Integrations · Your own proxy
When to use your own proxy
Run a thin service between your users and Pikeway. It authenticates your users, applies your prices and rules, and forwards approved calls to Pikeway with your key.
How it works
Your proxy exposes the same /v1/* (and optionally /gw/*) routes as Pikeway, so the Pikeway CLI, Skill, SDKs and your own agents work against it unchanged. Users authenticate with your credentials. The proxy checks them, decides whether the call is allowed, forwards it with your Pikeway key, and records the cost Pikeway reports so you can bill the user.
Who pays
You pay Pikeway from your balance. Your users pay you, on whatever terms you set: markup, credits, plans or free tiers.
Who owns the user
You, completely. Users sign in to your product, see your prices, and never need to know Pikeway exists.
Good fit
- SaaS products that resell API access with their own pricing, credits or subscription plans.
- Platforms that need per-user quotas, audit logs or compliance rules Pikeway doesn't know about.
- Products that expose a curated subset of the catalog: only certain providers or endpoints, maybe with fixed parameters.
- Enterprises that must route all outbound API traffic through their own gateway.
Pros and cons
Pros
- Full control over pricing and margin: charge per call, per token, per seat or bundle it.
- Your own auth: sessions, SSO, your existing API keys. No Pikeway account for users.
- Allow-list exactly which providers and endpoints users can reach, and inject or strip parameters.
- Exact reconciliation: every response carries
X-Pikeway-Call-IdandX-Pikeway-Cost, matching your Pikeway ledger line by line.
Cons
- Most work: you build, deploy, monitor and scale a service in the request path.
- You carry the cost and the credit risk: if a user doesn't pay you, you've still paid Pikeway.
- Extra latency from one more hop, and one more thing that can go down.
- You must keep up with the Pikeway API surface you expose (new fields, streaming, async runs).
Compared with the other approaches
| Direct | Sign in with Pikeway | Your own proxy | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Who pays Pikeway | You, from your balance | Each user, from their own balance | You; you bill your users however you like |
| Owns the user relationship | You. Users never see Pikeway | Shared. Users have a Pikeway account and approve your app | You. Users never see Pikeway |
| User needs a Pikeway account | No | Yes | No |
| Your own pricing | Bundle the cost into your product | No: users pay Pikeway list prices | Yes: markup, credits, plans |
| Spend controls | Per-key limits, agent keys, IP allowlist | User picks a limit at consent; revocable any time | Your own rules, plus key limits as a backstop |
| What you run | Nothing extra: call from your backend | An OAuth client and token storage | A proxy service you operate |
| Time to first call | Minutes | About an hour | A day or more |
Don't need custom pricing?
Direct gives you the same key controls with nothing to operate.
Don't want the cost risk?
Sign in with Pikeway makes each user pay from their own balance.
Start with Direct behind a single endpoint of your own, and grow it into a full proxy only when you need custom pricing or a wider allow-list.