HopBaseEnterprise LLM API procurement works best in three stages: verify, trial, then pay. Buyers and finance should verify five things about a provider: model fidelity, data handling, audit trail, billing you can reproduce line by line, and automatic failover. Then run one to two weeks of real workload on a small, capped key and score it against acceptance criteria written in advance. On payment, HopBase accepts Alipay, WeChat Pay and Visa/Mastercard, bills pay-as-you-go in USD, and a prepaid balance does not expire while the account is in good standing. For corporate bank transfer, invoices or enterprise settlement, contact the HopBase team at sales@hop-base.com. Below is a checklist you can copy into your procurement file.
Write down three things before you shop
- Models and protocols. For example: engineering wants Claude for code, support wants GPT or a Chinese model for Q&A, marketing needs image and video models. HopBase offers an OpenAI-compatible API (base URL
https://api.hop-base.com/v1) and the Anthropic Messages API (base URLhttps://api.hop-base.com, without /v1), covering Claude, GPT, Gemini, DeepSeek, Qwen, GLM, Kimi, Doubao, Hunyuan and Grok, plus image and video models such as Seedance, Kling and Hailuo. - Expected usage and users. How many departments and people, and whether any automated services run 24/7. This tells you whether you need department budgets and separate keys.
- Data and compliance needs. What data may be sent to a model, whether you need audit records, and what reconciliation material finance expects.
The AI API vendor evaluation checklist
| Area | What to verify | How to test it | How HopBase handles it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Model fidelity | You get the model you pay for, not a cheaper substitute | Fixed prompts, context-length probes, tool-calling tests | Method in how to verify your LLM API provider; rerun it yourself |
| Data handling | Whether prompts and outputs are stored or used for training; encryption in transit | Read the written policy; ask which metadata is kept | Prompts and outputs are used only to complete the request, not kept as business data and not used for training; billing metadata is kept for invoices and audit; TLS end to end |
| Audit trail | Who changed members, budgets, permissions and keys, and when | Make a few changes during the trial, then look them up | Org changes, member changes, budget and permission changes and key operations are all logged and searchable by time and object |
| Billing reproducibility | Every charge can be recomputed from public list prices | Export line items and recompute a sample | Billed at each vendor's official list price × group discount; every CSV row satisfies official cost × discount ÷ exchange rate = charged amount; failed requests are not billed |
| Failover | Whether one failure takes your requests down | Watch error rate and latency under real traffic | Each request is served by one of the key's groups, backed by pooled redundant capacity with automatic failover; no fixed RPM is published, so measure with your load |
| Access and keys | Limits on models, spend and IPs per project; instant shutoff | Create a restricted key and try to exceed it | Each key holds 1 to 10 groups and can have a cap, expiry, IP list and concurrency limit; disable or revoke any time; only a one-way hash is stored |
For security details such as key rotation, least privilege and log scope, work through the enterprise AI API security checklist.
Payment: prepaid USD balance or an enterprise quote
HopBase accepts Alipay, WeChat Pay, Visa/Mastercard and similar methods, billed pay-as-you-go in USD. A prepaid balance does not expire while the account is in good standing. The AI API payment methods guide compares them.
| Prepaid USD balance | Enterprise quote | |
|---|---|---|
| Best for | Trials, usage still being discovered, starting today | Steady usage, enterprise pricing or corporate settlement |
| Getting started | Sign up, top up, call the API | Talk to the HopBase team about your needs first |
| Pricing | Group discounts on the pricing page (hop-base.com/pricing) | Quoted separately by the sales team |
| Payment | Alipay, WeChat Pay, card | Bank transfer and other options: confirm with sales@hop-base.com |
A common path is to run the trial and acceptance on a prepaid balance, then discuss an enterprise quote once real usage is known, rather than committing before the workload has been tested.
Invoices and corporate transfer
For corporate bank transfer, invoices or enterprise settlement, contact the HopBase team at sales@hop-base.com. What can be arranged is whatever the team confirms in writing. Include these details to speed things up:
- Company name and procurement contact;
- Models you plan to use and expected monthly usage;
- Requirements from your finance process, such as the reconciliation records you need.
Whatever the payment method, the usage page exports a CSV filtered by date, key, member, department or key creator (up to 50,000 rows and 400 days per file), which works directly as line-item detail for internal reconciliation and chargeback.
Trial plan: two weeks of real workload
- Open an enterprise account. Create one or two departments, add the trial members and set department budgets.
- Issue small keys. One key per use case, each with a cap and expiry and only the groups it needs. Call
GET /v1/modelsto confirm which models it can reach. - Use real work. Route a slice of production traffic or a real batch of tasks. Demo prompts prove little.
- Run the fidelity checks on each main model and keep the results.
- Hit the limits on purpose. Exhaust one key's cap and confirm requests return 402 insufficient_quota before processing. Disable a key and confirm it takes effect immediately.
- Reconcile. Export the CSV at the end, recompute 20 sample rows with the formula, match them to the balance change, and check the audit log shows every change you made.
Acceptance criteria for your procurement record
| Item | Pass condition |
|---|---|
| Model fidelity | Checks on the main models match official behavior |
| Business quality | Output on real tasks meets your internal review bar |
| Stability | Error rate and latency during the trial stay within thresholds you set for your business |
| Budgets and access | Over-limit returns 402, restricted keys cannot reach unauthorized models, disabling is instant |
| Billing | All sampled rows recompute exactly; failed requests were not billed |
| Audit | Every member, budget and key change from the trial can be found |
| Payment | Payment method chosen; any transfer or invoice needs confirmed in writing with the HopBase team |
Set the stability threshold from your own business needs, not from a percentage in a vendor brochure. Measured trial data is the evidence that counts.
FAQ
How does a company buy Claude and GPT API access?
Create a HopBase enterprise account, top up a USD balance with Alipay, WeChat Pay or card, and create a key. Use the OpenAI-compatible base URL https://api.hop-base.com/v1 for GPT and other models, and the Anthropic Messages base URL https://api.hop-base.com for Claude. For corporate bank transfer, contact sales@hop-base.com.
Can we pay for an LLM API by bank transfer and get an invoice?
For corporate transfer, invoices or enterprise settlement, contact the HopBase team at sales@hop-base.com; their written reply is what applies. You can start the trial on a prepaid balance and change payment method later.
What belongs on an enterprise LLM API procurement checklist?
At minimum: model fidelity, data handling, audit trail, line-by-line billing reproducibility and automatic failover. Verify each one with your own data during the trial, not only from documentation.
Ready to start a trial? Create a HopBase enterprise account and issue a small capped key for real work.