Best free LLM APIs (current snapshot)

A current snapshot of published free allowances from our provider list — not a paid ranking, and not a substitute for the official pages.

Last updated 12 Nov 2026. The provider figures on this page follow the tracker snapshot of 12 Nov 2026, 08:59 IST.

What does “best” mean on this page?

“Best” here means “currently listed with a published free allowance you can verify,” grouped so you can compare official providers, published daily token figures, and OpenAI-compatible options that do not require a card in our data. It is not a paid placement, a benchmark, or a promise that one API is faster or more accurate than another. Every number is copied from our provider list, last snapshotted at 12 Nov 2026, 08:59 IST.

If a provider does not publish tokens per day, they will not appear in the daily-token table even if their free tier is useful. We would rather leave a gap than invent a rank.

As of 12 Nov 2026, 08:59 IST this tracker lists 112 providers: 108 with an active free offer in our data, and 4 ended offers. Of the active list, 33 are marked official, 102 are OpenAI compatible, and 20 publish a daily token figure. These counts will change the next time the list is updated.

Which providers publish a daily token figure?

The table below includes only active offers in our data that have a numeric tokens_per_day value. A blank or “Not published” tokens-per-day field is not treated as zero. Higher published caps are not automatically safer: several of the largest figures belong to gateways with a relay warning. Read Relay and gateway risks before you put source code or private text into those services.

A tokens-per-day number also does not tell you which models are included, whether the cap is shared across models, or whether a trial later requires a card. Use the official link in each row.

Which official providers are in the current snapshot?

Official providers are model makers or clouds, not unofficial resellers. They can still have short trials, require a card, or leave limits unpublished. The table is alphabetical. Ended official offers are not shown here; they remain on the home page behind “Show ended offers.”

Some official rows are a better first test than others because they document an OpenAI-compatible base URL and state that no card is required. That still is not a quality ranking. For example, a 30-day trial with a high daily cap is not the same as an ongoing free tier, and a cap measured in “Neurons” is not a token count. Individual notes live in the provider guides for Groq, Gemini, Cloudflare Workers AI, Cerebras, SambaNova and Mistral.

Which OpenAI-compatible APIs list no card and no relay warning?

This cut is useful if you want to try the OpenAI SDK without a card and without an unofficial relay, according to our current fields. “No” in the card column can still change — some providers add a card later or after a credit is used up. Confirm on the official site.

Gateways can appear here if we have not flagged them as relays and they document compatibility. A missing relay flag is not a security audit. If you cannot tell who operates the GPU, treat prompts as public.

What about offers that have already ended?

Ended offers stay in data.json so that old links and screenshots remain explainable. They are hidden on the home page by default. Do not plan new work on them.

How should I choose a starting point from these tables?

Use a short path instead of trying to optimise a single “winner”:

1. Decide whether you will send only throwaway prompts, or anything private. Private work should stay on official providers you trust, or on a model you run locally.
2. Filter for OpenAI compatibility if you want the SDK pattern in our how-to guide.
3. Prefer a published base URL. If the base URL is Not published, we will not invent one.
4. Read the allowance in words, not only the tokens-per-day column. A one-time credit, a 30-day trial, a monthly call cap and a daily token cap are different shapes of “free.”
5. Open the official pricing or rate-limit page and confirm the figure on the day you sign up.
6. Make one small request, then look at the dashboard before you write a loop.

Speed, quality and context-window size are not fields we invent. If you need those, measure them yourself or read the provider’s official model card.

Why do some well-known names look modest in the tables?

A well-known official API may publish a free tier without a daily token number, so it will not lead a tokens-per-day sort. Another may publish a high cap that only applies during a card-backed trial. A gateway may advertise millions of tokens per day and still be a relay. Sorting by a single column would hide those differences, which is why this page keeps several tables and no single score.

OpenRouter, for example, is listed as a gateway with :free models and a published daily request cap until credits are bought; it does not have a tokens-per-day figure in our file, so it will not appear in the first table. That is a limitation of the data, not a judgement of the product.

How is this page kept current?

Whenever data.json is updated, this page’s tables, counts and “snapshot” timestamp are regenerated. The surrounding explanation stays the same unless we edit it. If a number on this page disagrees with a provider’s site, trust the provider’s site and tell us with a link to the official page.

For a comparison of official clouds versus gateways, continue with Official providers vs gateways. For limits language such as RPM and RPD, see Rate limits explained.