As large language models (LLMs) continue to explode in popularity, more and more developers want to integrate AI capabilities via API—fast. But for indie devs, students, and small teams, paid APIs can be a major roadblock.
The good news? There are plenty of completely free, legitimate LLM API resources out there. Some even offer trial credits worth up to millions of tokens.
We’ve curated a strictly vetted list of free LLM API services—no reverse-engineered knockoffs, no shady wrappers. Whether you’re prototyping, building a side project, or just experimenting, this guide has you covered.
Verified Legitimacy
All services listed below are legal and above board. We do not promote unauthorized access or abuse.
Before You Dive In
- No abuse, please. Excessive traffic can kill free access for everyone. Rate limits exist for a reason.
- Privacy matters. Some providers (e.g., Google AI Studio outside the EEA) use your data for training. Read their terms carefully.
- Phone verification. Required by some platforms (NVIDIA, Mistral, NLP Cloud) as a standard anti-abuse measure.
I Permanently Free Providers (No Expiration)
These services offer ongoing free access with daily or per-minute rate limits—enough for most dev workflows and small-scale apps.
🌐 OpenRouter 16 Free Models
openrouter.ai ↗Rate Limits
- • 20 requests/min
- • 50 requests/day
- • Upgrade to 1000 req/day after $10 lifetime top-up
Notable Models
- • Gemma 3 (4B, 12B, 27B Instruct)
- • Llama 3.1/3.2/3.3 (including 405B)
- • Mistral Small 3.1 24B
- • Qwen 2.5 VL 7B (vision)
Best for: Model comparison, chatbots, lightweight integration. Community favorites include Dolphin, Trinity, Kimi K2, and Solar Pro.
🧠 Google AI Studio Massive Context
aistudio.google.com ↗| Model | Daily Requests | Req/min | Tokens/min |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gemini 3 / 2.5 Flash | 20 | 5 | 250k |
| Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite | 20 | 10 | 250k |
| Gemma 3 (all sizes) | 14.4k | 30 | 15k |
⚠️ Data usage note: Outside the UK, Switzerland, EEA, and EU, your prompts may be used for training.
Gemini Flash models support 1M token context—ideal for long-document analysis and deep multi-turn conversations.
🎮 NVIDIA NIM Enterprise-Grade
build.nvidia.com ↗- Limits: 40 req/min (Phone verification required)
- Models: Optimized versions of Llama 3, Mistral, Qwen, Phi, and more.
- Best for: Low-latency, production-ready inference.
🇫🇷 Mistral AI Open & Proprietary
La Plateforme (Experimental Plan)
- • 1 req/sec, 500k tokens/min
- • 1B tokens/month
- • Requires phone number + opt-in for data training
- • Models: Mistral 7B, Mixtral 8x22B, Codestral, Mathstral
Codestral (Code-Focused)
- • 30 req/min, 2000 req/day
- • Model: Codestral (code generation)
- • Status: Currently free; subscription model upcoming.
🤗 HuggingFace Inference
Free credit: $0.10/month—enough for small experiments.
Best for testing thousands of open-source models instantly.
⚡ Vercel AI Gateway
Free credit: $5/month (gateway fees only).
Routes requests to OpenAI, Anthropic, Cohere, etc. No model cost—just proxy usage.
🚀 Cerebras Blazing Speed
cloud.cerebras.ai ↗Cerebras runs on wafer-scale engines—inference is incredibly fast. As of August 2026, the no-card free tier has ended: new accounts get a $5 Free Trial credit (expires 30 days after signup) and now require a verified payment method to activate.
| Model | RPM | Tokens/min | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Llama 3.1 8B (Fast) | 5 | 30k | Free Trial tier |
| Llama 3.1 70B (Fast) | 5 | 30k | Free Trial tier |
| Llama 4 Scout (Fast) | 5 | 30k | Free Trial tier |
| Qwen3 32B (Fast) | 5 | 30k | Free Trial tier |
🔥 Groq LPU™ Speed
- Qwen3.6 27B, MiniMax M2.7: flagship free models
- GPT-OSS 120B/20B, Kimi K2: also free
- Whisper: Real-time transcription included
Best for real-time transcription and ultra-low-latency generation. Free tier: 30 RPM, 14,400 requests/day, no credit card required.
Honorable Mentions
🐦 Cohere
Multilingual & RAG-Ready. 20 req/min, 1000 req/month. Includes Aya Expanse and Command R7B.
🧑💻 GitHub Models Discontinued
Retired by GitHub on July 30, 2026. No longer available — see the other providers on this page for a free alternative.
☁️ Cloudflare Workers AI
Inference at the edge. 10,000 neurons/day free. Good for serverless apps and edge AI.
🧱 Google Cloud Vertex AI
Free during preview for specific models like Llama 3.2 Vision. Requires billing setup.
II Providers with Trial Credits
These platforms offer free credits upon signup—typically $1 to $30. Access stops when credits run out, but they are great for testing premium models.
| Provider | Credits | Duration | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fireworks | $1 | N/A | Fast open models |
| Baseten | $30 | N/A | Deploy any model |
| Nebius | $1 | N/A | Open models |
| Novita | $0.50 | 1 year | Open models |
| AI21 | $10 | 3 months | Jamba 1.5 series |
| Upstage | $10 | 3 months | Solar Pro / Mini |
| NLP Cloud | $15 | N/A | Phone verification |
| Alibaba Cloud | 1M tokens | N/A | Qwen family |
| Modal | $30/mo | Monthly | GPU compute |
| Hyperbolic | $1 | N/A | DeepSeek V3, Llama 405B |
| SambaNova | $5 | 3 months | Llama 4, DeepSeek V3.1 |
| Scaleway | 1M tokens | N/A | European servers |
Pro Tips
- Modal and Baseten are compute platforms—use credits to run any model you want.
- Hyperbolic and SambaNova offer early access to cutting-edge models like DeepSeek-V3.1 and Qwen 3 235B.
- Scaleway (EU-based) features unique models like devstral and voxtral—great for multilingual or European projects.
Final Thoughts: Picking the Right API
"These free resources exist because the community respects them. Don’t scrape, don’t resell, don’t abuse. If we play fair, we all win."