---
title: "Pollinations Free API"
slug: "pollinations-free-api"
provider: "Pollinations"
status: "verified"
verifiedAt: "2026-10-12"
listedAt: "2026-09-12"
canonical: "https://aifree.dev/offer/pollinations-free-api"
---

# Pollinations Free API

> Free text, image, audio, and video generation API, API key required

- Provider: [Pollinations](https://aifree.dev/provider/enter-pollinations-ai)
- What is free: Fully free
- Status: verified by a person on 2026-10-12
- Credit card: not required
- Sign-up: not required
- For: Developers
- Claim at: https://enter.pollinations.ai/

## What you get

Pollinations serves text, image, audio and video generation over plain HTTP. All generation requests require an API key; only model listing works without authentication.

## The catch

Every generation request now requires an API key — there is no documented anonymous tier — and free-tier images may include watermarks.

## Limits

- Key types: sk_ secret keys with configurable budgets; legacy raw pk_ keys are rate-limited to 1 pollen per IP per hour
- No anonymous tier is documented; generation requires an API key, only model listing works without auth
- Free-tier images may include watermarks; registering removes them
- Pollen pay-as-you-go credits; earn Pollen via Quests, no credit card required

## Models served free

Published free-tier rate limits; "—" = not published.

| Model | API id | Context (k tokens) | Tool calling | Vision | RPM | RPD | TPM |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| openai-fast | — | 400 | yes | yes | — | — | — |

## Details

## Overview

[Pollinations](https://pollinations.ai/) is an open-source generative AI platform. All generation requests now require an API key; only model listing works without authentication.

## Free Access

- **API key required.** Generation calls such as `https://gen.pollinations.ai/text/{prompt}` and the legacy `https://text.pollinations.ai/{prompt}` and `https://image.pollinations.ai/prompt/{prompt}` endpoints must be authenticated with an API key.
- **Key types.** `sk_` secret keys have configurable model permissions and budgets, while legacy raw `pk_` keys are rate-limited to 1 pollen per IP per hour. The current API guide documents no anonymous tier.
- **Quest Pollen vs paid Pollen.** Models marked `paid_only` need paid Pollen; all other models, including `openai-fast`, can be paid with free Quest Pollen.
- Front-end keys are for client-side apps, server-to-server keys for backends.

## Free Pollen Rewards

Registered developers receive free **Quest Pollen** for one-time actions listed in the official quest catalog:

- Create your first API key: 0.25 Pollen
- Use a Pollinations app: 0.25 Pollen
- Use a text, image or audio model: 0.25 Pollen each
- Join the Discord: 1 Pollen
- Merged pull request: 5 Pollen

Daily Pollen grants are also given to registered developers based on their account tier.

## Available Free Modalities

The catalog spans text, image, audio, video, 3D and embeddings. Community publishers list free-to-call models with no numeric price, including `community/YoannDev90/vercel-minimax-m3.1-flash:free`, `community/Saauf/nemotron-3-super-120b-a12b`, `community/scriptsnsenses-sys/flux-2-dev-free` and `community/scriptsnsenses-sys/sdxl-lightning-free`.

## How to Get Started

Open [enter.pollinations.ai](https://enter.pollinations.ai/) to create an account and API key, then call `https://gen.pollinations.ai/text/{prompt}` with the key. Model IDs follow the `publisher/model` convention, and older short IDs such as `flux` remain available as aliases.

## More

- HTML page: https://aifree.dev/offer/pollinations-free-api
- Change history: https://aifree.dev/offer/pollinations-free-api/history
- How it was verified: https://aifree.dev/offer/pollinations-free-api/verification
- More in [Free AI API credits](https://aifree.dev/free-api-credits.md)
- JSON: https://aifree.dev/api/v1/offers/pollinations-free-api