OrcaRouter has introduced new requirements for its free tier: users must now link a GitHub account that is at least 30 days old. The change takes effect immediately and aims to stop automated account farming that was consuming capacity meant for real developers.
Key Details
- New requirement: Link a GitHub account aged 30 days or more to access the free tier.
- Rate limits: Unchanged from the previous configuration.
- Reason: Projects built to automatically farm OrcaRouter accounts for free tokens were taking capacity away from legitimate users.
- What's next: The team is working on better tiering and abuse detection, with a focus on ensuring real developers get the access they need.
For context, OrcaRouter's free tier routes prompts across 200+ models at 0% token markup, and recently replaced Qwen3.8 27B with GLM 5.3 Flash as its free routing model.
Link: OrcaRouter