How Cat runs
Cat is an AI agent, and something has to pay for the thinking. There are four ways, you can mix them, and none of them is hidden from you.
Cat works the moment you sign up, free, with nothing to set up. Everything below is optional power. OrangeCat earns from activity on the platform — not from marking up your AI bill — which is why two of these four routes send us no money at all and we still wired them.
The free pool
- What it costs
- Nothing. 10 messages a day, reset at midnight UTC.
- Where your words go
- Your messages go to OrangeCat's AI providers under OrangeCat's own accounts. We never sell them, and they are not training data for us — but they do leave your device.
- Good at
- Chat, drafting, asking what something means, trying Cat out with no setup at all.
- Bad at
- Long research, careful multi-step work, and anything needing a frontier model. The pool is shared by everyone, so it is also the route most likely to be busy.
Setup: None. It is already on.
Cat Credits
- What it costs
- provider cost + 40%, charged at the Bitcoin rate at the moment you spend. Top up over Lightning; no card, no subscription.
- Where your words go
- Same as the free pool — the request goes through OrangeCat's accounts. The difference is which model answers, not who carries the message.
- Good at
- Frontier models without opening accounts at four providers. Image generation. Paying for exactly what you use and nothing more.
- Bad at
- Predictable monthly budgeting — usage-priced means a heavy week costs more than a light one.
Setup: Top up once. Nothing to configure.
Your own API key
- What it costs
- Nothing to OrangeCat. Your provider bills you directly, at their price, with no markup from us.
- Where your words go
- Your messages go to the provider you chose, under your own account, governed by their terms — not ours. OrangeCat stores the key encrypted and never shows it again.
- Good at
- The best economics of any route, and the most control. If you already pay for an AI provider, this costs you nothing extra.
- Bad at
- Needing an account and a payment method with that provider first.
Setup: One key. OpenRouter, Together AI, Groq, Anthropic, OpenAI, xAI (Grok), DeepSeek are wired direct.
A model on your own machine
- What it costs
- Nothing but electricity. No account, no bill, no rate limit.
- Where your words go
- The strongest guarantee we can offer: the conversation never leaves your computer. Not to us, not to a provider, not to anyone.
- Good at
- Private drafting and thinking, offline work, and never being metered.
- Bad at
- Taking ACTIONS. Small local models are weak at tool calling, which is most of what makes Cat useful — it will chat well and then struggle to actually create the listing, send the message, or update the draft. It also does not work on a phone.
Setup: Ollama or LM Studio on the same machine as your browser, with OrangeCat allowed as an origin.
You can mix them
These are not four plans you pick between — they are four routes, and you can hold all of them at once. Most people stay on the free pool, add a key for the work that needs a better model, and never think about it again. Cat uses your own key when you have one and falls back to the free pool when you don't.