If you're a developer inside mainland China, you've probably hit this wall:

"We couldn't process your payment. Please provide a valid US billing address."

OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google only accept US / EU / HK / SG credit cards for their direct APIs. WeChat Pay and Alipay are not supported. That means tens of millions of Chinese developers can't access GPT-5.4 or Claude at all.

Here's how to solve it in 2 minutes.

The Solution: API Gateway with Chinese Payment Rails

AIPower is an OpenAI-compatible API gateway operated by a Hong Kong company (AI POWER LIMITED). Because the HK company accepts WeChat Pay (CNY / HKD) and Alipay (CNY / USD / HKD) through Stripe, you can top up in yuan and immediately call GPT-5.4, Claude, or Gemini.

The HK entity pays OpenAI / Anthropic / Google on your behalf using its US-dollar account. You just pay in yuan through WeChat or Alipay.

Step-by-step setup

1. Register (no phone number required)

Go to aipower.me/register. Email + password is enough — no Chinese phone, no SMS verification. You get 2 free trial API calls to verify the SDK works before spending money.

2. Top up via WeChat or Alipay

Dashboard → Billing. Pick your method:

WeChat Pay — CNY (¥36 ≈ $5) or HKD. QR code pops up directly in the page, scan with WeChat and pay. No Stripe Checkout confusion.
Alipay — CNY / USD / HKD. Redirects to Alipay app to confirm, then back to AIPower.
Credit card — USD only, standard Stripe Checkout. Use if you have a US / HK card.

First $5+ top-up gets +100 bonus free calls automatically, which unlocks Claude Opus 4.6, GPT-5.4, and Gemini 2.5 Pro for you.

3. Use the OpenAI SDK as usual

from openai import OpenAI

client = OpenAI(
    base_url="https://api.aipower.me/v1",  # ← only change
    api_key="sk-your-aipower-key",
)

# Call GPT-5.4 (paid by your CNY yuan balance)
response = client.chat.completions.create(
    model="openai/gpt-5.4",
    messages=[{"role": "user", "content": "Hello from China"}],
)
print(response.choices[0].message.content)

How the payment actually flows

[Chinese dev]
  ↓ pays ¥36 via WeChat Pay
[WeChat] → [Stripe China CNY account]
  ↓ auto-FX conversion
[Stripe USD balance for AI POWER LIMITED]
  ↓
[AIPower platform] credits your account $5 equivalent
  ↓ You call GPT-5.4
[AI POWER LIMITED] pays OpenAI in USD from its merchant account

The whole thing happens in under 2 seconds. You never see a dollar or a US credit card.

Cost in yuan (CNY)

Some example monthly costs for Chinese developers calling 1M tokens/day:

DeepSeek V3 (native price-through): ¥650/month ≈ $90
GPT-5.4 (with AIPower's CN tier): ¥32,400/month ≈ $4,500
Claude Opus 4.6 (with AIPower's CN tier): ¥72,000/month ≈ $10,000

For most Chinese SaaS apps, smart routing via model="auto-cheap" keeps 80% of traffic on Doubao / DeepSeek (near-native pricing) and sends only 5% to Claude Opus — cutting total spend by 90-95%.

Other payment methods we support

WeChat Pay (CNY, HKD)
Alipay 支付宝大陆版 (CNY, USD, HKD) — does not support AlipayHK; HK users please use card or WeChat Pay
Visa / Mastercard / Amex (USD) — for international users
Custom amount from $1 (no 0-35% bonus on custom amounts; fixed $5 / $20 / $50 / $100 / $500 tiers get 0-35% bonus based on size)

For Chinese companies: invoice / fapiao

Billing is done by AI POWER LIMITED (Hong Kong). Commercial receipts are provided automatically. For Chinese VAT fapiao (增值税发票) or bulk enterprise pricing, contact Frank on WeChat +86 177 1736 5886 or email enterprise@aipower.me.

Try now

Go to aipower.me. 2 free trial calls. Then ¥36 ≈ $5 via WeChat Pay → +100 bonus calls → full access to GPT-5.4 + Claude + Gemini + 13 Chinese models.

How to Pay for OpenAI & Claude APIs with WeChat Pay or Alipay (2026 Guide)