How to Use

Step-by-step guide to using Swan 2.0 Inference Cloud as a consumer

This guide walks through using Swan Inference as a developer consuming AI models — starting with a no-signup trial, then creating an account, topping up, and making real API requests.

Looking to earn by providing GPU resources instead? See Become a Provider for the step-by-step setup guide.

0. Try it now — no signup

The fastest way to see Swan Inference in action: open the playground, pick a model, and send a message. No account, no API key, no credit card.

Playground — runs GLM 4.7 Flash for anonymous visitors, rate-limited per IP.

Ready for more? Sign up below to get an API key and start integrating.

1. Sign up and get your API key

Create a free account at inference.swanchain.io/signup — email and password only, no credit card required.

Sign up with email and password.

After signing up, navigate to Keys in the dashboard. Your API key (sk-swan-*) is generated automatically — copy it and keep it secret.

Your API key appears under Keys in the dashboard.

2. Top up credits

Inference requests are paid per token, deducted from your account balance in real time. Fund your account via Stripe (credit card) or crypto deposit (USDC / USDT / SWAN on multiple EVM chains).

• Stripe: instant processing, minimum deposit $5

• Crypto: per-user HD-derived deposit address shared across EVM chains, minimum $1

Add funds via Stripe card payment or crypto deposit.

20% bonus when depositing SWAN

Depositing SWAN tokens on Swan Mainnet credits your account with a 20% bonus on top of the USD value — $100 of SWAN becomes $120 of credits. Your account balance is a single USD-denominated pool regardless of how it was funded, so there's nothing special to toggle at request time; you simply get more credits per dollar when you deposit SWAN.

Combined with Swan's already-lower per-token pricing, the deposit bonus pushes effective rates roughly 50–66% below going direct to Anthropic or Google for comparable models. Flip the Pay with: SWAN toggle on the pricing page to see the effective rate across every model.

Flip the Pay-with toggle to SWAN to preview the effective rate after the 20% deposit bonus.

Usage is deducted from your balance per request. View balance, usage, and the transaction ledger under Billing in the dashboard.

3. Browse models

The Models page lists every available model with live pricing, context length, and provider count. Click any model for details and code examples.

Live models catalog.

The Pricing page compares SwanChain's rates side-by-side against Anthropic, Google, OpenRouter, and other providers for hero models — so you can see how prices stack up at a glance.

Pricing page with competitor comparison.

4. Make your first inference request

Swan Inference is fully OpenAI-compatible — any existing OpenAI SDK or integration works by changing two things: the base URL and the API key. The examples below use zai-org/GLM-4.7-Flash, one of the cheapest hero models at $0.05 input / $0.36 output per 1M tokens.

curl

curl https://inference.swanchain.io/v1/chat/completions \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer sk-swan-YOUR-KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "model": "zai-org/GLM-4.7-Flash",
    "messages": [{"role": "user", "content": "Say hello in 5 words."}]
  }'

OpenAI Python SDK

from openai import OpenAI

client = OpenAI(
    base_url="https://inference.swanchain.io/v1",
    api_key="sk-swan-YOUR-KEY",
)

response = client.chat.completions.create(
    model="zai-org/GLM-4.7-Flash",
    messages=[{"role": "user", "content": "Say hello in 5 words."}],
)
print(response.choices[0].message.content)

OpenAI Node.js SDK

import OpenAI from "openai";

const client = new OpenAI({
  baseURL: "https://inference.swanchain.io/v1",
  apiKey: "sk-swan-YOUR-KEY",
});

const response = await client.chat.completions.create({
  model: "zai-org/GLM-4.7-Flash",
  messages: [{ role: "user", content: "Say hello in 5 words." }],
});
console.log(response.choices[0].message.content);

Streaming, embeddings, image generation, and audio transcription all work identically to OpenAI. See OpenAI-Compatible API for the full endpoint list.

Next steps

• Inference Marketplace — deeper on how pricing, routing, and settlement work

• Become a Provider — want to earn by sharing GPU resources instead?

• API reference — full list of endpoints, parameters, and error codes

Questions? Reach the team on Discord or open an issue on GitHub.