I've just found myself using OpenRouter if we need Google models for a project, it's worth the extra 5% just not to have to deal with the utter disaster that is their product offering.

FWIW I had to bail on the same thing because my results were drastically different. There was something happening with images through open router. Although outside of that I’d absolutely do the same thing, their apis are awful and billing worse. Maybe it makes sense for huge orgs but it’s a nightmare on the smaller scale.