How to Get a Free OpenRouter API Key (2026)
33 free models available — no credit card required. Get your OpenRouter API key →
Overview
Single API key for 300+ models from every major lab.
OpenRouter is a unified API gateway that routes requests to models from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Meta, Mistral, and dozens of other providers. With a single API key and one base URL, developers can switch between models without changing code. The free tier (marked :free) offers 200 requests/day — or 1,000/day with a $10 lifetime top-up.
- 35+ permanently free models
- OpenAI-compatible endpoint
- 200 RPD free, 1,000 RPD with $10 lifetime credit
- One key for 300+ models
API Compatibility: OpenAI SDK-compatible (Chat Completions)
Quick Start Guide
- 1 Sign up at openrouter.ai No credit card. $10 lifetime top-up for 5× more rate limits.
- 2 Go to Keys page
- 3 Create a new API key
- 4 Find free models Look for :free suffix in model name, or browse our list below.
- 5 Configure OpenAI client Base URL: https://openrouter.ai/api/v1
All Free OpenRouter Models — Context Windows & Rate Limits
| Model | Context | Max Output | Modality | Rate Limit | Released | Status | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| inclusionAI: Ring-2.6-1T | 262K | 66K | See provider page | May 8, 2026 | Online | Details | |
| Baidu Qianfan: CoBuddy (free) | 131K | 66K | See provider page | May 6, 2026 | Online | Details | |
| Owl Alpha | 1.0M | 262K | See provider page | Apr 28, 2026 | Online | Details | |
| NVIDIA: Nemotron 3 Nano Omni (free) | 256K | 66K | See provider page | Apr 28, 2026 | Online | Details | |
| Poolside: Laguna XS.2 (free) | 131K | 8K | See provider page | Apr 28, 2026 | Online | Details | |
| Poolside: Laguna M.1 (free) | 131K | 8K | See provider page | Apr 28, 2026 | Online | Details | |
| DeepSeek: DeepSeek V4 Flash (free) | 1.0M | 384K | See provider page | Apr 24, 2026 | Online | Details | |
| Baidu: Qianfan-OCR-Fast | 66K | 29K | See provider page | Apr 20, 2026 | Online | Details | |
| Z.ai: GLM 5.1 | 203K | 203K | See provider page | Apr 7, 2026 | Online | Details | |
| Google: Gemma 4 26B A4B (free) | 262K | 33K | See provider page | Apr 3, 2026 | Online | Details | |
| Google: Gemma 4 31B (free) | 262K | 33K | See provider page | Apr 2, 2026 | Online | Details | |
| Arcee AI: Trinity Large Thinking (free) | 262K | 80K | See provider page | Apr 1, 2026 | Online | Details | |
| Google: Lyria 3 Pro Preview | 1.0M | 66K | See provider page | Mar 30, 2026 | Online | Details | |
| Google: Lyria 3 Clip Preview | 1.0M | 66K | See provider page | Mar 30, 2026 | Online | Details | |
| NVIDIA: Nemotron 3 Super (free) | 1.0M | 262K | See provider page | Mar 11, 2026 | Online | Details | |
| MiniMax: MiniMax M2.5 (free) | 205K | 8K | See provider page | Feb 12, 2026 | Online | Details | |
| Free Models Router | 200K | 8K | See provider page | Feb 1, 2026 | Online | Details | |
| LiquidAI: LFM2.5-1.2B-Thinking (free) | 33K | 8K | See provider page | Jan 20, 2026 | Online | Details | |
| LiquidAI: LFM2.5-1.2B-Instruct (free) | 33K | 8K | See provider page | Jan 20, 2026 | Online | Details | |
| NVIDIA: Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B (free) | 256K | 8K | See provider page | Dec 14, 2025 | Online | Details | |
| OpenAI: gpt-oss-safeguard-20b | 131K | 66K | See provider page | Oct 29, 2025 | Online | Details | |
| NVIDIA: Nemotron Nano 12B 2 VL (free) | 128K | 128K | See provider page | Oct 28, 2025 | Online | Details | |
| Qwen: Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Instruct (free) | 262K | 8K | See provider page | Sep 11, 2025 | Online | Details | |
| NVIDIA: Nemotron Nano 9B V2 (free) | 128K | 8K | See provider page | Sep 5, 2025 | Online | Details | |
| OpenAI: gpt-oss-120b (free) | 131K | 131K | See provider page | Aug 5, 2025 | Online | Details | |
| OpenAI: gpt-oss-20b (free) | 131K | 8K | See provider page | Aug 5, 2025 | Online | Details | |
| Z.ai: GLM 4.5 Air (free) | 131K | 96K | See provider page | Jul 25, 2025 | Online | Details | |
| Qwen: Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B (free) | 1.0M | 262K | See provider page | Feb 4, 2026 | Online | Details | |
| Venice: Uncensored (free) | 33K | 8K | See provider page | — | Online | Details | |
| Meta: Llama 3.3 70B Instruct (free) | 131K | 8K | See provider page | Dec 6, 2024 | Online | Details | |
| Meta: Llama 3.2 3B Instruct (free) | 131K | 8K | See provider page | Sep 25, 2024 | Online | Details | |
| Nous: Hermes 3 405B Instruct (free) | 131K | 8K | See provider page | Aug 16, 2024 | Online | Details | |
| NVIDIA: Llama Nemotron Embed VL 1B V2 (free) | 131K | 8K | See provider page | Feb 25, 2026 | Online | Details |
Pricing & Limits
Credit Card Not required
Free Tier Permanently free
Context Range 33K – 1.0M
Total Models 33 free
API Compatibility OpenAI SDK-compatible (Chat Completions)
Use Cases
What OpenRouter's free models are best for, based on aggregated model capabilities:
Limitations & Caveats
- 200 RPD on free tier (1,000 with $10 lifetime credit)
- Free models may change without notice
- Some free models have shorter context windows than paid variants