OpenRouter's own row in our catalog: OpenRouter :free model variants: Rotating set of :free model variants — 16 of 467 models carried a :free suffix at $0 prompt and completion when read from openrouter.ai/api/v1/models on 2026-10-08: NVIDIA Nemotron 3 (nano-omni-30b reasoning, super-120b, ultra-550b, 3.5-content-safety, 3.5-lightning), Thinking Machines Inkling and Inkling Small, Poolside Laguna S/XS 2.1, InclusionAI Ling 3.0 Flash Sante, Google Gemma 4 (26b-a4b-it, 31b-it), Cohere North Mini Code, Liquid LFM 2.5 2.6b, dots-studio Dots 3 Note Preview, Apodex 1.1 Mini. Limits: 20 req/min; 50 req/day if lifetime purchases < $10, 1,000 req/day after a one-time $10 credit purchase. Verified 2026-10-08. Full caveats.
Free API paths in our catalog from other providers:
Kilo AI Gateway free models (no key) (Kilo): Free models with no key and no account ("The gateway allows unauthenticated access for free models only.") — but "Auto Free may route your requests to providers that log prompts and outputs and use them to improve their services." "Models tagged with :free have zero cost -- usage is tracked but not billed", plus the kilo-auto/free router ("Free with limited capability. No credits required."). Rate limit: "Free models per IP 200 requests per hour", for anonymous and authenticated requests alike. Verified 2026-10-06. Full caveats.
Requesty free plan (free models) (Requesty): Free plan at $0 for the platform on free models: "200 requests per day". "No credit card required". Verified 2026-10-06. Full caveats.
Routeway Starter Free plan (Routeway): "Starter Free": free model IDs end in :free (e.g. deepseek-r1:free) and "cost $0.00". "200 requests per day", "Single concurrent request", "Shared low-priority queue", "Best-effort availability". The daily cap resets at 00:00 UTC. Verified 2026-10-06. Full caveats.
BazaarLink free gateway tier (BazaarLink): Free tier on an OpenAI-compatible gateway: 10 requests/minute and 60 weighted units/day per account (longer inputs use more units), shared across the free models, no credit card and no waitlist (“Sign up and get a free key in under 60 seconds. No credit card, no waitlist.”). Accounts that have added credit get 20 RPM and 120 units/day. Verified 2026-10-06. Full caveats.
Not affiliated with OpenRouter or any provider named here; names are their owners' marks.