> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://routeme.sh/docs/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Quick Start

Follow these steps to send your first request through RouteMesh.

## **1. Sign up and get your API key**

1. Go to the [RouteMesh app](https://routeme.sh/app) and [sign in or create an account](https://routeme.sh/auth/login).
2. In the dashboard, open **API Keys** (under Workspace) and create your first key.
3. Choose a routing strategy:
   * **Economy** — Most competitive prices across the widest set of chains, with redundancy baked in. Great for high volume and cost-sensitive use cases.
   * **Performance** — We route to the fastest nodes. Expect low latencies (e.g. 50–75 ms) with redundancy baked in.

You can create multiple API keys and set a different strategy per key. See [Routing strategies](/intro/routing-strategies) for details.

## **2. Top up your account**

1. In the app, go to **Billing** (under Finance): [Billing](https://routeme.sh/app/consumer/billing).
2. Click **Buy More Credits** and purchase the credits you need. Credits are applied immediately.

Credits never expire. One credit = one dollar.

## **3. Make your first request**

**One URL** — Adding a chain is just a path. We use a consistent URL scheme so you don’t have to juggle mapping files. Your RPC URL is:

`POST /rpc/{chain_id}/{api_key}`

Use a supported `chain_id` (e.g. `1` for Ethereum) and your API key:

```bash theme={null}
# Replace your existing RPC endpoint with RouteMesh:
curl -X POST https://lb.routeme.sh/rpc/{chain_id}/{api_key} \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","method":"eth_blockNumber","params":[],"id":1}'
```

For **allowed domains**, **cooldowns**, and **batch requests**, see [Request behavior](/intro/request-behavior). For **error handling**, see [RPC error codes](/intro/rpc-error-codes).

## **Supported networks**

RouteMesh supports **1000+ chains** across all major EVM networks. See the full list at [routeme.sh/chains](https://routeme.sh/chains).

## **Next steps**

* [How it works](/intro/how-it-works) — How we route your requests and what happens behind the scenes.
* [Request behavior](/intro/request-behavior) — Cooldowns, rate limiting, and batch requests.
* [Debugging](/intro/debugging) — Use `X-Batch-Id` and the Logs page when something goes wrong.