What's free
Rate-limited free tier (applies when no payment method is linked) across the models listed in the Free Tier table
- Credit card
- not confirmed
- Phone verification
- not confirmed
- Commercial use
- allowed
Free limits
| requests per minute | 20 |
|---|---|
| requests per day | 20 |
| tokens per day | 200,000 |
Free Tier (no payment method linked); limits listed per model in the table for DeepSeek-V3.1, Meta-Llama-3.3-70B-Instruct and gpt-oss-120b, enforcement scope not stated. Source: the provider's page, read 2026-10-09.
In the provider's words
Free Tier: 20 RPM / 20 RPD / 200,000 TPD listed per model in the table, enforcement scope not stated; Developer Tier (card required): 60-240 RPM depending on model
The catch
Free Tier applies when no payment method is linked to the account; SambaCloud ToS grants a commercial license (no evaluation-only clause). The previously-listed "$5 / 3 months" trial could not be re-confirmed on official pages (2026-07-30). card_required is unconfirmed because SambaNova's own pages disagree (read 2026-10-08): the rate-limits doc (https://docs.sambanova.ai/docs/en/models/rate-limits) says "Free Tier: Applied when there is no payment method linked with your account", while the plans page (https://cloud.sambanova.ai/plans) says "Add a payment method and purchase credits to run your first requests". Settling it needs a real signup, which is not done without the Owner's OK. The rate-limits doc (read 2026-10-09) also lists two preview models on the Free Tier at the same 20 RPM / 20 RPD / 200,000 TPD (DeepSeek-V3.2, gemma-4-31B-it), described there as having limited capacity and removable at short notice; they are not in models_free.
Free models · sample
DeepSeek-V3.1Meta-Llama-3.3-70B-Instructgpt-oss-120bA sample of models reachable on the free tier — the live catalog changes. Pull the current set with GET https://api.sambanova.ai/v1/models.
Quickstart — chat completions
from openai import OpenAI
client = OpenAI(base_url="https://api.sambanova.ai/v1", api_key="<YOUR_FREE_API_KEY>")
resp = client.chat.completions.create(
model="DeepSeek-V3.1",
messages=[{"role": "user", "content": "Hello!"}],
)
print(resp.choices[0].message.content)…or with curl:
curl https://api.sambanova.ai/v1/chat/completions \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $API_KEY" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{"model":"DeepSeek-V3.1","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.
- 2026-10-10 Updated free tier
- 2026-10-10 Updated rate limits
- 2026-10-10 Updated the catch
- 2026-10-09 Updated the catch, card requirement
- 2026-10-08 Updated the catch
- 2026-07-30 Updated free tier, the catch, free type, commercial-use terms
- 2026-07-30 Added to the hub