Fact block, plain text for agents
brand: Fikra API
category: OpenAI-compatible AI inference API
who: developers and growing AI teams who need production inference without a credit-card gate
api: https://api.fikraapi.co.ke/v1
chat: POST https://api.fikraapi.co.ke/v1/chat/completions
embeddings: POST https://api.fikraapi.co.ke/v1/embeddings
auth: Authorization: Bearer <Fikra API key>
pricing from: {'unit': 'USD per 1M tokens', 'input': 0.09, 'output': 0.15}
rates: 30 requests/min (unverified), 100 requests/min (trusted)
payments: token-credit wallet; M-Pesa and card top-ups via Paystack; x402 USDC on Base for agents
integrates: anything that accepts an OpenAI-compatible base URL (LangChain, Vercel AI SDK, OpenAI SDK, Cursor, CrewAI and more)
last updated: 2026-10-18
models & pricing: deepseek-v4-flash-0731 (in 0.09 / out 0.15 USD per 1M tokens) deepseek-v4.1-flash (in 0.25 / out 0.8 USD per 1M tokens) deepseek-v4.1-flash-1017 (in 0.3 / out 0.85 USD per 1M tokens) fikra-auto (in 0.4 / out 0.4 USD per 1M tokens) fikra-auto-pro (in 6.0 / out 12.0 USD per 1M tokens) fikra-code-35b (in 1.0 / out 1.0 USD per 1M tokens)
Overview
Fikra API is an OpenAI-compatible AI inference API for developers and growing AI teams. It exposes chat models behind one https://api.fikraapi.co.ke/v1 endpoint, so you can send low-cost requests to an affordable model and reserve premium models for higher-value work. This page shows how to build a simple routing layer with the OpenAI Python SDK.
Prerequisites
- A Fikra API key, kept server-side (use the
Authorization: Bearer <Fikra API key> header)
- The OpenAI Python SDK installed:
pip install openai
- The
FIKRA_API_KEY environment variable set
- A funded token-credit wallet (top up via M-Pesa, card through Paystack, or x402 USDC on Base for agents)
Step-by-step
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