Penny-Pincher Provider

Curated list of affordable and free LLM API providers — coding-plan subscriptions and free-tier APIs. Maintained for developers who want capable models without premium pricing.

Contributions welcome — open a pull request or issue to add or update an entry.

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Claude AI Ecosystem

AgentKit

AgentKit (formerly ClaudeKit, claudekit.cc) sells production-ready kits of skills, slash commands, subagents, and workflows for coding agents — native support for Claude Code, Codex, Antigravity, Pi, and Oh My Pi; Cursor and DeepSeek Harness in beta; OpenCode, Grok, and GitHub Copilot in preview. Engineer ($99) covers frontend, backend, database, DevOps, code review, and debugging; Marketing ($99) adds research, SEO, competitor-intelligence, and copywriting agents; the bundle is $149 (108+ skills, 95+ commands, 45 subagents). The AgentKit App desktop cockpit (macOS/Windows) is sold separately at $49/yr (1 device) or $99/yr (3 devices).

Referral: 20% off your first purchase via https://agentkit.best/?ref=BWA910UK (code: BWA910UK).

Checked Sep 29, 2026.

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Providers with Coding Plans

Monthly subscriptions with a request, credit, or allowance quota instead of pure pay-per-token billing, compatible with Claude Code, Cursor, Cline, and similar tools.

Z.ai

GLM Coding Plan, credit-based since Jul 30, 2026. Lite $18 / Pro $80 / Max $168 per month (quarterly −20%, yearly −30%). Credits per 5 h / per week: Lite 2,000 / 10,000 · Pro 12,000 / 60,000 · Max 28,000 / 140,000; off-peak usage (outside Mon–Fri 14:00–18:00 UTC+8) costs 50% fewer credits.

Models: GLM-5.3, GLM-5.3-Flash (GLM-5.2/5.1 requests auto-route to GLM-5.3, GLM-4.7 to GLM-5.3-Flash). Includes Vision, Web Search, Web Reader, and Zread MCP. Endpoints: Anthropic https://api.z.ai/api/anthropic, OpenAI https://api.z.ai/api/coding/paas/v4. Tools: Claude Code, Cursor, Cline, Roo Code, Kilo Code, OpenCode, OpenClaw, Crush, Goose (supported tools only).

Referral: https://z.ai/subscribe?ic=PLKIAYEIPW

Checked Sep 29, 2026.

MiniMax

Token Plan — usage-based deduction from one shared quota (5-hour rolling + weekly windows). $22–$132/month.

• Plus ($22): 3-4 agents
• Max ($55): 4-5 agents
• Ultra ($132): 6-7 agents

Covers the full MiniMax lineup (M3 / M2.7 / image / speech); MiniMax H3 video, voice design, and rapid voice cloning are excluded. Top-up Credits: 1,000 credits = $1, valid 365 days. OpenAI- and Anthropic-compatible. Tools: Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, TRAE, Hermes Agent, OpenClaw, Pi.

Referral (10% off) — For Referred Users: 10% off subscription + become a dev ambassador. For Referrers: 10% back in API voucher per paid referral, usable across all MiniMax models, plus priority access to events and model previews. View details

Checked Sep 29, 2026.

Kimi Code

Moonshot's coding perk bundled with Kimi membership (desktop app, CLI, VS Code; Claude Code, OpenCode, Codex, Hermes Agent via API key). Plans: Go ¥49 (no Kimi Code), Plus ¥99, Pro ¥199, Max ¥699 per month; annual billing saves up to ¥1,680. Rolling 5-hour window plus a monthly total (weekly cap removed for new members).

Models: k3 (K3, up to 1M context on Pro+), k3-256k, kimi-for-coding (K2.8 Preview), kimi-for-coding-highspeed (K2.7 Code, Pro+). OpenAI- and Anthropic-compatible (https://api.kimi.ai/coding/). Pay-as-you-go also at platform.moonshot.ai.

Referral (code: C8CJ6F) — sign up or subscribe via my link and we each get a guaranteed benefit, up to 1-Year Membership Credits:

• Sign up: https://kimi-bot.com/activities/viral-referral/share?scenario=invite&from=share_poster&invitation_code=C8CJ6F
• Subscribe: https://kimi-bot.com/activities/viral-referral/share?scenario=subscribe&from=share_poster&invitation_code=C8CJ6F

Checked Sep 29, 2026.

Alibaba Cloud Model Studio

Referral: Up to $1,700 in free trial credits via https://www.alibabacloud.com/campaign/benefits?referral_code=A92LU5 (code: A92LU5).

Token Plan

Credit-based subscription (Singapore region only). Tools: Claude Code, Cursor, Qwen Code, Codex, Qoder, OpenClaw.

Personal Edition (monthly quota, limited-time prices):

• Lite: $6/month (list $8) — 11,500 Credits
• Essential: $10/month (list $16) — 25,500 Credits
• Standard: $18/month (list $25) — 45,000 Credits
• Pro: $68/month (list $80) — 180,000 Credits
• Extra bundle: $15 — 20,000 Credits (up to 5, needs an active plan)

Team Edition (per seat, no training on your data):

• Standard: $20/seat/month (list $30) — 25,000 Credits
• Pro: $75/seat/month (list $100) — 100,000 Credits
• Max: $200/seat/month — 250,000 Credits
• Shared quota pack: $700 — 625,000 Credits

Models (Personal): auto, qwen3.8-max, qwen3.8-flash, qwen3.7-max, qwen3.7-plus, qwen3.6-flash, deepseek-v4.1-flash, deepseek-v4-pro, glm-5.3, glm-5.2, plus image (qwen-image-3.0-pro, wan2.7-image/-pro), audio, and HappyHorse video. Team Edition adds kimi-k2.7-code/k2.6/k2.5, glm-5.1/5, MiniMax-M2.5, deepseek-v3.2.

Coding Plan

Pro plan: $50/month — 6,000 req/5-hour, 45,000 req/week, 90,000 req/month.

Models: qwen3.7-plus, qwen3.6-plus, kimi-k2.5, glm-5, MiniMax-M2.5 (recommended); qwen3.5-plus, qwen3-max-2026-01-23, qwen3-coder-next, qwen3-coder-plus, glm-4.7. Endpoints: OpenAI https://coding-intl.dashscope.aliyuncs.com/v1, Anthropic .../apps/anthropic. Tools: Claude Code, Cursor, Cline, Codex, OpenCode, Qwen Code, Qoder, Kilo CLI, OpenClaw, Hermes Agent, and more. Lite closed to new subscribers (Mar 20, 2026) and to renewals/upgrades (Apr 13, 2026).

Note: limited slots, restocked daily at 00:00 UTC+8 (first come, first served); Alibaba now recommends Token Plan instead. As of Jun 5, 2026 it was effectively unbuyable (purchase not re-tested Sep 2026).

Checked Sep 29, 2026.

opencode — Go

OpenCode subscription for curated open models. Go $10/month, Go Plus $40/month (higher limits). Limits are monthly dollar amounts per model (5-hour = 20%, weekly = 50% of the monthly limit); e.g. Go allows ~220 GLM-5.3 or ~3,200 MiniMax M3 requests per 5 h. Falls back to Zen balance when enabled.

Models: GLM-5.3/5.3-Flash/5.2, Kimi K3/K2.7 Code/K2.6, MiniMax M3/M2.7, Qwen3.8 Max/Flash, Qwen3.7 Plus, DeepSeek V4.1 Flash/V4 Pro/V4 Flash, MiMo-V2.6(-Pro/-Flash)/V2.5(-Pro), LongCat-2.0, Hy4 preview, Hy3, Grok 4.7/4.6, GPT 6 Luna/5.6 Luna, plus limited-time free models. Endpoints: https://opencode.ai/zen/go/v1/{chat/completions,messages,responses}. Claude Code works natively via the Anthropic endpoint; also validated with Codex, Hermes, ZCode, Pi, jcode, Kilo Code CLI. Model format: opencode-go/<model-id>.

Checked Sep 29, 2026.

Synthetic

Privacy-first inference (no training on prompts/responses). $30/month per pack ($1/day) — 500 requests/5 h, 1 concurrent request per model (buy more packs to raise both), or usage-based pay-per-token.

Models: Kimi-K3, DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash (beta), GLM-5.3-Flash, GLM-4.7-Flash, Qwen3.8-27B, gpt-oss-120b, NVIDIA Nemotron-3-Super-120B; nomic-embed-text-v1.5 embeddings included. OpenAI-compatible (https://api.synthetic.new/openai/v1) and Anthropic-compatible (https://api.synthetic.new/anthropic/v1) — guides for Claude Code, Crush, OpenCode, GitHub Copilot, OpenClaw, Xcode, Roo, KiloCode, Octofriend.

Referral: $10.00 in subscription credit via https://synthetic.new/?referral=CNBFyw28zF0dZoj

Checked Sep 29, 2026.

BytePlus ModelArk — Coding Plan

ByteDance. Lite: $10/month ($30/quarter), Pro: $50/month ($150/quarter). New-user first-purchase promo ($5/$25) suspended since Mar 17, 2026. Limits: Lite ~1,900 req/5 h, ~12,000/week, ~24,000/month; Pro 5× Lite (~9,500 / ~60,000 / ~120,000).

Models: Auto, Dola-Seed-2.0-Pro/Lite/Code, ByteDance-Seed-Code, GLM-5.3-Flash, GLM-5.2, GLM-5.1, Kimi-K2.5, DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash, DeepSeek-V4-Pro/Flash, GPT-OSS-120b. Endpoints: OpenAI https://ark.ap-southeast.bytepluses.com/api/coding/v3, Anthropic .../api/coding. Tools: Claude Code, Cursor, Cline, Codex, Roo Code, Kilo Code, OpenCode, OpenClaw, TraeCode, Hermes Agent.

Referral: https://www.byteplus.com/activity/codingplan?ac=MMAUCIS9NT1S&rc=2739UWRE — campaign (10% off first order) is scheduled to end Sep 30, 2026.

Checked Sep 29, 2026.

Volcengine Ark — Coding Plan

ByteDance's mainland-China sibling of the BytePlus plan (火山引擎方舟 Coding Plan), billed in CNY. Lite ¥40/month, Pro ¥200/month (per Volcengine's own articles; the live price widget advertises "limited-time from ¥9.9" and needs JavaScript). Lite ~1,200 req/5 h, 9,000/week, 18,000/month; Pro 5× Lite.

Models: DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash, GLM-5.3 series, Doubao-Seed-Evolving, Kimi-K3, Kimi-K2.8-Preview. Tools: Claude Code, Cursor, and others. Invite program: 5% voucher for the referrer, 5% off for the friend.

Source: https://www.volcengine.com/activity/codingplan, https://www.volcengine.com/article/37898

Checked Sep 29, 2026.

Atlas Cloud — Coding Plan

Third-party aggregator plan with full API access (rare among coding plans). Starter $10, Lite $20, Plus $50, Max $100 per month — 16.5M / 33M / 82.5M / 165M points per week.

Models: 18 LLMs incl. DeepSeek, GLM, Kimi, MiniMax. Tools: Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, OpenClaw.

Source: https://www.atlascloud.ai/coding-plan

Checked Sep 29, 2026.

NanoGPT

Pay-as-you-go gateway for every major model, plus an optional Pro subscription: $12/month — 60 million included input tokens per week on subscription models (web + API), and 5% off eligible paid text models.

Subscription models include GLM-5.3 / 5.3-Flash, Kimi K2.6 / K2.7 Code, MiniMax M3 / M2.7, DeepSeek V4 Flash / V4 Pro, MiMo-V2.5(-Pro), Qwen3.8-27B, Nemotron 3 Ultra. OpenAI-compatible at https://api.nano-gpt.com/api/v1 (also /messages and /responses); use https://api.nano-gpt.com/api/subscription/v1 to keep requests on the subscription only. Pay-as-you-go deposits start at $1 (card).

Source: https://nano-gpt.com/pricing, https://docs.nano-gpt.com/api-reference/endpoint/subscription-usage

Checked Sep 29, 2026.

Xiaomi MiMo Open Platform

I'm on Xiaomi MiMo Open Platform — running Xiaomi's flagship MiMo V2.6 and the rest of the lineup. Sign up with my code and you'll instantly get $2 in API credits.

After signup, enter the code at the bottom-left of the console. Credits valid 40 days.

Token Plan (monthly): Lite $6 / ¥39 (4.1B credits), Standard $16 / ¥99 (11B), Pro $50 / ¥329 (38B), Max $100 / ¥659 (82B). Annual plans 12% off; 12% off first Individual purchase; 0.8× consumption 00:00–08:00 Beijing time. Team Edition from $16/seat. Models: mimo-v2.6-pro, mimo-v2.6-flash, ASR/TTS (mimo-v2.5 and mimo-v2.5-pro retire Oct 21, 2026). Works with OpenCode, OpenClaw, Claude Code.

Referral: Code T8ESAY · https://platform.xiaomimimo.com?ref=T8ESAY

Checked Sep 29, 2026.

GitHub Copilot Pro

Cheapest mainstream coding seat. $10/month — unlimited code completions and next-edit suggestions, plus 1,500 GitHub AI Credits/month (1,000 base + 500 flex; 1 credit = $0.01) for chat, agent mode, code review, cloud agent, and CLI. Pro models include Claude Haiku 4.5, Sonnet 4.6/5/5.5, GPT-5.4/5.6 Luna/6 Luna, Gemini 3.x Flash, Grok 4.x, Kimi K3 — Opus/Fable and GPT-6 Sol/Astra need Pro+ or Max. Copilot Pro+ is $39/month (7,000 credits); Copilot Max is $100/month (20,000 credits). Extra usage billed at $0.01/credit.

Free tier: 2,000 completions/month plus a small AI-credit allowance, auto model selection only, no card. Free Copilot Student for verified students; free Pro for verified teachers and maintainers of popular open-source repos.

Tools: VS Code, JetBrains, Neovim, Xcode, Visual Studio, Copilot CLI, Copilot app, and the Copilot cloud agent on github.com.

Checked Sep 29, 2026.

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Free Providers

TokenRouter

Unified AI gateway (145 models listed) exposing OpenAI-, Anthropic- and Gemini-format APIs behind one key.

• Free model: nvidia/nemotron-3-nano-omni-30b-a3b-reasoning:free at $0/M input and output.
• Launch promos: TokenRouter runs short free windows on self-hosted launches (e.g. GLM 5.3 was free for all accounts, no card, until Sep 4, 2026). Watch the blog.
• API: OpenAI Chat Completions at https://api.tokenrouter.com/v1 with a TokenRouter API key.

Source: TokenRouter models

Checked Sep 29, 2026.

OrcaRouter

OpenAI-compatible gateway with access to 200+ models, automatic routing, and failover (also accepts Anthropic and Gemini formats).

Referral: https://www.orcarouter.ai/ref/ref_3976ba42abf37dc55c1d (code: ref_3976ba42abf37dc55c1d).

• Always-free models ($0): deepseek/deepseek-v4-flash-free, z-ai/glm-5.3-flash-free, tencent/hy4-preview-free, tencent/hy3-free, plus the orcarouter/free router. Requires a linked GitHub account with some history, or any paid purchase.
• Hy4 Deposit Match: 100% match on top-ups for tencent/hy4-preview (min $20 top-up, cap ≈$200 derived from API quota units), enroll by Oct 28, 2026.
• DeepSeek V4.1 Flash Deposit Match: 30% match (min $20 top-up, up to $100), enroll by Oct 2, 2026.
• GPT-6 Astra Deposit Match: 100% match for openai/gpt-6-astra (min $20, up to $100), card required, enroll by Oct 5, 2026.
• API: https://api.orcarouter.ai/v1.

Offers can change quickly; check the live offers page before claiming.

Checked Sep 29, 2026.

OpenRouter

Free models (:free suffix): 20 RPM, 50 req/day; 1,000 req/day once you have bought at least $10 in credits (all time). BYOK requests are not gated by the free-model cap.

Current free lineup includes NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra 550B / Super 120B / 3.5 Lightning, Google Gemma 4 (26B-A4B, 31B), Qwen3.8-27B, Poolside Laguna S/XS 2.1, Thinking Machines Inkling / Inkling Small, Cohere North Mini Code, plus the openrouter/free auto-router. OpenAI-compatible at https://openrouter.ai/api/v1.

Checked Sep 29, 2026.

NVIDIA NIM

Free prototyping endpoints for NVIDIA Developer Program members, no credit card. Rate-limited per model (commonly ~40 RPM per community reports); NVIDIA does not publish a fixed quota and does not raise free-tier limits on request.

Models: Kimi K3, Kimi K2.6, DeepSeek V4.1 Flash, GLM 5.3 / 5.3 Flash, Nemotron 3 Ultra / Super / 3.5 Lightning, GPT-OSS-20B, Gemma 4 31B, Mistral Large. OpenAI-compatible at https://integrate.api.nvidia.com/v1.

Warning: trial terms say use is logged and may be used to improve NVIDIA products — do not send personal or confidential data.

Checked Sep 29, 2026.

OpenCode Zen

Hand-picked free models that change periodically (each is "free for a limited time"). Optimized for coding agents.

Model	Model ID	Notes
Big Pickle	big-pickle	Stealth model; data may be used to improve it
Space Bunny Free	space-bunny-free	Stealth model; zero-retention provider
LongCat 2.5 Preview Free	longcat-2.5-preview-free	Zero-retention provider
MiMo-V2.6-Flash Free	mimo-v2.6-flash-free	Data may be used to improve the model
MiMo-V2.5 Free	mimo-v2.5-free	Data may be used to improve the model
Ling 3.0 Flash Fin Free	ling-3.0-flash-fin-free	Data may be used to improve the model
Nemotron 3 Ultra Free	nemotron-3-ultra-free	NVIDIA trial endpoint; logged
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning Free	nemotron-3.5-lightning-free	NVIDIA trial endpoint; logged
Muse Spark 1.3 Contributor Free	muse-spark-1.3-contributor-free	Prompts used to train Meta models

OpenAI-compatible at https://opencode.ai/zen/v1/chat/completions (plus /v1/responses); Anthropic-format models use https://opencode.ai/zen/v1/messages. Model format in opencode: opencode/<model-id>.

Checked Sep 29, 2026.

Google AI Studio

Google's developer platform for Gemini models. Free tier (no billing) with pay-as-you-go available.

Free-tier models: Gemini 3.8 / 3.7 / 3.6 / 3.5 Flash, Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite, Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite, Gemini 3 Flash Preview, plus Live/TTS variants and Gemma 4. Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview is paid-only. Gemini 2.5 models are now limited to projects that already used them.

Google no longer publishes a fixed free-tier table — limits are per project and shown in AI Studio. Third-party reports (Sep 2026): ~20 RPD on the 3.x Flash models, ~500 RPD on 3.5 / 3.1 Flash-Lite. RPD resets at midnight Pacific.

OpenAI-compatible endpoint: https://generativelanguage.googleapis.com/v1beta/openai/.

Warning: In the Free tier, Google may use your prompts and responses to improve their products. Use the Paid tier or Vertex AI for privacy.

Checked Sep 29, 2026.

Kilo Code — Gateway

VS Code + JetBrains coding extension (and CLI) with a built-in OpenAI-compatible gateway at https://api.kilo.ai/api/gateway. Kilo was acquired by Anaconda.

Free: :free models and the kilo-auto/free router, 200 req/hour per IP (anonymous or signed in). Current free models include Nemotron 3 Ultra / Super / 3.5 Lightning, Qwen3.8-27B, Laguna S/XS 2.1, Inkling Small, North Mini Code, and Step 3.7 Flash. BYOK supported with no Kilo markup. Kilo Pass ($19/$49/$199 per month) adds up to 50% bonus credits.

Warning: Auto Free may route to providers that log prompts and use them for training (including NVIDIA trial endpoints).

Checked Sep 29, 2026.

Cloudflare Workers AI

10,000 Neurons/day free on both Workers Free and Paid (resets 00:00 UTC). Roughly ~49K output tokens/day on Llama 3.3 70B or ~147K on GPT-OSS-120B.

Models: GPT-OSS 120B/20B, Kimi K2.5, Llama 3.3 70B, Llama 4 Scout, Gemma 4 26B, Qwen3.8-27B, Nemotron 3 120B, GLM-4.7-Flash, Mistral Small 3.1, BGE embeddings, Whisper. Kimi K2.6/K2.7-Code, GLM 5.x and DeepSeek V4 require Workers Paid or AI Gateway credits.

OpenAI-compatible at https://api.cloudflare.com/client/v4/accounts/<ACCOUNT_ID>/ai/v1.

Checked Sep 29, 2026.

DeepSeek Platform

New accounts are widely reported to get 5M free tokens (granted balance, ~30 days, phone verification) — verify in your console. OpenAI (https://api.deepseek.com) + Anthropic (https://api.deepseek.com/anthropic) compatible.

PAYG (off-peak / peak, per 1M tokens): deepseek-flash (V4.1 Flash) $0.15/$0.30 in, $0.60/$1.20 out; deepseek-v4-pro $0.66/$1.32 in, $1.98/$3.96 out. Off-peak is half price — everything outside 01:00–04:00 and 06:00–10:00 UTC on weekdays. 1M context.

Checked Sep 29, 2026.

Groq

LPU inference. Free plan (no card reported; not restated in current docs). OpenAI-compatible at https://api.groq.com/openai/v1.

Model	RPM	RPD	TPM	TPD
openai/gpt-oss-120b	30	1K	8K	200K
openai/gpt-oss-20b	30	1K	8K	200K
qwen/qwen3.8-27b	30	1K	8K	200K
whisper-large-v3 / -turbo	20	2K	—	7.2K audio-sec/hour

Llama 3.1 8B and Llama 3.3 70B are now Enterprise-only (contact sales).

Checked Sep 29, 2026.

Mistral Studio

Formerly "La Plateforme". Free plan (default for new accounts) includes $10/month in API credits, shared across Studio, the API, and Vibe Code; rate limits shown in the Admin Console. Enable pay-as-you-go to continue past the allowance. Pro ($14.99/month) includes $15/month in API credits (per the pricing page; verify).

Models (indicative): Mistral Medium 3.5, Mistral Large (2512), Mistral Small (2603), Devstral 2, Codestral, Ministral 3B/8B/14B, Voxtral, embeddings. OpenAI-compatible.

Warning: Model training on your data is opt-out, not opt-in.

Checked Sep 29, 2026.

Google Cloud Vertex AI

Now branded Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform (formerly Vertex AI).

Free Trial: $300 credit for 90 days (new GCP customers only; card verification). Not a recurring free tier. The $300 credit cannot pay for partner models offered as MaaS (e.g. Claude) or for Gemini API in AI Studio.

Express mode: @gmail.com accounts new to Google Cloud get a 90-day free tier with no billing info, within express-mode quotas, on the APIs that support express mode (Gemini models). Separate from the $300 Free Trial.

Models: Gemini 3.x (Pro / Flash / Flash-Lite); partner models (Claude and others) need a paid billing account.

Checked Sep 29, 2026.

Hugging Face Inference Providers

Router in front of 20 partners: Baseten, Cerebras, Cohere, DeepInfra, Fal AI, Featherless AI, Fireworks, Groq, HF Inference, Novita, Nscale, OVHcloud, Public AI, Replicate, Scaleway, Together, WaveSpeedAI, Z.ai and others. No markup over provider rates.

Free: $0.10/month in credits (subject to change). PRO ($9/month): $2.00/month in credits, usable across all HF compute. Pay-as-you-go beyond that requires buying credits.

OpenAI-compatible at https://router.huggingface.co/v1 (~130 chat models).

Checked Sep 29, 2026.

Cerebras Cloud

Wafer-scale chip inference. Free Trial only: $5 in credits after adding a verified payment method, expiring 30 days after grant. No permanently free tier. OpenAI-compatible at https://api.cerebras.ai/v1.

Model	RPM	Uncached TPM	TPD	Context (free)
gpt-oss-120b	5	30K	1M	65K
qwen-3.8-27b	5	30K	1M	64K

Total TPM (incl. cached) is 3x uncached (90K). Access stops when credits run out or expire until you buy credits.

Checked Sep 29, 2026.

Fireworks AI

$1 in free starter credits for serverless inference. Without a payment method (or without credits) the account is capped at 10 RPM; adding a payment method raises it up to 6,000 RPM.

Models: GLM 5.3 / 5.3 Flash, Kimi K3, DeepSeek V4 Flash, Qwen 3.8 27B and other open models. Function calling, MCP support.

OpenAI-compatible at https://api.fireworks.ai/inference/v1; Anthropic-compatible at https://api.fireworks.ai/inference (works with Claude Code).

Checked Sep 29, 2026.

Scaleway Generative APIs

EU/GDPR, Paris. Free tier for new customers: first 1,000,000 tokens plus 60 minutes of audio transcription (no time limit advertised). OpenAI-compatible at https://api.scaleway.ai/v1.

Models: GLM-5.2, DeepSeek V4 Flash, Qwen3.8-27B, Qwen3.5-397B, Qwen3.6-35B, Qwen3-235B, Qwen3-Coder-30B, Gemma 4 26B, Mistral Medium 3.5, Mistral Small 3.2, gpt-oss-120b, Llama 3.3 70B, Pixtral 12B, Whisper.

Checked Sep 29, 2026.

SambaNova Cloud

RDU (dataflow chip) inference. Free tier applies when no payment method is linked: 20 RPM, 20 requests/day, 200K tokens/day per model. Adding a card moves you to the Developer tier (pay-as-you-go, 60–240 RPM, 20M tokens/day across models). The $5 signup credit is no longer advertised, and the Plans page now says to add a payment method first — the two official pages disagree.

Free-tier models: DeepSeek-V3.1, DeepSeek-V3.2 (preview), Llama 3.3 70B, gpt-oss-120b, Gemma 4 31B (preview).

OpenAI-compatible and Anthropic-compatible at https://api.sambanova.ai/v1.

Source: https://docs.sambanova.ai/docs/en/models/rate-limits

Checked Sep 29, 2026.

Cohere

Trial API key, no credit card. 1,000 calls/month, 20 RPM per chat model (Rerank 10 RPM, Embed 2,000 inputs/min).

Models: Command A+, Command A Reasoning / Vision / Translate, Command A, Command R+, Command R, Command R7B, North Mini Code, Aya Expanse / Aya Vision, plus rerank and embeddings.

OpenAI-compatible at https://api.cohere.ai/compatibility/v1.

Warning: trial keys are not permitted for production or commercial use — production needs a production key (paid). New model variants (e.g. Command A Reasoning) stay at trial limits even on prod keys.

Checked Sep 29, 2026.

Vercel AI Gateway

Single endpoint routing to many providers, with failover and BYOK. OpenAI-compatible at https://ai-gateway.vercel.sh/v1; also Anthropic Messages, OpenResponses and Cohere-compatible APIs.

Free: a monthly included credit (reported as $5 / 30 days; does not roll over), starting with your first request. Requires a valid payment method on the team. Covers only free-tier-eligible models with lower per-model rate limits. Buying credits moves you to the paid tier permanently and the monthly free credit stops.

Source: https://vercel.com/docs/ai-gateway/pricing

Checked Sep 29, 2026.

Requesty

LLM gateway with routing, caching, spend controls and EU data residency. Works with Claude Code, Cline, Cursor, Roo.

Free: 200 req/day on the free-model catalogue. No credit card, no trial clock — same platform as pay-as-you-go (600+ models, +5% fee), just restricted to free models until you upgrade.

OpenAI-compatible at https://router.requesty.ai/v1; Claude Code via ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL=https://router.requesty.ai.

Source: https://www.requesty.ai/free-models, https://www.requesty.ai/pricing

Checked Sep 29, 2026.

SiliconFlow

Chinese multi-model inference platform, 200+ LLM/image/audio/video models. International site: https://www.siliconflow.com.

Free: a set of smaller open-source models is permanently ¥0 with fixed rate limits (chat models from 1,000 RPM / 50K TPM); the international site gives $1 starter credit.

Models (free, CN site): Qwen3-8B (128K), Qwen3.5-4B (256K), Qwen2.5-7B, GLM-4-9B-0414, GLM-Z1-9B-0414, DeepSeek-R1-0528-Qwen3-8B, Hunyuan-MT-7B, Xing4.0-29B, plus OCR, ASR and BGE embedding/rerank models.

OpenAI-compatible at https://api.siliconflow.cn/v1; Anthropic-compatible endpoint documented (Claude Code guide in docs).

Checked Sep 29, 2026.

ModelScope

Alibaba's model community (魔搭). API-Inference free for registered users.

Free: 2,000 req/day total, ≤500 req/day per model (some large models lower; figures from secondary sources — the official limits page needs JavaScript). Requires binding an Alibaba Cloud account with real-name verification. Quotas may be adjusted at any time.

Models: ~35 API-Inference models, incl. DeepSeek V4 Pro / V4.1 Flash, Qwen3.5 / Qwen3.8, GLM-5.2, GLM-4.7-Flash, MiniMax-M3, Step-3.7-Flash, LongCat-Flash-Lite, Intern-S1.

OpenAI-compatible at https://api-inference.modelscope.cn/v1; Anthropic-compatible at https://api-inference.modelscope.cn (/v1/messages).

Checked Sep 29, 2026.

Ollama Cloud

Hosted counterpart to the local ollama CLI — same commands and API, models run on Ollama's GPUs. Prompts are not used for training.

Free: a starter amount of usage credits each month (exact amount unpublished) on a smaller set of starter models, 1 concurrent request, no credit card. Buying pay-as-you-go credits unlocks all cloud models. Session/weekly caps were removed on Aug 31, 2026.

Models: DeepSeek V4, GLM-5.3, Kimi K3 / K2.7 Code, MiniMax M3, gpt-oss, Gemma 4, Nemotron 3, Mistral Large 3 (paid rates published per model).

OpenAI-compatible at https://ollama.com/v1; Anthropic-compatible at https://ollama.com/v1/messages.

Checked Sep 29, 2026.

SenseNova Token Plan

SenseTime (商汤). Public beta — Free tier ¥0/month, phone-number signup, no card. OpenAI-compatible at https://token.sensenova.cn/v1 plus an Anthropic-compatible endpoint.

Limits: 60,000 credits / 5 h (special models excepted). Up to 20 API keys.

Models: SenseNova 6.8 Flash Lite (multimodal agent model) and SenseNova U1 Fast. Third-party models (DeepSeek, GLM, Kimi) have been reported at 0 credits but are not listed on the official plan page.

Warning: SenseTime says paid Lite/Pro tiers are "coming soon" with no end date for the free beta — don't build production on it.

Source: https://www.sensenova.cn/token-plan

Checked Sep 29, 2026.

AMD Token Factory (Radeon Cloud)

AMD's official inference platform on Radeon GPUs. Free shared endpoints after sign-in; usage is metered in "points" against a daily allowance (reported as ~$10-equivalent/day, resets daily — not stated on the public page). OpenAI-compatible at https://developer.amd.com.cn/radeon/api/v1.

Free models: DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash, DeepSeek-V4-Flash (+ Vision-Exp), MiMo-V2.6-Flash, GLM-5.3-Flash, Qwen3.8-Flash-Next, Qwen3.8-27B, MiniCPM5-2B (1M context on the DeepSeek/MiMo models). Marked "experimental" stability; high time-to-first-token has been reported.

Source: https://developer.amd.com.cn/radeon/tokenfactory

Checked Sep 29, 2026.

iFlytek Spark

讯飞星火. Spark Lite is free (model id lite, 8K input / 4K output), throttled by per-second and concurrency limits (third-party reports: 2 QPS, no token cap). OpenAI SDK-compatible at https://spark-api-open.xf-yun.com/v1 with Authorization: Bearer <APIPassword> from the console. Individual real-name verification required.

Source: https://www.xfyun.cn/doc/spark/HTTP%E8%B0%83%E7%94%A8%E6%96%87%E6%A1%A3.html

Checked Sep 29, 2026.

AIHubMix

Gateway with 60 free models, no credit card. Every free model speaks Chat Completions, Messages, and Responses at https://aihubmix.com/v1 (model IDs end in -free).

Free: 10 trial calls at signup (never expire). A one-time top-up of $1+ permanently unlocks 100 req/day, 10 req/min, 1M tokens/day on the free catalogue (resets daily).

Free models include coding-glm-5.3(-flash), coding-kimi-k3, coding-minimax-m3, xiaomi-mimo-v2.6-pro/flash, mimo-v2.5-pro, gpt-5.5, gemini-3.8-flash, qwen3.6-plus-preview, hy3, nemotron-3-ultra/super, gemma-4-31b-it, gpt-oss-20b, glm-4.7-flash.

Source: https://aihubmix.com/models/free

Checked Sep 29, 2026.

OVHcloud AI Endpoints

EU-hosted (France). Anonymous free tier — no API key, no signup: 2 RPM per IP per model (with a key: 400 RPM per project per model, pay-per-token). OpenAI SDK-compatible at https://oai.endpoints.kepler.ai.cloud.ovh.net/v1.

Models: Qwen3.5-397B-A17B, Qwen3.8-27B, Qwen3.6-27B, Qwen3-Coder-30B-A3B, gpt-oss-120b/20b, Llama 3.3 70B, Mistral Small 3.2, Mistral Nemo, Qwen2.5-VL-72B, plus Whisper, embeddings, and TTS.

Source: https://docs.ovhcloud.com/en/guides/public-cloud/ai-machine-learning/ai-endpoints-getting-started

Checked Sep 29, 2026.

LLM7.io

Gateway with keyless access. Anonymous: 10 req/min, 60 req/hour, 500K tokens/day; a free token from token.llm7.io raises this to 40 req/min, 100 req/hour, 1M tokens/day. OpenAI-compatible at https://api.llm7.io/v1.

Free (turbo-tier) models: DeepSeek-V4-Flash-0731 (400K ctx), codestral-latest, minimax-m2.7 (180K ctx), Mistral Nemo. Everything else needs Pro ($12/month) or a topped-up balance.

Source: https://docs.llm7.io/limits

Checked Sep 29, 2026.

Token Harbor

Small gateway. Free tier $0/month with a rolling allowance (amount unpublished, unused allowance carries over). Agent Pass $1.99/month ($0.99 first month) adds $10 of included usage. OpenAI-compatible at https://tokenharbor.ai/v1.

Free models: DeepSeek V4.1 Flash, MiMo V2.6 Flash, TH-Rudder ("promotional models added over time").

Warning: free models are opt-in and their prompts/responses may be retained for diagnostics and model improvement. Access is restricted in some regions (reported: mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau).

Source: https://tokenharbor.ai/pricing

Checked Sep 29, 2026.

Aion Labs

Permanent free tier, no credit card. 15 RPM, 20K tokens/day. OpenAI-compatible at https://api.aionlabs.ai/v1.

Models: aion-3.5 / aion-3.5-mini (256K ctx), aion-3.0 / aion-3.0-mini, aion-2.0 (128K ctx, reasoning), aion-rp-llama-3.1-8b. Tuned for roleplay/storytelling rather than coding.

Source: https://www.aionlabs.ai/docs/rate-limits

Checked Sep 29, 2026.

Experiential Labs

"Open-source OpenRouter" gateway. Free plan: after a one-time $1 card verification (credited to your balance), the balance refills to 100 credits ($1) every 30 days. OpenAI-compatible (Chat + Responses) and Anthropic-compatible at https://api.experientiallabs.ai/v1.

$0 models right now: GPT-6 Luna (promo, 100% off), MiMo-V2.6-Pro (free, zero-data-retention route), Jev. Qwen3.8 27B and DeepSeek V4 Flash are 75% off.

Warning: prompt/response capture is controlled by an org-wide switch — turn it off or require ZDR routes for private code. Free-promo uptime varies by model (e.g. MiMo-V2.6-Pro ~76%). Prototyping only.

Source: https://platform.experientiallabs.ai/docs/billing, https://platform.experientiallabs.ai/models

Checked Sep 29, 2026.

Tencent TokenHub

Tencent Cloud's model platform (replaces the old Hunyuan platform, which shuts down Sep 30, 2026).

• Free trial: 1M tokens per language/multimodal model, claimed once per main account per model from the Model Square "新用户福利" button; valid 1 year from claim. Claim window ends Dec 31, 2026.
• Token Plan (monthly): Hy plan from ¥28 (Lite, 560 pts) to ¥468; universal plan ¥39–¥599. Models: DeepSeek-V4-Flash/Pro, MiniMax-M2.7/M3, GLM-5.2/5.3/5.3-Flash, Kimi K2.7 Code, Kimi K3 (+ Hy3, Hy4 preview on the Hy plan).
• Plan endpoints: OpenAI https://api.lkeap.cloud.tencent.com/plan/v3, Anthropic https://api.lkeap.cloud.tencent.com/plan/anthropic.

Which models qualify for the free trial is shown in the console. Real-name verification requirement: not confirmed.

Source: https://cloud.tencent.com/document/product/1823/130053, https://cloud.tencent.com/document/product/1823/130060

Checked Sep 29, 2026.

Alibaba Cloud Model Studio — free quota

New users get 1,000,000 free tokens per model (typical), valid 90 days from activation (or model release / approval, whichever is later). Singapore region, international deployment scope only; real-time inference only (no batch/fine-tune). Each model — and each dated snapshot — has its own quota; RAM users share the account's pool. OpenAI-compatible at https://dashscope-intl.aliyuncs.com/compatible-mode/v1.

Source: https://www.alibabacloud.com/help/en/model-studio/new-free-quota

Checked Sep 29, 2026.

Z.ai API — free Flash models

Zhipu's international platform (no mainland ID needed). GLM-4.7-Flash, GLM-4.5-Flash (text) and GLM-4.6V-Flash (vision) are priced Free for input, cached input, and output. OpenAI-compatible at https://api.z.ai/api/paas/v4.

Rate/concurrency limits for free models are shown only in the console (not published).

Source: https://docs.z.ai/guides/overview/pricing

Checked Sep 29, 2026.

Nebius Token Factory

Formerly Nebius AI Studio; EU-based open-model inference (60+ models). $1 trial credit on first sign-up, valid 30 days; joining the free Nebius Builder Program adds a $25 Token Factory credit (open to everyone; meant for learning/testing). OpenAI-compatible at https://api.tokenfactory.nebius.com/v1.

Warning: setting up a billing account (bank card) is mandatory to finish onboarding.

Source: https://docs.tokenfactory.nebius.com/other-capabilities/billing-new, https://dev.nebius.com/builders

Checked Sep 29, 2026.

Novita AI

Open-model inference platform. Two models are priced $0 in / $0 out: inclusionai/ling-3.1-flash and inclusionai/ling-3.0-flash-sante (262K ctx). OpenAI-compatible at https://api.novita.ai/openai.

Rate limits for the free models and any signup credit: not published on the pricing page.

Source: https://novita.ai/pricing

Checked Sep 29, 2026.

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License

Apache 2.0