2.3 KiB
2.3 KiB
Free-Tier AI Stack Audit — Draft
Date: 2025-10-28
Scope: Providers offering zero-cost API access for LLMs (as of 2025 search results).
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.
Verified Free-Tier Providers (API)
| Provider | Free Quota | Models | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Google AI Studio | 1,500 req/day, 1M tokens/min | Gemini 2.0/2.5 Flash, Flash-Lite | Requires API key |
| Groq | 30 req/min, ~14,400 req/day | LLaMA 3.3 70B, Mixtral, GPT-OSS | Ultra-fast inference |
| OpenRouter | Several models at $0 | 100+ free models (e.g. gpt-oss-20b, gemma-4-31b-it) | Unified API, key required |
| Hugging Face | Limited Inference API | 300+ open-source | Good for experimentation |
| Together AI | $1 free credit on signup | Llama, Mistral, DeepSeek | Credits expire |
| Cohere | 1,000 req/month | Command R+, Command A | Good for RAG |
| Mistral AI (La Plateforme) | 1 req/s, 500k tokens/min | Mistral Large, Nemo, Codestral | Phone verification required |
| DeepSeek | 5M free tokens | DeepSeek V3, R1 | Signup required |
| Cloudflare Workers AI | 10,000 neurons/day | Llama 3.3 70B, Gemma, Nemotron | Edge deployment |
| Cerebras | 5 RPM, 1M tokens/day, 30 days | GPT-OSS 120B, Qwen3 235B | No credit card |
| Ollama Cloud | Monthly starter credits | 19 models including Kimi K2.7, DeepSeek V4 | Local-first |
| NVIDIA NIM | ~40 RPM | 129 models (Nemotron, Llama) | Signup required |
Always-Free No-Account Options
- Pollinations: GPT-5, Claude, Gemini, DeepSeek, Llama 4 — no key needed.
- OpenCode Free: GPT-4o, Claude, Gemini — no auth needed.
- Qwen Chat: Qwen3-coder-plus/flash/next — no auth needed.
- Kiro AI: Claude Sonnet 4.5, Haiku 4.5, Opus 4.6 — 50 credits/month, no auth.
Observability Gaps
- Limits change without notice (e.g. OpenAI dropped free credits in 2025).
- Rate limits vary by model within a provider.
- "Free credit" tiers often require prepaid card to unlock after spend.
Recommendations
- Start with Google AI Studio for high-volume prototyping.
- Use Groq for speed-sensitive workloads.
- Keep OpenRouter as a unified fallback across multiple free models.
- Audit limits monthly — free tiers are not sticky.