Vercel AI Gateway Free Tier
Every Vercel team gets $5 of AI Gateway credits every 30 days
What you get from Vercel AI Gateway Free Tier for free
Overview
Vercel AI Gateway is a managed gateway that routes requests to 200+ models across providers through one OpenAI-compatible endpoint at https://ai-gateway.vercel.sh/v1/chat/completions, with zero markup on token prices — you pay the provider's list price. Every Vercel team account includes a free tier with a recurring monthly credit, announced at $5 of credits every 30 days, which starts when you make your first AI Gateway request.
Free Tier Quotas & Limits
- Monthly included credit: $5 every 30 days (per the GA announcement) — a recurring credit, not a time-limited trial.
- Model subset: the free tier covers a subset of the catalog, not all models. Browse the free-tier model list for the current set; other models require purchased AI Gateway Credits.
- Rate limits: free-tier requests are rate limited per model with lower limits than the paid tier. Exceeding a limit returns a
429and the same request can be retried after a short wait. - Once you purchase AI Gateway Credits, your team moves to the paid tier and the monthly free credit no longer applies.
Key Free Models
Free-tier-eligible models currently include:
inclusionai/ling-3.1-flash(chat) andconvaiinnovations/laya(decision/evaluation)inclusionai/ling-3.0-flash-fin,inclusionai/ling-3.0-flash-sante,inclusionai/ling-3.0-flash-vl(chat)poolside/laguna-s-2.1-free(chat)
How to Get Started
- Create a Vercel account — AI Gateway works from any environment, not just Vercel deployments.
- Add a valid payment method to your team to use free credits.
- Create an AI Gateway API key from the dashboard and export it as
AI_GATEWAY_API_KEY. - Call a free-tier model via the AI SDK, OpenAI-compatible Chat Completions, Anthropic Messages, or run
npx vercel@latest ai-gateway coding-agents setupto route a coding agent through the gateway.
Before you claim
- Payment card: Required to claim.
- Account: Sign up with the provider.
Key limits
- $5 of credits every 30 days per team
- Free credits start on your first AI Gateway request
- Free tier covers a subset of models, not the full catalog
- Free tier requests rate limited per model (429 on exceed)
- Zero markup on provider token prices, including BYOK on the paid tier
Eligibility
Any Vercel team account. A 403 with customer_verification_required means the team must add a payment method before using free credits.
Models served free
Limits as the provider publishes them; a dash means none is published.
| Model | Context | RPM | RPD | TPM | Tools | Vision |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| inclusionai/ling-3.1-flashFree-tier-eligible; per-model limits lower than paid and not published as numbers | 262k | — | — | — | yes | — |
| poolside/laguna-s-2.1-freeFree-tier-eligible; limits unpublished | 256k | — | — | — | yes | — |
| convaiinnovations/layaFree-tier-eligible (8.2K context) | 8k | — | — | — | — | — |
History
Verified by a person on · last automated check : no change found. Automated findings never change this page until a person confirms them (how we verify).
- Terms updatedby a person · Content updated from https://vercel.com/docs/ai-gateway/faq (checked 2026-10-21).
- Verifiedby a person
- Listedby a person
Full history with screenshots · How we verified this offer · Sitewide changelog
Still works?
Work at vercel.com? Add an aifree.dev badge
<a href="https://aifree.dev/offer/vercel-ai-gateway-free-tier"><img src="https://aifree.dev/badge/vercel-ai-gateway-free-tier" alt="Vercel AI Gateway Free Tier on aifree.dev" height="20"></a>[](https://aifree.dev/offer/vercel-ai-gateway-free-tier)Appears in
More free coding tools
Related offers
Up to $30,000 in Flexible Commitment Amount
Light agent coding quota
30M tokens/month on the free tier (input + output, incl. reasoning)
6 months of Pro-resources access, one-time per account
12 months - One-year license via the GitHub Student Pack