Best Free AI Models on OpenRouter 2026 – No Credit Card Required
You don't need to spend a dime to access powerful AI models in 2026. OpenRouter offers 18 completely free models from providers like Google, Meta, Mistral, NVIDIA, and more—with no credit card required.
These aren't toy models either. Google's Gemini 2.0 Flash offers 1 million token context, and Llama 3.3 70B matches GPT-4 level performance. This guide shows you the best free options for coding, general chat, and AI agents.
🏆 Top Picks by Use Case
Best Free for Coding
Mistral's 123B coding model. Modified MIT license. Agentic features for multi-file projects.
Best for Long Documents
Google's experimental model with massive 1M token context. Fast and capable.
Best Overall Free
Meta's flagship open model. Excellent general performance across all tasks.
📋 All Free Models on OpenRouter
| Model | Provider | Context | Best For |
|---|---|---|---|
Gemini 2.0 Flash Exp Experimental model with 1M context. Fast, multimodal, and free. | 1M | Long Documents | |
MiMo-V2-Flash 309B MoE with hybrid thinking. #1 open-source on SWE-bench. | Xiaomi | 262K | Coding |
Devstral 2 State-of-the-art coding model. Agentic features, MIT license. | Mistral | 262K | Coding |
Qwen3-Coder 480B MoE code generation model with strong reasoning. | Qwen | 262K | Coding |
Nemotron 3 Nano 30B MoE for agentic AI. Fully open weights and recipes. | NVIDIA | 256K | AI Agents |
DeepSeek R1 0528 May 2028 update to DeepSeek R1. Strong reasoning. | DeepSeek | 164K | Reasoning |
Llama 3.3 70B Flagship Llama model. GPT-4 level performance, open source. | Meta | 131K | General |
Llama 3.1 405B Largest open source model. Incredible for complex tasks. | Meta | 131K | Complex Tasks |
Hermes 3 405B Fine-tuned Llama 3.1 405B with improved instruction following. | Nous | 131K | General |
GLM-4.5-Air Lightweight flagship model with strong multilingual support. | Z.AI | 131K | Multilingual |
Gemma 3 27B Multimodal model supporting vision-language input. | 131K | Multimodal | |
GPT-OSS 120B Open-weight MoE released under Apache 2.0 by OpenAI. | OpenAI | 131K | General |
Nemotron Nano VL 12B multimodal reasoning model with vision support. | NVIDIA | 128K | Multimodal |
Mistral Small 3.1 Upgraded Mistral Small with extended context. | Mistral | 128K | General |
Kimi K2 Large MoE language model from Moonshot AI. | Moonshot | 33K | General |
Gemma 3 12B Mid-size Gemma 3 with multimodal support. | 33K | Multimodal | |
Mistral 7B Classic, fast 7B model. Great for simple tasks. | Mistral | 33K | Fast |
Qwen 2.5 VL 7B Multimodal LLM with enhanced visual understanding. | Qwen | 33K | Vision |
🚀 How to Use Free Models
- 1Create OpenRouter Account
Visit openrouter.ai and sign up. No credit card needed for free models.
- 2Generate API Key
Go to your dashboard and create an API key.
- 3Use Free Model IDs
Append
:freeto model names, e.g.,mistralai/devstral-2512:free
-H "Authorization: Bearer $OPENROUTER_API_KEY" \
-d '{"model": "meta-llama/llama-3.3-70b-instruct:free", ...}'
⚠️ Free Tier Limitations
Rate Limits
Free models have lower rate limits than paid versions. Fine for development and personal projects.
Queue Priority
During peak times, free requests may be queued behind paid requests.
Data Logging
Some free models log prompts for training. Check model cards for details.
Availability
Free tiers can change. Models may become paid or be retired.
🤔 Why Are These Models Free?
Free AI models aren't charity—each provider has strategic reasons for offering them. Understanding these motivations helps you make informed decisions about which models to trust.
Gemini Experimental Models
Why free: Google provides generous free tiers through AI Studio—no credit card required, no monthly fee. In March 2025, they bundled 60 requests/minute and 300K tokens/day into every API key.
The catch: "Experimental" models like Gemini 2.0 Flash Exp may provide inaccurate content and your prompts can be used to train future models. Google's terms explicitly state these are experimental technology.
Outlook: Google's roadmap shows free quotas "will be reviewed quarterly." Insiders suggest a gradual taper rather than hard cut-off—plan for ~10% lower allowances after Q4 2025.
Llama Open Source Models
Why free: Meta releases Llama models as "open source" to build an ecosystem around their technology. The models are free for research and commercial use—but with strings attached.
The catch: Llama's license has a 700 million monthly user threshold—beyond that, you need a commercial license. You must display "Built with Llama" branding, and the license restricts certain use cases (controlled substances, critical infrastructure).
Controversy: The Open Source Initiative and Free Software Foundation don't recognize Llama as truly open source due to its restrictive acceptable use policy and lack of training data disclosure.
Experiment Plan
Why free: Mistral offers an "Experiment" plan—all you need is a verified phone number, no credit card. It's designed to let developers evaluate their models before committing to paid tiers.
The catch:API requests on the Experiment plan may be used to train Mistral's models. Rate limits are restrictive and not suitable for production workloads.
Upgrade path: The "Scale" plan offers higher limits with pay-per-use billing and no data training on your prompts.
⚠️ Privacy Considerations
Why free/cheap: DeepSeek offers extremely competitive pricing ($0.55 per million input tokens) and unlimited free queries through their chatbot—making it one of the most accessible models.
The catch: DeepSeek's servers are in China. Every prompt can be used to train models, there's no opt-out, and Chinese law requires cooperation with government data requests. Security researchers found hard-coded encryption keys and unencrypted data transmission.
Regulatory actions: Italy banned DeepSeek in early 2025. The U.S. considered a nationwide ban. Multiple countries have prohibited its use in government systems.
GPT-OSS Open-Weight Models
Why free: In a historic shift, OpenAI released GPT-OSS-120B and GPT-OSS-20B under the Apache 2.0 license—their first open-weight models since GPT-2. This came after their market share dropped from 50% to 25% due to competition from DeepSeek and Llama.
Technical specs: The 120B model uses mixture-of-experts (MoE) with 4-bit quantization (MXFP4), fitting on a single H100 GPU. The 20B model runs on consumer hardware with just 16GB memory. Performance is near-parity with OpenAI o4-mini on reasoning benchmarks.
The catch: While the Apache 2.0 license is permissive, commercial use is subject to OpenAI's gpt-oss usage policy. No training data disclosure, and the models lack multimodal capabilities.
| Provider | Data Training | Data Location | License |
|---|---|---|---|
| Yes (experimental) | US/Global | Proprietary API | |
| Meta | No (open weights) | Self-hosted | Llama License |
| Mistral | Yes (free tier) | EU | Apache 2.0 / Proprietary |
| DeepSeek | Yes (no opt-out) | China | MIT (model) / Proprietary (API) |
| OpenAI | No (open weights) | Self-hosted | Apache 2.0 + Usage Policy |
| NVIDIA | No | US/Global | Open weights |
Ready to Build?
Start using these free AI models today. No credit card required.
Last updated: January 12, 2026 • Data sourced from OpenRouter API