# China API Proxy List: Relay Services Tested & Compared
## Why This Guide Exists: The Reality of Calling AI APIs From China
If you build AI applications on servers physically located in China, you already know the pain. Official endpoints from OpenAI, Anthropic, and other major providers are effectively unreachable from domestic infrastructure — not because of account or payment limitations, but because of raw network connectivity problems.
Many developers assume that once they secure an overseas account and a virtual credit card, API access becomes straightforward. That assumption rarely holds up. Even after solving account creation and payment, direct connections from China-based servers to official API endpoints suffer from extreme latency and frequent timeouts.
This is where **relay (or proxy) API services** come in. They act as intermediaries: you send requests to their domestic endpoint, and they forward those requests to the upstream model provider, returning the response along the same optimized path. For developers working in a China-based environment, a well-chosen relay API is often the best balance of cost, stability, and network reachability.
This guide covers a hands-on comparison of several major relay API services available in China, evaluated across three core metrics: **direct-connect latency from domestic servers**, **multi-model support**, and **billing transparency**. All testing was conducted over a standard BGP line at an IDC facility in Beijing.
> **Recency note:** API service performance, pricing, and availability change frequently. The latency figures and pricing observations below reflect conditions at the time of testing. Always run your own small-scale benchmarks before committing to any provider for production workloads.
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## Tested Relay API Services Available in China
### 1. API2D: Established and Stable, Suited for Enterprise Use
API2D is one of the most widely recognized relay services in China’s developer community. It was tested primarily with GPT-4o and Claude 3.5 Sonnet endpoints.
– **Measured latency:** Direct connection from domestic servers fluctuated between 180ms and 250ms. Cold starts were slightly slower, but long-text streaming transfers held up consistently well.
– **Integration cost:** Fully compatible with the OpenAI SDK. You only need to swap the `base_url` in your existing code to the relay endpoint — no other changes required.
– **Billing:** Supports RMB recharge via Alipay and WeChat Pay, so no foreign currency credit card is needed. Billing is token-based, at roughly 1.1 times the official model price.
– **Drawback:** During peak hours (approximately 8 PM–11 PM Beijing time), occasional rate-limiting occurs. For production environments, implementing a retry mechanism is strongly recommended.
### 2. OhMyGPT: Multi-Model Aggregation with Strong Latency
If your application needs more than just OpenAI models — for example, Meta’s Llama 3 or Google’s Gemini — OhMyGPT functions as a capable aggregation gateway. Concurrency testing was performed using a Python benchmark script.
– **Measured latency:** OhMyGPT operates multiple acceleration nodes within China. Testing on the Shanghai node showed latency compressed to under 90ms, which is a significant advantage for real-time voice-based AI conversation scenarios.
– **Payment and compatibility:** Like API2D, it supports native Alipay. A standout feature is its deep adaptation for popular development frameworks including LangChain and LlamaIndex.
– **Drawback:** The admin console is relatively bare-bones. If you need to pull detailed daily API consumption reports, the exported Excel format can be messy and may require custom script-based cleanup.
### 3. CloseAI (Unofficial Distribution): Maximum Cost Efficiency
To be clear: “CloseAI” here refers to a domestic technical team that distributes API access — it is **not** the official OpenAI service. Some independent developers informally call it the “budget official” option.
– **Measured latency:** Unstable, bouncing between 150ms and 400ms. It routes through specialized lines, and in some cases, daytime business hours were actually faster than late-night periods.
– **Core advantage:** Price. Rather than prorating official token prices, it offers direct monthly plans or low-cost metered billing. In testing, 100,000 calls to a GPT-4o-mini endpoint cost less than 30% of what the official API would charge.
– **Critical warning:** The stability of this kind of service depends entirely on its upstream channels. **Do not use it in core production environments.** It is best suited for testing environments, personal-use bots, or batch data-cleaning jobs. If your volume gets too high and triggers risk controls, your remaining balance could be lost.
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## Direct API Access vs. Relay API: A Practical Comparison
A common question is: if you already have a virtual credit card, why not simply subscribe to the official API directly? Here is the breakdown:
| Factor | Official API | Relay API |
|—|—|—|
| **Payment** | Requires 3D-verified credit cards and applies strict IP-based risk control, making account suspension common. | Direct QR-code payment (Alipay/WeChat), minimal account-ban risk. |
| **Network connectivity** | Domestic servers must route through a self-built overseas proxy (e.g., a Hong Kong or Japan VPS), adding operations overhead and at least 100ms of single-point latency. | Quality relay services include BGP network optimization. Direct connection works from domestic code. |
| **Billing granularity** | Pay-per-use. For high-frequency, low-volume-per-request applications, costs escalate quickly. | Some relay services offer flat-rate plans or deeply discounted metered billing. |
The takeaway: official APIs offer compliance and direct support, but the operational overhead from China is substantial. Relay services trade some of that official backing for dramatically easier payment, better connectivity, and flexible pricing.
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## Three Practical Tips for Choosing a Relay API Service
The two biggest risks with relay services are the provider disappearing (“running off”) and data leakage. Based on real-world experience, here are three hard rules:
### Tip 1: Start Small, Then Scale
No matter what a provider claims, begin by recharging a minimal amount — enough to run your complete business loop end-to-end. Write a concurrent benchmark script and verify whether the provider actually delivers the RPS (requests per second) they advertise. Many smaller services begin throwing 502 errors once concurrency exceeds roughly 50 simultaneous requests. Find that ceiling before you commit real volume.
### Tip 2: Desensitize Your Data
A relay service fundamentally forwards your requests to the upstream model provider. Do not blindly trust a provider’s “we don’t log” claim. If you are processing real customer order details, addresses, or phone numbers, always perform desensitization and encryption before the request leaves your system. For highly sensitive workloads, consider running an open-source model locally instead.
### Tip 3: Build Multi-Channel Failover
At the code level, abstract a unified API Router layer. For example, a production setup might route primary traffic to API2D, and if timeouts occur or the balance runs low, automatically fall back to OhMyGPT within roughly 300ms. This kind of graceful degradation ensures a single provider’s outage does not take down your entire application.
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## Summary: Matching the Right Tool to Your Stage
For independent developers or small teams just getting started with AI applications in China, the most practical path is to choose an aggregation relay API that supports Alipay and offers transparent pricing. This lets you validate your product quickly without the overhead of overseas accounts, VPS proxies, or foreign currency payments.
As your traffic grows and compliance becomes a priority, you can layer in official channels — for example, applying for a service like Azure OpenAI using a virtual credit card for an option with stronger official compliance backing.
The key is to match your infrastructure to your current stage. Choosing the right API delivery method early on can save significant trial-and-error costs as you scale.
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*Disclaimer: API relay services operate in a gray area of terms of service with upstream providers. Performance, pricing, and availability can change without notice. Always evaluate providers against your own requirements and risk tolerance before integrating them into production systems.*
