Models & Marketplace

Nodal provides an OpenRouter-style marketplace, meaning you aren't locked into a single AI provider. You can switch between models built by OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and open-source communities seamlessly.

Choosing a Model

In the Nodal chat interface, you will see a dropdown menu at the top of every session. This is the Model Selector.

When you start a new conversation or branch an existing one, you can choose which model will respond. The selector displays:

• The model name (e.g., GPT-4o, Claude 3.5 Sonnet, Llama 3 70B)
• The provider logo
• Pricing information (cost per 1k input/output tokens)
• Supported capabilities (like vision, tools, or extended context length)

Pricing & The Prepaid Wallet

Nodal handles all the complex billing across different AI providers for you. You don't need an API key from OpenAI or Anthropic.

Instead, Nodal uses a centralized prepaid wallet:

1. You load funds into your Nodal workspace.
2. Every time you send a message, Nodal calculates the cost based on the exact model you selected.
3. Funds are deducted from your wallet based on actual token usage.

This transparent pricing means you can use an expensive reasoning model for complex tasks and seamlessly switch to a cheap, fast model for simple edits, paying exactly for what you use.

Model Aliases

To make it easy to interact with models—especially if you are using the Developer API—Nodal supports Model Aliases.

Instead of hardcoding a specific provider's model string (like gpt-4o-2024-05-13), you can use an alias like Smart or Fast. Nodal will automatically route your request to the best enabled model that fits that category.

Capabilities

Different models have different strengths. The Nodal interface will guide you based on model capabilities:

• Vision: If you upload an image to a model that does not support vision, Nodal will warn you and prompt you to switch to a capable model (like GPT-4o or Claude 3.5 Sonnet).
• Tools/Functions: Some models excel at using tools (like Web Search or retrieving data from your Knowledge Collections). Nodal intelligently routes tool calls only to models that support them.
• Context Length: If your chat history or attached documents exceed a model's context window, you will need to switch to a model with a larger context window (like Claude 3.5 Sonnet or GPT-4o).

Developer APIs

If you are using Nodal programmatically via the API Gateway, you can fetch the available models using:

• GET /v1/models: OpenAI-compatible model list for API key users.
• GET /api/models: Public model and pricing catalog.