LLM: Five Free APIs in 2026, Quotas and Key Models

Five platforms are offering free LLM API access in 2026, sufficient for learning, prototyping, and testing. Quotas, available models, and specifics vary significantly between Groq, OpenRouter, Cloudflare, Mistral, and Google Gemini.

Google Makes Gemini 3.7 Flash Free with 1 Million Context Tokens

Gemini 3.7 Flash is offered for free, in terms of input and output tokens, on the free tier of the API. This model features a context window of 1 million tokens and accepts up to 64K output tokens. Google presents 3.7 Flash as the most capable Flash model for coding, agentic workflows, and multimodal reasoning. The free tier also includes newer models. The API additionally covers image, audio, and video understanding, as well as free text and multimodal embedding models. Google states it provides free usage on selected models.

Cloudflare Workers AI Allocates 10,000 Neurons Per Day, Reset Daily

Each Workers AI account receives 10,000 inference Neurons per day, with a daily reset. The solution combines hosted models with Cloudflare's serverless platform. A model does not need to be displayed at $0 to be usable for free within the allocation, and many retain a per-token price, covered as long as usage remains within the 10,000 daily Neurons. This mechanism allows testing of recent and large models without immediate payment per token, provided usage stays within the free quota.

Mistral Credits $10 Per Month Without a Card, Usable on Its Models

Mistral includes $10 of monthly API credits in its free offering and does not require a credit card to start with Mistral Studio. This credit is not limited to a single model and funds API usage of available Mistral models in the Studio account, including recent versions that are normally charged per token. The credits can be used to build applications in Studio or to try agentic coding with Vibe Code. Among the accessible models is Mistral Medium.

GroqCloud: 10,000 Neurons/Day and Access to GPT-OSS-120B

GroqCloud sets a cap of 10,000 usable Neurons daily. The free offering allows the use of Groq Compound, GPT-OSS-20B, GPT-OSS-120B, and Qwen3.6-27B. The quotas are specific to each model, rather than a common pool. The service is presented as focused on inference speed and suitable for chatbots or agentic applications that require quick responses.

OpenRouter Aggregates Over 25 Free Models with Routing:free

OpenRouter lists over 25 free models. Many endpoints use the suffix :free, and the alias openrouter/free automatically routes the request to an available free model with the requested capabilities, such as tool calls or structured outputs. Free accounts currently have 50 requests per day and 20 per minute. After purchasing at least $10 of credits, the daily limit for free models increases to 1,000 requests, without these models ceasing to be free. The API remains compatible with the OpenAI interface, avoiding the need to overhaul an application to test other models.

Expanded Free Access and Models Available Without Hosting

Free API access allows for learning, prototyping, and experimenting without having to host models oneself and without paying per call within the specified limits. Models such as NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra, Laguna S 2.1, GPT-OSS-120B, and the latest Gemini are mentioned among the accessible options. According to reported usage feedback, these offerings do not require adding a credit card to start trials. One testimonial mentions using Mistral for LLM applications and a dictation flow with Spokenly, as well as using Groq for rapid speech-to-text conversion with Whisper models. It is reported that there is now enough free inference available from these five players to build at no cost, while noting that limits may evolve.