Free AI API credits, verified October 2026
One-time credit grants and permanent free tiers for LLM, speech, and image APIs.
74 offers checked and verified · Browse all 231 free AI offers · Changes (RSS)
The short answer
Free API access falls into three groups.
- Permanent free tiers: Google's Gemini API, Groq, Mistral's free plan, OpenRouter's rotating zero-cost models, llm7.io (1M tokens a day), Z.AI's free GLM models.
- One-time credits: AgentRouter $200, Deepgram $200 (speech), Speechmatics $100, AssemblyAI $50, Cerebras $5, YepAPI $5.
- Big token grants: Voyage AI 200M embedding tokens per model, Inception 100M Mercury tokens, Jina AI 10M.
The catch: free tiers rate-limit hard, one-time credits expire or stop when spent, and model availability rotates. Everything below was claimed and tested with a real account; the table shows what is free, the limits we hit, and whether a card was required.
All API credits, best free value first
| Tool | What's free | Key limits | Card required? | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $25one-time | $25 per daily check-in · $50 per invite · Claude and GPT models: limited daily supply,… | No card required | Listed · Sep 10, 2026 | |
| Free tierongoing | No expiration · Free models include gemini-3.8-flash, gemini-3.6-flash,… | No card required | Verified · Oct 12, 2026 | |
| Free tierongoing | Per-organization limits tracked as RPM, RPD, TPM, TPD · openai/gpt-oss-120b and… | No card required | Verified · Oct 12, 2026 | |
| 50 requests/dayresets daily | 20 requests per minute on all free variants · 50 requests per day for accounts that have… | No card required | Verified · Oct 12, 2026 | |
| 100,000 tokens/dayresets daily | 100,000 tokens per 24 hours with a free token (input + output combined) · Free token: 1… | No card required | Verified · Oct 12, 2026 | |
| $50,000one-time | Build (up to $5M raised): up to $15K credits + 3 hours engineering · Scale ($5M-$10M… | No card required | Verified · Oct 12, 2026 | |
| $25,000one-time | Up to $25,000 for Dedicated Deployments or Training · Up to $2,500 for Model APIs ·… | No card required | Verified · Oct 12, 2026 | |
| $20,0006 months | Up to $20,000 in API credits for a 6-month period · API usage only; no Claude web app or… | No card required | Verified · Oct 12, 2026 | |
| $5,500one-time | 33,000,000 characters (~680+ hours of Agents usage) over 12 months · Startups and small… | No card required | Verified · Oct 12, 2026 | |
| $1,000one-time | Start at $1,000; $2,500 unlocks at $1,000/mo spend; $5,000 at $2,500/mo spend · Open to… | No card required | Verified · Oct 12, 2026 | |
| $1,000one-time | Starter: up to $1,000 in free credits, no deposit, awarded in $100 steps · Growth:… | No card required | Verified · Oct 12, 2026 | |
| $200one-time | $200 credit valid for 30 days only · 40+ Lite-plan products stay free indefinitely | Card required | Verified · Oct 13, 2026 | |
| $200one-time | Standard voices: 5 million characters/month (no stated time limit) · Neural voices: 1… | No card required | Verified · Oct 12, 2026 | |
| $200one-time | Applies to the Pay As You Go plan · No expiration on the credit · No minimums · Moves to… | No card required | Verified · Oct 12, 2026 | |
| $200one-time | More than 20 open-weight models (LLM, TTS/STT, document analysis, image analysis) ·… | Card required | Verified · Oct 12, 2026 | |
| $100one-time | $100 one-time AI token credits per new account · Usable across all supported models in… | No card required | Verified · Oct 12, 2026 | |
| $100one-time | $100 in API credits granted on approval · $5 company verification payment required… | Card required | Verified · Oct 12, 2026 | |
| $100one-time | $100 sign-up credit lasts 12 months · 2 concurrent real-time sessions on the Free tier ·… | No card required | Verified · Oct 12, 2026 | |
| $90one-time | 80+ products, most trials running 1-12 months · ECS: USD 90 free credits valid 3 months… | Card required | Verified · Oct 12, 2026 | |
| $50one-time | Free-tier streaming concurrency: 5 new streams per minute · Free-tier accounts may… | No card required | Verified · Oct 12, 2026 | |
| $20one-time | $10 signup credit plus a one-time $10 onboarding bonus · $10 free balance reset monthly… | No card required | Verified · Oct 12, 2026 | |
| $20one-time | New accounts start on the free tier with $20 in credits · 10,000 characters per month… | No card required | Verified · Oct 12, 2026 | |
| $20one-time | 2,000 free credits per account on first API key generation · API concurrency: 10 tasks… | No card required | Verified · Oct 12, 2026 | |
| $10one-time | $10 one-time credit for new accounts · Valid for 3 months · Covers API usage, SDK, and… | No card required | Verified · Oct 12, 2026 | |
| $10one-time | $10 total signup credit: $2 instant on OAuth sign-in, $8 after contacting support ·… | No card required | Verified · Oct 12, 2026 | |
| $5one-time | $5 credits expire 30 days after activation · Verified payment method required to… | Card required | Verified · Oct 12, 2026 | |
| $5one-time | $5 one-time credits per workspace · 100 queries/minute; 6,000 uploads/minute for… | No card required | Verified · Oct 12, 2026 | |
| $5one-time | One-time credit per eligible account · Promotional balance; cannot be withdrawn as cash… | No card required | Verified · Oct 12, 2026 | |
| $5one-time | $5 of credits every 30 days per team · Free credits start on your first AI Gateway… | Card required | Verified · Oct 12, 2026 | |
| $5one-time | One-time $5 credit; no recurring free tier · 203 models included with one API key ·… | No card required | Verified · Oct 12, 2026 | |
| $1one-time | $1 once per person for eligible Google, GitHub, or Microsoft signups · No card required;… | No card required | Verified · Oct 12, 2026 | |
| $1one-time | $1 trial credit, valid for 30 days · Bank card required to set up a billing account ·… | Card required | Verified · Oct 12, 2026 | |
| $1one-time | Free-model rate limits are fixed · New accounts start at usage tier L0: 1,000 RPM /… | No card required | Verified · Oct 12, 2026 | |
| 50,000,000,000 tokens | 50,000,000,000 tokens valued at DeepSeek V4 Flash prices · Credits expire 1 year after… | No card required | Verified · Oct 12, 2026 | |
| 200,000,000 tokens | 200M free tokens each: voyage-4-large, voyage-4, voyage-4-lite, voyage-code-4,… | No card required | Verified · Oct 12, 2026 | |
| 100,000,000 tokens | 100M free tokens per new account, one-time · No payment details required to start ·… | No card required | Verified · Oct 12, 2026 | |
| 30,000,000 tokens/monthresets monthly | 30M tokens/month on the free tier (input + output, incl. reasoning) · 128K context,… | No card required | Verified · Oct 19, 2026 | |
| 15,000,000 tokens | 15,000,000 Free.ai tokens granted per accepted startup · Granted tokens have no expiry… | No card required | Verified · Oct 12, 2026 | |
| 10,000,000 tokens | 10M tokens per new API key, shared across Reader, Embeddings, Reranker, Classifier,… | No card required | Verified · Oct 12, 2026 | |
| 7,000,000 tokens/dayresets daily | 7,000,000 tokens per day, resetting at 07:00 WIB (00:00 UTC) · 15 requests per minute ·… | No card required | Verified · Oct 12, 2026 | |
| 1,000,000 tokens | Typically 1,000,000 tokens per model, each model with its own quota · Valid 90 days from… | No card required | Verified · Oct 12, 2026 | |
| 1,000,000 tokens | 1,000,000 free tokens (Serverless, token-billed models) · 60 minutes free audio… | No card required | Verified · Oct 12, 2026 | |
| 300,000 tokens/monthresets monthly | 20 CUH per month for watsonx.ai Runtime · 300,000 foundation-model tokens per month… | No card required | Verified · Oct 12, 2026 | |
| 100,000 tokens/dayresets daily | 100,000 ₳nyTokens per day · Basic and free models only; premium models require a paid… | No card required | Verified · Oct 12, 2026 | |
| 20,000 credits/monthresets monthly | 20K model credits per month · $1 prepaid agents balance per month · Sonic-3.6 TTS: about… | No card required | Verified · Oct 12, 2026 | |
| 10,000 credits/monthresets monthly | 10,000 credits per month, shared across all products · No commercial license · No… | No card required | Verified · Oct 12, 2026 | |
| 4,000 credits/monthresets monthly | 4 months of free Project Plan access · 4,000 API credits per month · Student… | No card required | Verified · Oct 12, 2026 | |
| 1,000 requests/monthresets monthly | Trial API keys are rate limited (specific limits not published on the pricing page) ·… | No card required | Verified · Oct 12, 2026 | |
| 1,000 credits/monthresets monthly | 1,000 API credits per month, renewing monthly; no overage — calls return 401 when… | No card required | Verified · Oct 12, 2026 | |
| 1,000 credits/monthresets monthly | 1,000 credits/month, refreshed monthly · 1 credit = 1 page on basic scrape, crawl, or… | No card required | Verified · Oct 12, 2026 | |
| 1,000 requests/dayresets daily | 1,000 requests/day per account, shared across all standard free models, resets 00:00 UTC… | No card required | Verified · Oct 12, 2026 | |
| 200 requests/dayresets daily | Free plan: 200 requests/day, no credit card required · 13 models at $0 in/out pricing ·… | No card required | Verified · Oct 12, 2026 | |
| 200 requests/dayresets daily | 200 requests/day per account, resetting at 00:00 UTC · 20 requests/minute (rolling… | No card required | Verified · Oct 12, 2026 | |
| 50 credits/monthresets monthly | 50 credits every 30 days; unused credits do not carry over · 100 credits equal $1 of… | No card required | Verified · Oct 12, 2026 | |
| 25 credits | 25 free credits, granted on Google social-login signup · One-time grant for initial… | No card required | Verified · Oct 12, 2026 | |
| 15 images/dayresets daily | 10 text prompts per day · 15 image prompts per day · Base AI models only (full catalog… | No card required | Verified · Oct 12, 2026 | |
| 10 credits/dayresets daily | 10 credits per day per account, issued daily · Credit cost per call varies by model ·… | No card required | Verified · Oct 12, 2026 | |
| Free tierongoing | Free text models: agnes-2.5-flash, agnes-3.0-flash · Free image models:… | No card required | Verified · Oct 12, 2026 | |
| Free tierongoing | Free models: DeepSeek-V4-Flash, DeepSeek-V4-Flash-Vision-Exp, Qwen3.8-Flash-Next,… | No card required | Verified · Oct 12, 2026 | |
| Free credits | One-time grant for new users, not a recurring allotment · Amount not published ·… | No card required | Verified · Oct 12, 2026 | |
| Free credits | Rotating, limited-time free model promotions · Limited usage quota per promotion (amount… | No card required | Verified · Oct 12, 2026 | |
| Free tierongoing | Catalog of free and low-cost models; which models are free changes over time · Unlimited… | No card required | Verified · Oct 12, 2026 | |
| Startup program | Build Credits expire after 1 year · Credits auto-apply to usage charges; pay-as-you-go… | No card required | Verified · Oct 12, 2026 | |
| Free credits | One-time 50 EUR credit at signup, valid for one year, no monthly reset · Roughly 312 h… | No card required | Verified · Oct 12, 2026 | |
| Free tierongoing | Studio Free mode: API access with no card, within per-model usage and rate limits · No… | No card required | Verified · Oct 12, 2026 | |
| Free tierongoing | Featured free models: nemotron-3.5-super-vl-120b-a12b, nemotron-3.5-lightning-30b-a3b,… | No card required | Verified · Oct 12, 2026 | |
| Free tierongoing | Limited time — every free model is marked 'available on OpenCode for a limited time' ·… | Card required | Verified · Oct 12, 2026 | |
| Fully freeongoing | Key types: sk_ secret keys with configurable budgets; legacy raw pk_ keys are… | No card required | Verified · Oct 12, 2026 | |
| Free tierongoing | Free for a limited number of runs; exact cap not published · Free models (11):… | No card required | Verified · Oct 12, 2026 | |
| Free credits | INR 100 one-time signup credits · Credits never expire and work across all Sarvam APIs ·… | No card required | Verified · Oct 12, 2026 | |
| Startup program | 6-12 months of credits matched to your scale · Up to 12 months of credits · Rolling… | No card required | Verified · Oct 12, 2026 | |
| Free tierongoing | Free models: DeepSeek V4.1 Flash, MiMo V2.6 Flash, TH-Rudder (rotating lineup) · Free… | No card required | Verified · Oct 12, 2026 | |
| Free tierongoing | Free models: DeepSeek V4.1 Flash, MiMo V2.6 Flash, TH-Rudder (rotating lineup) · Free… | No card required | Verified · Oct 12, 2026 | |
| Student program | Up to 1 year of free access · Program runs from approval until March 31, 2027, 11:00 PM… | No card required | Verified · Oct 12, 2026 | |
| Free tierongoing | Free models: GLM-4.7-Flash, GLM-4.5-Flash, GLM-4.6V-Flash (input, cached input, cached… | No card required | Verified · Oct 12, 2026 | |
| $1one-time | 100 credits ($1) per month, replenishing up to 100 credits · Card verification with a… | Card required | Listed · Sep 10, 2026 | |
| 10,000,000 tokens/monthresets monthly | 10M weighted tokens per day on free models · 5 requests per minute on the free plan ·… | No card required | Listed · Sep 11, 2026 | |
| 500,000 tokens/monthresets monthly | 0.5M tokens per month, resets monthly · 80 requests/minute and 100,000 tokens/minute on… | No card required | Re-verification in progress | |
| 500,000 tokens | No expiration (subject to change) · 500K tokens per LLM model, 2M video tokens, 200… | No card required | Listed · Sep 12, 2026 | |
| 10,000 credits/dayresets daily | 10,000 Neurons per day free on Workers Free and Workers Paid; resets daily at 00:00 UTC… | No card required | Listed · Oct 21, 2026 | |
| 2,500 requests | 2,500 free queries for new accounts, one-time · No credit card required · Credits are… | No card required | Listed · Oct 21, 2026 | |
| 1,000 requests/monthresets monthly | $5 in free credits every month on each plan, applied automatically · Search plan: $5 per… | Card required | Listed · Oct 21, 2026 | |
| 1,000 credits/monthresets monthly (1st) | 1,000 API credits per month on the free Researcher plan · Credits reset on the first day… | No card required | Listed · Oct 21, 2026 | |
| 50 requests/dayresets daily | No expiration · 10 requests/minute and 50 requests/day (20 RPM and 800/day after $20 in… | No card required | Listed · Sep 10, 2026 | |
| 2 GB | Up to 2 GB storage, 5 serverless indexes, 100 namespaces per index · Up to 1M read units… | No card required | Listed · Oct 21, 2026 | |
| Free tierongoing | Free text models: GLM-4.7-Flash (200K context, 128K output), GLM-4.5-Flash (128K/96K),… | No card required | Listed · Oct 21, 2026 | |
| Free tierongoing | Starter usage amount not published; resets monthly from the signup date and does not… | No card required | Listed · Oct 21, 2026 | |
| Startup program | Current cohort is full; no new applications right now · Applications still in review… | No card required | Re-verification in progress | |
| Free tierongoing | Limited time · Free models: Hy3, Mimo2.5, GLM 5.3 Flash, Qwen3.8 Flash | No card required | Listed · Sep 10, 2026 |
Top picks
- Gemini API free tier or Groq for an always-on project - both permanent, with published, stable limits you can plan around.
- OpenRouter's free models or llm7.io for model variety without commitment - many LLMs through one OpenAI-compatible endpoint at $0 (llm7.io serves 1M tokens a day).
- Deepgram's $200 credit for speech APIs - the most generous grant we have verified, no card needed.
- Voyage AI's embedding grant for raw token volume - 200M tokens per model, the largest no-strings grant; AgentRouter's $200 remains the biggest one-time all-rounder.
How we verify
We claim every credit with a fresh account and run our own test requests against it.
- We record the rate limits we actually hit, the models that answered, and whether the card field was skippable at signup.
- We re-check balances and quotas monthly; the verified date on each row is the day we last confirmed the numbers.
- We pull providers that quietly throttle, de-scope, or never deliver the advertised credits - and name them on our scam list where it looks intentional.
Frequently asked questions
Are these free APIs really $0?
Yes - each was called with a real key. Permanent tiers cost nothing within their rate limits; credit grants cover your usage until the balance runs out. The verified date shows when we last confirmed each row.
Do I need a credit card for free API credits?
Most providers here do not require one, and our card column records what signup actually asked for. A few cloud platforms require a card for identity verification even when the credits are free - those rows are marked.
How long do free API credits last?
Permanent free tiers do not expire but rate-limit daily and monthly. One-time credits typically last until spent, and some trials expire after 30-90 days. The "Key limits" column records the duration each provider states.
Which free LLM API is best for production?
None of the free tiers carry a production SLA. The most dependable starting points are Gemini's free tier and Groq, because their limits are published and stable. Treat one-time credit grants as evaluation budgets rather than infrastructure.
What is the difference between a free tier and free credits?
A free tier is ongoing access within rate limits; free credits are a balance you spend down, after which you pay or stop. The "What's free" column labels every row accordingly.
Side-by-side comparisons
Ranked charts
Step-by-step guides
How to Get a Free Gemini API KeyHow to Use an AI Coding Agent for FreeHow to Apply for AI Startup CreditsHow to Get Free Claude API CreditsHow to Get a Free Groq API KeyFree AI Image Generation: In the Browser and by APIFree OpenAI API Access in 2026: What's Actually FreeFree Embeddings and Reranking APIs in 2026Free Text-to-Speech APIs in 2026Free Speech-to-Text APIs in 2026Free Image Generation APIs in 2026Free Web Search APIs for LLM Agents in 2026Free Vector Databases for RAG in 2026Free DeepSeek API in 2026: What Is Actually FreeOpenRouter Free Models: Limits, Credits and API SetupFree Hugging Face Inference: Credits, ZeroGPU and SpacesFree AI APIs With No Credit Card in 2026Free Vision APIs: Read Images and Screenshots for FreeFree Reasoning Model APIs: Thinking Models for Free
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Last verified Oct 19, 2026 · 89 offers checked · 76 re-checked this month · Providers that fail our checks land on the scam list.