy Dispatch lets you set monthly budgets by person or team. The owner is notified as spend approaches the cap, and requests stop when it is reached. Dispatch also shows run rate, projected month-end spend, and credit runway. Your TAM reviews the forecast with you every month.
Can I control where my requests go?
Yes. Auto picks the tier for each request by default, and you can pin a workload to Frontier or Swift when it needs one. Admins can also turn tiers on or off for each team. Pinning can reduce savings, and your TAM will walk you through the tradeoff.
What is a guardrail?
A guardrail is a policy assigned to a key or team. It catches personal data and secrets before any model sees them and redacts or blocks them, and it carries the tags that team’s requests inherit. Every catch is recorded in the audit log.
Is my data used to train models?
No. Innovative doesn’t train on your content, and we only route to Zero Data Retention endpoints at providers that are barred from training on it. Providers store none of your prompts or completions. If you bring your own provider keys, your agreements with those providers govern instead.
Can we keep all processing in the U.S.?
Yes. Turn on U.S.-only processing in Darcy Dispatch, and every request is processed and stored in U.S. data centers. You can turn it on or off anytime. Because U.S.-only routing narrows our options, you’ll save less while it’s on. Darcy Dispatch itself, and all your records, always stay in the U.S.
Do we have to commit to a minimum term or a minimum monthly credits purchase?
No. Commitments are optional, and you can start without one. A 12-month commitment with a minimum monthly credits purchase earns better pricing, so you keep more of the savings Dispatch delivers. Your TAM can model the options against your usage before you decide. Without a commitment, you can stop using the service whenever you like, with no notice. Unused Credits simply expire.
Can we use our own model provider keys?
Yes, with or without a commitment, for some or all of your requests. Add your keys in Darcy Dispatch. Requests through your keys use no credits, you pay your providers directly, and we charge only our share of the savings we calculate, monthly. Your agreements with those providers govern how they handle your data. You can switch between your own keys and our inference anytime.
What happens if my credits run out?
Service pauses until you add credits. Automatic recharge prevents that for production traffic, and you’re never invoiced for usage beyond your balance.
Do Darcy Dispatch rates change?
Yes, at any time, because model prices move constantly. Darcy Dispatch always shows the current rates and the current baseline, and calculates your savings on every request against today’s prices, so you never have to wait for a notice to know where you stand.
Who can use MRS?
U.S.-based businesses whose users are 18 or older and located in the United States. MRS is not available for use from, or for personal data of people in, the EU, the UK, Switzerland, Australia, or sanctioned countries. MRS is governed by the Innovative MRS Terms, our Standard Terms, and the Darcy Dispatch Account Terms, Data Processing Addendum, and Acceptable Use Policy.
Stop guessing which model to pay for.
Share a month of AI invoices or usage. We’ll show you what you would save and how your spend breaks down by team, with no obligation.