Free LLM API Providers — Compare 20 Providers in 2026

How to Choose a Free LLM API Provider

Not all free tiers are equally usable. Here's what to check before committing to a provider:

• Rate limits — Requests per minute (RPM) and per day (RPD) vary wildly. Groq gives 30 RPM / 14,400 RPD. NVIDIA NIM gives 40 RPM with no daily cap. Google AI Studio gives 10 RPM / 250 RPD for Gemini 2.5 Flash. If you're building an app with multiple users, NVIDIA NIM's no-daily-cap policy is the most forgiving.
• Signup friction — Some providers give you an API key instantly with just an email (Groq, OpenRouter, Cloudflare). Others require credit card verification (Google AI Studio) or phone verification (NVIDIA NIM). 19 of 20 providers on this page require no credit card at all.
• Model selection — Do you need a specific model family? Llama models are on Groq, NVIDIA NIM, OpenRouter, Cloudflare, and Cerebras. Gemini models are only on Google AI Studio. DeepSeek is on NVIDIA NIM, Groq, OpenRouter, and SiliconFlow. Check each provider's page for the full model list.
• API compatibility — If you use OpenAI SDKs or tools that expect OpenAI-format APIs, check the provider's endpoint format. NVIDIA NIM, Groq, Mistral, Cerebras, and OpenRouter all support the OpenAI /chat/completions format. Google AI Studio uses a different format but has OpenAI-compatible wrappers available.
• Data privacy — Free tiers often have different data policies than paid ones. Google AI Studio may use free-tier prompts for product improvement. Groq does not train on customer data. Mistral's free tier does not log prompts. If you're building a commercial app, read the provider's data policy carefully.

Free LLM API Providers That Require No Credit Card

19 providers issue API keys with nothing more than an email address. These are the fastest to get started with:

• OpenRouter — 30 free models, 33 online. Get API key →
• NVIDIA NIM — 16 free models, 11 online. Get API key →
• Groq — 14 free models, 14 online. Get API key →
• GitHub Models — 13 free models, 13 online. Get API key →
• Cloudflare Workers AI — 10 free models, 10 online. Get API key →
• Mistral AI — 8 free models, 8 online. Get API key →
• OVHcloud AI Endpoints — 7 free models, 7 online. Get API key →
• SiliconFlow — 6 free models, 6 online. Get API key →
• Cohere — 5 free models, 5 online. Get API key →
• Cerebras — 5 free models, 5 online. Get API key →
• Hugging Face — 5 free models, 5 online. Get API key →
• LLM7.io — 5 free models, 5 online. Get API key →
• Ollama Cloud — 5 free models, 5 online. Get API key →
• Kilo Code — 4 free models, 4 online. Get API key →
• Z AI (Zhipu AI) — 3 free models, 3 online. Get API key →
• ModelScope — 3 free models, 3 online. Get API key →
• Google Gemini — 2 free models, 2 online. Get API key →
• Chutes.ai — 2 free models, 2 online. Get API key →
• Glhf.chat — 2 free models, 2 online. Get API key →

How Free LLM API Providers Work

Free LLM API providers give developers access to large language models without upfront payment. They make money through paid tiers for higher limits, enterprise contracts, cloud compute bundling (NVIDIA), or ecosystem lock-in (Google). The free tier is a customer acquisition channel — you get to build and test for free, and when your project outgrows the rate limits, you upgrade.

The free tier landscape breaks down into three categories:

• Always-free tiers — Permanent free access with rate limits. Groq, Mistral, and Cloudflare Workers AI fall here. No expiration, no trial period. Rate limits are the only constraint.
• Free credits / trial periods — A fixed amount of free usage (e.g., $5 in API credits or 1 month free). Cohere and some GitHub Models tiers use this model. Useful for evaluation but not for ongoing projects.
• Freemium routing services — OpenRouter aggregates multiple providers and offers a subset of models for free (usually smaller/older ones). One API key accesses all of them, but free models have lower rate limits than paid ones.

Who Are Free LLM APIs Really For?

Free tiers aren't for everyone — rate limits and shared infrastructure mean they max out quickly under heavy load. But for the right use cases, they're genuinely sufficient. Here's who we built this directory for.

Students — zero-cost access to frontier AI

For students, paying $20/month for an API subscription isn't realistic. Free LLM APIs let students experiment with the same models used in production — Gemini 2.5 Flash, Llama 3.3 70B, DeepSeek-V3 — without a credit card. Use them for coursework, research projects, learning prompt engineering, or building a portfolio project. No budget required.

Programmers — testing before committing

Before integrating a paid API into a codebase, we want to test it. Free tiers are the perfect evaluation sandbox: try the model's coding ability, check its latency, see if tool calling works with our stack. We can test 5 different models across 3 providers without spending a cent, then pick the best one for production. The free tier is the test drive that every paid API should offer.

Agent builders — low-cost OpenClaw, Hermes & Claude Code usage

AI coding agents (Claude Code, Codex, OpenClaw, Hermes) consume a lot of tokens — a single refactoring session can burn through thousands. Running them against paid Anthropic or OpenAI APIs adds up fast. By pointing these tools at free backends (NVIDIA NIM, Groq, OpenRouter), we get the same agent workflow at zero cost. Rate limits are the trade-off: at 30-40 RPM, a solo developer working interactively rarely hits them.

LLM newcomers — experience frontier models at no cost

Not everyone needs to ship an app. Many people just want to try the latest models, compare how different AIs answer the same question, or understand what "1M context window" actually means. Free APIs make this possible without signing up for a $20/month subscription. Browse our model directory, grab a free key, and start exploring — the Playground works in your browser with zero setup.