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The State of Free LLM APIs, 2026
A snapshot of the free LLM API landscape, drawn from a continuously-maintained catalog of 21+ providers and 104+ free model endpoints.
Key findings
- 104+ free model endpoints are available right now across 21+ providers, without payment.
- Most free tiers are rate-limited, not credit-based. The majority cap by requests/day or tokens/day rather than a dollar balance.
- True recurring monthly credits are rare. Reka (~$10/mo) is one of the few; most "$X free" offers are one-time signup bonuses.
- Some "free" APIs need a card. SambaNova and Vercel AI Gateway require a payment method despite advertising free credit.
- Open weights dominate. The same open models appear across many providers, so availability is resilient to any one provider changing terms.
Open-model ubiquity
The most-available model families, by number of providers serving them free:
| Model family | Free availability |
|---|---|
| Llama | 6 providers |
| GPT-OSS | 6 providers |
| Qwen | 5 providers |
| Nemotron | 5 providers |
| DeepSeek | 4 providers |
| Gemma | 4 providers |
| GLM | 3 providers |
| Mistral | 1 providers |
Methodology
Figures are taken from the FreeLLMAPI live catalog, which tracks each provider's publicly documented free tier and is verified against live API responses. The landscape shifts weekly as providers launch, retire, or re-price models — see the live catalog for the current state.
Browse every free model by name
The full set of free model families tracked right now — each links to its providers, limits, and quirks.
Use every one of these through one key. FreeLLMAPI is an open-source, self-hosted router that puts all these free tiers behind a single OpenAI-compatible endpoint and fails over when one is rate-limited. Browse the catalog or go live.