volt: q114 -- free-tier audit re-read from 17 provider pages, graded by CHECK-q114
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# Free-Tier AI Stack Audit — Draft
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**Date:** 2025-10-28
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**Scope:** Providers offering zero-cost API access for LLMs (as of 2025 search results).
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**Evidence:** Aggregated from publicapis.io, madappgang.com, itsfree.ai, aicalcus.com, dreamprompting.com, github.com/alihesari/awesome-free-ai-apis, github.com/Unsocial-sannyasi563/awesome-free-models.
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# Free-Tier AI Stack Audit — measured 2026-10-31
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## Verified Free-Tier Providers (API)
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**Status:** supersedes the 2025-10-28 draft (blob `f6cecf9b8c66`, `40da64c`). Every row below was
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re-read from the provider's own page on **2026-10-31**, between 07:13:25Z and 07:13:34Z; the
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transcript of that run is `q114-fetch-2026-10-31.tsv` beside this file, and the page digest in the
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ledger is the sha256 of the bytes those quotes were taken from. The heading no longer says
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"Verified": it says what was measured, from where, and on what date.
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| Provider | Free Quota | Models | Notes |
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|----------|-----------|--------|-------|
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| Google AI Studio | 1,500 req/day, 1M tokens/min | Gemini 2.0/2.5 Flash, Flash-Lite | Requires API key |
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| Groq | 30 req/min, ~14,400 req/day | LLaMA 3.3 70B, Mixtral, GPT-OSS | Ultra-fast inference |
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| OpenRouter | Several models at $0 | 100+ free models (e.g. gpt-oss-20b, gemma-4-31b-it) | Unified API, key required |
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| Hugging Face | Limited Inference API | 300+ open-source | Good for experimentation |
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| Together AI | $1 free credit on signup | Llama, Mistral, DeepSeek | Credits expire |
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| Cohere | 1,000 req/month | Command R+, Command A | Good for RAG |
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| Mistral AI (La Plateforme) | 1 req/s, 500k tokens/min | Mistral Large, Nemo, Codestral | Phone verification required |
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| DeepSeek | 5M free tokens | DeepSeek V3, R1 | Signup required |
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| Cloudflare Workers AI | 10,000 neurons/day | Llama 3.3 70B, Gemma, Nemotron | Edge deployment |
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| Cerebras | 5 RPM, 1M tokens/day, 30 days | GPT-OSS 120B, Qwen3 235B | No credit card |
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| Ollama Cloud | Monthly starter credits | 19 models including Kimi K2.7, DeepSeek V4 | Local-first |
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| NVIDIA NIM | ~40 RPM | 129 models (Nemotron, Llama) | Signup required |
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**Eligibility rule (Alexander, 2026-10-06, `FREE-TIER-CANDIDATES.md`):** a service earns its place
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only if it can do daily standups and expend its own free credits; "if a free tier is depleted and
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continuing requires payment, the service is ineligible — drop it, don't fund it." A time-limited
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grant therefore cannot carry a daily lane, however large it is.
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## Always-Free No-Account Options
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- **Pollinations**: GPT-5, Claude, Gemini, DeepSeek, Llama 4 — no key needed.
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- **OpenCode Free**: GPT-4o, Claude, Gemini — no auth needed.
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- **Qwen Chat**: Qwen3-coder-plus/flash/next — no auth needed.
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- **Kiro AI**: Claude Sonnet 4.5, Haiku 4.5, Opus 4.6 — 50 credits/month, no auth.
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**Columns.** `Free tier, as stated` quotes the page verbatim or says `not stated on page`; nothing
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here is inferred from a listicle. `Expires` is the validity/expiry the page states. `Eligible` is
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`Y`, `N`, or `unknown`, judged by the rule above at the row's own evidence. `Basis` is
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`documented` (page says it), `derived` (computed from the page's own machine-readable body),
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`contradicted` (page says otherwise), `not-stated` (claim absent from the page), or `unmeasured`
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(page could not be read).
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## Observability Gaps
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- Limits change without notice (e.g. OpenAI dropped free credits in 2025).
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- Rate limits vary by model within a provider.
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- "Free credit" tiers often require prepaid card to unlock after spend.
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## Rows
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## Recommendations
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1. Start with Google AI Studio for high-volume prototyping.
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2. Use Groq for speed-sensitive workloads.
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3. Keep OpenRouter as a unified fallback across multiple free models.
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4. Audit limits monthly — free tiers are not sticky.
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| # | Provider | Src | Fetched | Free tier, as stated | Models, as stated | Expires | Eligible | Basis |
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|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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| 1 | Google AI Studio (Gemini API) | s01 | 2026-10-31 | "Start building free of charge with generous limits"; free tier gets "Limited access to certain models". The per-model RPD table is client-rendered: no daily figure is readable from the page, and the only daily figure on s02 (1,500 requests per day) is for Grounding with Google Search, not for generateContent | gemini-3.8-flash, gemini-3.6-flash, gemini-3.5-flash-lite listed; "Gemini 4 Argon is not available on the Free tier." | none stated | Y | documented |
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| 2 | Groq | s03 | 2026-10-31 | Free Plan limits table, per model: "openai/gpt-oss-120b 30 1K 8K 200K" (30 RPM, 1K RPD, 8K TPM, 200K TPD); qwen/qwen3.8-27b reads the same. The draft's "~14,400 req/day" is not a free-plan figure: 14.4K RPD belongs to the two prompt-guard models, and 14400 appears on the page only as an illustrative rate-limit header | openai/gpt-oss-120b, openai/gpt-oss-20b, qwen/qwen3.8-27b, whisper-large-v3 | none stated | Y | documented |
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| 3 | OpenRouter | s04 | 2026-10-31 | "Several models at $0" holds, at a much smaller scale than the draft's "100+ free models": the API lists 456 models of which **19** price prompt tokens at 0 | the 19 `:free` ids include nvidia/nemotron-3.5-super-vl:free and liquid/lfm-2.5-2.6b:free | none stated | Y | derived |
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| 4 | Hugging Face | s05 | 2026-10-31 | No free inference tier: "Free users can use Inference Providers by purchasing credits, or by upgrading to PRO" | not stated on page | none stated | N | documented |
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| 5 | Together AI | s06 | 2026-10-31 | No signup credit is stated on the pricing page; the only free cell in the price table is a batch row ("Tev1 4B Experimental $0.04 Free"). The draft's "$1 free credit on signup" was not found | Kimi K3, Qwen3.8-2.4T-A95B, GLM-5.3, MiniMax M3.1 Flash, DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017, priced per 1M tokens | not stated | unknown | not-stated |
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| 6 | Cohere | s07 | 2026-10-31 | "Trial keys (and prod keys on newer Chat model variants) are limited to 1,000 API calls a month." Trial calls are free but never permitted for production or commercial use | Command R+, Command A (trial keys rate-limited per model) | none stated | Y | documented |
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| 7 | Mistral AI | s08 | 2026-10-31 | The "Free" plan on the pricing page is Vibe, the assistant app ("Free Your personal AI agent for everyday tasks."), not La Plateforme API access; the models docs page states no free API tier | not stated on page | none stated | N | documented |
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| 8 | DeepSeek | s09 | 2026-10-31 | No free tier on the pricing page: "We bill model usage based on the total number of input and output tokens by the model." The draft's "5M free tokens" and its V3/R1 model ids are both absent — the served ids are deepseek-flash and deepseek-v4-pro, and legacy names are retired | deepseek-flash, deepseek-v4-pro | none stated | N | documented |
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| 9 | Cloudflare Workers AI | s10 | 2026-10-31 | "Our free allocation allows anyone to use a total of 10,000 Neurons per day at no charge" (page last updated 2026-10-20) | per-model neuron pricing; Llama, Gemma, Nemotron listed | none stated | Y | documented |
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| 10 | Cerebras | s11 | 2026-10-31 | Free access is a promotional grant, not a standing tier: "Add a valid payment method to receive a one-time $5 promotional credit." | not stated on page (model table client-rendered) | 30 days after activation | N | documented |
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| 11 | Ollama Cloud | s12 | 2026-10-31 | Cloud models are metered: "Pay as you go $0 Pay per token for every cloud model." The $0 plan covers running models locally (3 concurrent requests), not hosted inference; the "$60 of usage credits per month" line belongs to the paid Pro plan | deepseek-v4.1-flash, deepseek-v4-pro, clef, priced per 1M tokens | none stated | N | documented |
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| 12 | NVIDIA NIM | s13 | 2026-10-31 | "Free inference with leading models"; the per-key rate limit (~40 RPM in the draft) is not stated in the page text or in the NIM quickstart | nvidia nemotron-3.5-super-vl-120b-a12b, deepseek-v4.1-flash, nemotron-3-ultra-550b-a55b | none stated | Y | documented |
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| 13 | Pollinations | s14 | 2026-10-31 | Keyless access exists but serves one model: the models endpoint returns exactly one anonymous-tier entry, "GPT-OSS 20B Reasoning LLM (OVH)". None of the draft's GPT-5, Claude, Gemini, DeepSeek or Llama 4 is reachable without a key | openai-fast (aliases openai, gpt-oss, gpt-oss-20b, ovh-reasoning) | none stated | Y | contradicted |
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| 14 | OpenCode Zen | s15 | 2026-10-31 | Free-tier models exist but are gated to the client: "Free-tier chat models require OpenCode; use paid models or Go from other clients." No GPT-4o appears, and the draft's "no auth needed" is contradicted | Jev 1.13 Free (jev-1.13-free) among the Zen endpoints | none stated | N | documented |
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| 15 | Qwen Chat | s16 | 2026-10-31 | Unmeasured: the URL serves a mobile-download interstitial to a plain client ("Current System does not Support"), so no free-API claim could be read from it, and the draft's "no auth needed" for qwen3-coder-plus is not evidence of an API | unmeasured | not stated | unknown | unmeasured |
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| 16 | Kiro | s17 | 2026-10-31 | "New users can start with the perpetual Kiro Free tier, which includes 50 credits." and "The Free Tier includes access to open weight models and Claude Sonnet 4.5, with limits." Sonnet 4.5 is stated; Haiku 4.5 and Opus 4.6 are not. Kiro is an IDE, so it is relayed-tier, never a daily worker | Claude Sonnet 4.5 plus open-weight models | none stated | N | documented |
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## Source ledger
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| Src | slug | URL | HTTP | bytes | sha256 | fetched (UTC) |
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|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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| s01 | google_ai_pricing | https://ai.google.dev/gemini-api/docs/pricing | 200 | 261786 | ce347854dd5990406a70ad2d20479019d5ece982b208ce0481898db262405161 | 2026-10-31T07:13:25Z |
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| s02 | google_ai_ratelimits | https://ai.google.dev/gemini-api/docs/rate-limits | 200 | 106209 | 82aaebaf90896ddae9d6915390a137a840de580a4b30d92ddff39c86494df0d9 | 2026-10-31T07:13:25Z |
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| s03 | groq_ratelimits | https://console.groq.com/docs/rate-limits | 200 | 321036 | a940abd5a81646b76b2949535d9ddf5233c8a0debddf9ed1eae366269b89dbdd | 2026-10-31T07:13:26Z |
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| s04 | openrouter_models_json | https://openrouter.ai/api/v1/models | 200 | 810207 | e5e298e955af54015e531a765c5ea085aef08d3985b7db10372fd63c17a89471 | 2026-10-31T07:13:26Z |
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| s05 | hf_inference_pricing | https://huggingface.co/docs/inference-providers/pricing | 200 | 152033 | 3aa9d62dc2aa6725d6c8b4876b699c4bb8a2c683362f03112b784437b9586b42 | 2026-10-31T07:13:26Z |
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| s06 | together_pricing | https://www.together.ai/pricing | 200 | 636403 | f19bba92c79c9e5e1572feb0e424cb0456c1fbce1e8280b784c9348064460738 | 2026-10-31T07:13:26Z |
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| s07 | cohere_rate_limits | https://docs.cohere.com/docs/rate-limits | 200 | 172368 | 0aa2efdb3c0f298467bf5c8f028ee86a49feb09ae07a5065441a22fb63fb2f5a | 2026-10-31T07:13:27Z |
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| s08 | mistral_pricing | https://mistral.ai/pricing/ | 200 | 414209 | af9b1a60efbd003bae58f285ec2b68be4b371475525779ced504348a3ae31485 | 2026-10-31T07:13:27Z |
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| s09 | deepseek_pricing | https://api-docs.deepseek.com/quick_start/pricing/ | 200 | 27815 | 579412351262de19f1b067420542d042dc9433f389be6d252d0f4c41b82f515b | 2026-10-31T07:13:31Z |
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| s10 | cloudflare_workers_ai | https://developers.cloudflare.com/workers-ai/platform/pricing/ | 200 | 128565 | d69ca3f195763754d12b45756d32f8bbba9a156868a40ade2ba2dcfb1642eae3 | 2026-10-31T07:13:31Z |
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| s11 | cerebras_pricing | https://www.cerebras.ai/pricing | 200 | 243645 | d798220b9ae038496181e51461a1ccd2b0542b2f8255aaa0abe077d9353d7f91 | 2026-10-31T07:13:31Z |
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| s12 | ollama_pricing | https://ollama.com/pricing | 200 | 50984 | 1abb767db07fe5956a02a9f5ef70300129a84cb1a585da1836abba39a2e96c8b | 2026-10-31T07:13:32Z |
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| s13 | nvidia_build | https://build.nvidia.com/ | 200 | 137035 | a8d7deccd09d141c6d4979f28b94d6c4202d93e96c0931dc78b2eaeb842cf8d9 | 2026-10-31T07:13:32Z |
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| s14 | pollinations_models | https://text.pollinations.ai/models | 200 | 286 | 89877dada14daefc50a077576ef9c080aa15514f50418a1469af01874eda45a1 | 2026-10-31T07:13:32Z |
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| s15 | opencode_zen | https://opencode.ai/v2/docs/console/models/ | 200 | 57151 | 3d65c05a4b7908055922886443a4536c4241c937da91de5d05741d73fd15d585 | 2026-10-31T07:13:32Z |
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| s16 | qwen_chat | https://chat.qwen.ai/ | 200 | 104778 | 776c12c9d64bc1f42977c9c13e0b2c70a2589a67cd4b48168cadbb5fd5618571 | 2026-10-31T07:13:33Z |
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| s17 | kiro_pricing | https://kiro.dev/pricing/ | 200 | 204948 | ea2e9b9f4bbd103a0f10e8217daf054b1d81ccd0929e100ba5dd296e13f67b91 | 2026-10-31T07:13:34Z |
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## What the 2025-10-28 draft got wrong, row by row
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1. **Dated 2025-10-28**, one year before the commit that carried it; corrected above.
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2. **"Verified" over aggregator pages.** The draft's evidence line names six listicles and no
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provider endpoint. Sixteen of sixteen rows now carry a provider URL and a digest.
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3. **Groq "~14,400 req/day"** — that number is a prompt-guard model's RPD and an illustrative
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header, not the free-plan limit for a chat model, which is 1K RPD.
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4. **OpenRouter "100+ free models"** — 19 of 456 at $0 prompt today.
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5. **Pollinations "GPT-5, Claude, Gemini, DeepSeek, Llama 4 — no key needed"** — one anonymous
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model, GPT-OSS 20B, confirmed at the models endpoint.
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6. **Kiro "Sonnet 4.5, Haiku 4.5, Opus 4.6 — no auth"** — 50 credits, open weights plus Sonnet 4.5,
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and access is behind social login or an AWS Builder ID, in an IDE.
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7. **DeepSeek "5M free tokens", models V3/R1** — no free tier on the pricing page and both model
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ids retired; the served ids are deepseek-flash and deepseek-v4-pro.
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8. **Three self-terminating grants were presented as standing tiers.** Cerebras ($5 credit, "expires
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30 days after activation"), Together and DeepSeek now carry an `Expires`/`Eligible` verdict: under
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the 2026-10-06 rule none of them can hold a daily lane.
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9. **Ollama Cloud "monthly starter credits"** — the credits belong to the paid Pro plan; the $0 plan
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is local inference only.
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10. **Google "1,500 req/day"** — that figure is Grounding with Google Search, per project; the free
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tier's own per-model RPD table is client-rendered and is recorded as not stated.
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## What this audit does not claim
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- That any row is a recommendation to hire. Only rows 1, 2, 3, 9 and 12 read `Y` today, and none of
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them was exercised with a key this tick.
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- That an unread page is a dead service. Rows 5 and 15 are `unknown` because the page would not
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state the fact, not because the provider is empty.
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- That these limits hold tomorrow. The `Expires` column is what the page states; a monthly re-read
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is the only thing that keeps this file honest, and the fetch script that rebuilt it
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(`2026-10-31-q114/fetch_all.sh`, outside the repo) is the instrument for that re-read.
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@@ -0,0 +1,26 @@
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slug url http bytes sha256 fetched_utc
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cerebras_inference_pricing https://www.cerebras.ai/pricing 200 243645 dbbee8a0d408f2b040d1066e197d27feba3778b83a7d169e8bbc69cb700eb57d 2026-10-31T07:13:32Z
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cerebras_pricing https://www.cerebras.ai/pricing 200 243645 d798220b9ae038496181e51461a1ccd2b0542b2f8255aaa0abe077d9353d7f91 2026-10-31T07:13:31Z
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cloudflare_workers_ai https://developers.cloudflare.com/workers-ai/platform/pricing/ 200 128565 d69ca3f195763754d12b45756d32f8bbba9a156868a40ade2ba2dcfb1642eae3 2026-10-31T07:13:31Z
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cohere_pricing https://cohere.com/pricing 200 577356 38b1b2f74101171ef89945c2859b1ad41027d657c1d49c401005571c9323ffce 2026-10-31T07:13:27Z
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cohere_rate_limits https://docs.cohere.com/docs/rate-limits 200 172368 0aa2efdb3c0f298467bf5c8f028ee86a49feb09ae07a5065441a22fb63fb2f5a 2026-10-31T07:13:27Z
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deepseek_pricing https://api-docs.deepseek.com/quick_start/pricing/ 200 27815 579412351262de19f1b067420542d042dc9433f389be6d252d0f4c41b82f515b 2026-10-31T07:13:31Z
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google_ai_pricing https://ai.google.dev/gemini-api/docs/pricing 200 261786 ce347854dd5990406a70ad2d20479019d5ece982b208ce0481898db262405161 2026-10-31T07:13:25Z
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google_ai_ratelimits https://ai.google.dev/gemini-api/docs/rate-limits 200 106209 82aaebaf90896ddae9d6915390a137a840de580a4b30d92ddff39c86494df0d9 2026-10-31T07:13:25Z
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groq_pricing_home https://groq.com/ 200 55004 a2e774bce11cb0c82ce7c1d8abf1d4ca728d7ab8d134577d118cda7f1ab6f227 2026-10-31T07:13:26Z
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groq_ratelimits https://console.groq.com/docs/rate-limits 200 321036 a940abd5a81646b76b2949535d9ddf5233c8a0debddf9ed1eae366269b89dbdd 2026-10-31T07:13:26Z
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hf_inference_pricing https://huggingface.co/docs/inference-providers/pricing 200 152033 3aa9d62dc2aa6725d6c8b4876b699c4bb8a2c683362f03112b784437b9586b42 2026-10-31T07:13:26Z
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hf_pricing https://huggingface.co/pricing 200 247640 a17f5689a468b51b06f971b37ae6e6879469563be04e3130c06d20df2719868c 2026-10-31T07:13:26Z
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kiro_pricing https://kiro.dev/pricing/ 200 204948 ea2e9b9f4bbd103a0f10e8217daf054b1d81ccd0929e100ba5dd296e13f67b91 2026-10-31T07:13:34Z
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mistral_docs_models https://docs.mistral.ai/models 200 809706 a3535b9dc0a655374eff245ef3ba0bd32988078fa58cda7e7cb0260acf100ae4 2026-10-31T07:13:28Z
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mistral_pricing https://mistral.ai/pricing/ 200 414209 af9b1a60efbd003bae58f285ec2b68be4b371475525779ced504348a3ae31485 2026-10-31T07:13:27Z
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nvidia_build https://build.nvidia.com/ 200 137035 a8d7deccd09d141c6d4979f28b94d6c4202d93e96c0931dc78b2eaeb842cf8d9 2026-10-31T07:13:32Z
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nvidia_nim_docs https://docs.api.nvidia.com/nim/docs/api-quickstart 200 646975 bd0d8ec891d81fd14786d48f3f6fc9846bd6e8cdf3b8819648a7dc4e573ee3ba 2026-10-31T07:13:32Z
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ollama_pricing https://ollama.com/pricing 200 50984 1abb767db07fe5956a02a9f5ef70300129a84cb1a585da1836abba39a2e96c8b 2026-10-31T07:13:32Z
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opencode_docs https://opencode.ai/docs/ 200 84471 694de723531eb08c78fc44f65d260cf7cc3a47ec90eb5b50f6a7533721b7b658 2026-10-31T07:13:32Z
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opencode_zen https://opencode.ai/v2/docs/console/models/ 200 57151 3d65c05a4b7908055922886443a4536c4241c937da91de5d05741d73fd15d585 2026-10-31T07:13:32Z
|
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openrouter_models_json https://openrouter.ai/api/v1/models 200 810207 e5e298e955af54015e531a765c5ea085aef08d3985b7db10372fd63c17a89471 2026-10-31T07:13:26Z
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pollinations_models https://text.pollinations.ai/models 200 286 89877dada14daefc50a077576ef9c080aa15514f50418a1469af01874eda45a1 2026-10-31T07:13:32Z
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qwen_chat https://chat.qwen.ai/ 200 104778 776c12c9d64bc1f42977c9c13e0b2c70a2589a67cd4b48168cadbb5fd5618571 2026-10-31T07:13:33Z
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qwen_dashscope https://www.alibabacloud.com/help/en/model-studio/models 200 42622 a93b15474174cf2b9e1a964f88fc455fc8ac3850d66c2854d0be6ed602db84f6 2026-10-31T07:13:34Z
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together_pricing https://www.together.ai/pricing 200 636403 f19bba92c79c9e5e1572feb0e424cb0456c1fbce1e8280b784c9348064460738 2026-10-31T07:13:26Z
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||||
|
Reference in new issue
Block a user