Skip to main content
OpenRouter provides free access to various open-source models with a shared quota system.

​
Overview

OpenRouter offers a generous free tier that allows you to access multiple state-of-the-art open-source language models through a single API endpoint.

​
Rate Limits

All models share a common quota on the free tier.
Limit TypeFree TierWith $10 Lifetime Top-up
Requests per minute2020
Requests per day50Up to 1,000
Full rate limit documentation

​
Available Models

OpenRouter provides free access to the following models:

​
Additional Free Models

  • arcee-ai/trinity-large-preview:free
  • arcee-ai/trinity-mini:free
  • cognitivecomputations/dolphin-mistral-24b-venice-edition:free
  • google/gemma-3n-e2b-it:free
  • google/gemma-3n-e4b-it:free
  • liquid/lfm-2.5-1.2b-instruct:free
  • liquid/lfm-2.5-1.2b-thinking:free
  • nvidia/nemotron-3-nano-30b-a3b:free
  • nvidia/nemotron-nano-12b-v2-vl:free
  • nvidia/nemotron-nano-9b-v2:free
  • openai/gpt-oss-120b:free
  • openai/gpt-oss-20b:free
  • qwen/qwen3-4b:free
  • qwen/qwen3-coder:free
  • qwen/qwen3-next-80b-a3b-instruct:free
  • stepfun/step-3.5-flash:free
  • z-ai/glm-4.5-air:free

​
API Usage

import openai

client = openai.OpenAI(
    base_url="https://openrouter.ai/api/v1",
    api_key="YOUR_OPENROUTER_API_KEY"
)

response = client.chat.completions.create(
    model="meta-llama/llama-3.3-70b-instruct:free",
    messages=[
        {"role": "user", "content": "Hello, how are you?"}
    ]
)

print(response.choices[0].message.content)

​
Getting Started

1

Create an Account

Sign up at OpenRouter
2

Get API Key

Navigate to your dashboard and generate an API key
3

Start Making Requests

Use the API key with the OpenAI-compatible endpoint

​
Additional Resources

OpenRouter Documentation

Official API documentation

Model Catalog

Browse all available models

Build docs developers (and LLMs) love

Get started for freeTalk to us