What's free
A rotating set of models with a :free suffix (16 on 2026-10-08; count fluctuates), single API across many providers
- Credit card
- not required
- Phone verification
- not required
- Commercial use
- allowed
Free limits
| requests per minute | 20 |
|---|---|
| requests per day | 50 |
free models, accounts with under 10 credits purchased lifetime (1,000 requests/day once 10+ credits are purchased); table not readable in a plain fetch, figures are those of the entry's own verification. Source: the provider's page, read 2026-10-08.
In the provider's words
20 req/min; 50 req/day under 10 credits purchased lifetime, 1000 req/day once 10+ credits purchased (one-time, not a subscription)
The catch
ToS (Jul 2026) prohibits reselling API access or building a competing service — platform-wide, not just the free models; per-model terms still apply
Free models · sample
cohere/north-mini-code:freegoogle/gemma-4-26b-a4b-it:freegoogle/gemma-4-31b-it:freeliquid/lfm-2.5-2.6b:freenvidia/nemotron-3-nano-omni-30b-a3b-reasoning:freepoolside/laguna-s-2.1:freeA sample of models reachable on the free tier — the live catalog changes. Pull the current set with GET https://openrouter.ai/api/v1/models.
Quickstart — chat completions
from openai import OpenAI
client = OpenAI(base_url="https://openrouter.ai/api/v1", api_key="<YOUR_FREE_API_KEY>")
resp = client.chat.completions.create(
model="cohere/north-mini-code:free",
messages=[{"role": "user", "content": "Hello!"}],
)
print(resp.choices[0].message.content)…or with curl:
curl https://openrouter.ai/api/v1/chat/completions \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $API_KEY" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{"model":"cohere/north-mini-code:free","messages":[{"role":"user","content":"Hello!"}]}'Appears in
Compare
Change history
How this free tier has changed since we started tracking it (2026-07-30) — generated from the git history of providers.json.
- 2026-10-08 Updated free tier
- 2026-08-02 Updated free tier, the catch
- 2026-07-30 Added to the hub