OpenRouter Free Tier
OpenRouter offers a curated selection of free models with no credit card required. Free models are subsidized by OpenRouter and community providers.
8 Ways to Use Fewer Tokens
Get the free PDF guide — practical tips to cut your token usage and API costs. Subscribe to the Price Per Token newsletter and download instantly.
Free Tier Details
Free Models20+ models available at $0
Rate Limit (Free)20 requests/min, 200 requests/day
Rate Limit (With Credits)1,000 requests/day after purchasing 10+ credits
Credit Card RequiredNo
Free model IDs end with `:free`. Popular free models include DeepSeek V3, DeepSeek R1, Llama, and Qwen variants. Some less popular models may be rotated out of the free tier over time.
Free Models on OpenRouter (4)
| Model | Context | Capabilities | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| google-lyria-3-clip-preview | — | Free | |
| google-lyria-3-pro-preview | — | Free | |
| openrouter-free | — | Free | |
| openrouter-owl-alpha | — | Free |
Cheapest Paid Models on OpenRouter
When you need more than the free tier, these are the most affordable options.
| Model | Context | Input / 1M | Output / 1M |
|---|---|---|---|
| openrouter-auto | — | $-1000000.0000 | $-1000000.0000 |
| openrouter-bodybuilder | — | $-1000000.0000 | $-1000000.0000 |
| openrouter-pareto-code | — | $-1000000.0000 | $-1000000.0000 |
| Ling 2.6 Flash | 262K | $0.010 | $0.030 |
| Granite 4.0 Micro | 131K | $0.017 | $0.112 |
| Mistral Nemo | 131K | $0.020 | $0.030 |
| Llama 3.1 8B Instruct | 16K | $0.020 | $0.030 |
| Llama 3.2 1B Instruct | 60K | $0.027 | $0.201 |
| GPT-OSS-20b | 131K | $0.029 | $0.140 |
| LFM2-24B-A2B | 33K | $0.030 | $0.120 |
Frequently Asked Questions
Built by @aellman
Tools
Directories
Models & Pricing
Endpoints
Rankings
- All Rankings
- All Benchmarks
- Best LLM for Coding
- Best LLM for Math
- Best LLM for Writing
- Best LLM for RAG
- Best Local LLM
- Best LLM for OpenClaw
- Best LLM for Cursor
- Best LLM for Windsurf
- Best LLM for Cline
- Best LLM for Aider
- Best LLM for GitHub Copilot
- Best LLM for Bolt
- Best LLM for Continue.dev
- MMLU-Pro
- GPQA
- LiveCodeBench
- Aider
- AIME
- MATH (Hard)
- Big-Bench Hard
2026 68 Ventures, LLC. All rights reserved.