Free-offer comparison
Free AI Inference APIs
Check the model you need, its token or request limit, and when billing begins. A credit balance and a recurring quota work differently.
Guide updated Sep 20, 2026 · Offer review and source dates appear below · Methodology
Free-offer ranking
Each row describes the provider’s recorded free offer, which may cover a different product from the category shown here. The table keeps published units separate. “Not confirmed” means we lack evidence for that detail; it does not mean the provider requires a card.
Scroll horizontally to compare every column.
| Rank | Provider | Free-access score | Recorded free offer | Access pattern | Billing/card | Offer note | Full review | Official source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| #1 | Braintrust | 100/100 | Gateway model credit: $10 credits per month; Processed data: 1 GB per month; Scores: 10,000 scores per month | Recurring allowance | No card confirmed | Token, processed-data, and evaluation allowances have separate limits. | Jul 17, 2026 | View pricingAccessed Sep 13, 2026 |
| #2 | Future AGI | 100/100 | AI credits: 2,000 credits per month; Gateway requests: 100,000 requests per month; Voice simulation: 60 minutes per month | Recurring allowance | No card confirmed | Free usage pauses at plan limits; pay-as-you-go overages require a card. | Jul 17, 2026 | View pricingAccessed Sep 13, 2026 |
| #3 | Composio | 100/100 | Tool calls: 100,000 tool calls per month; Triggers: 50,000 triggers per month | Recurring allowance | No card confirmed | Tool calls and triggers have separate monthly limits. | Jul 17, 2026 | View pricingAccessed Sep 13, 2026 |
| #4 | Langfuse | 100/100 | 50K units/mo | Recurring allowance | No card confirmed | A billable unit can be a trace, observation, or score; underlying model charges are separate. | Jul 17, 2026 | View pricingAccessed Sep 13, 2026 |
| #5 | AI21 Labs | 85/100 | $10 credit for 3 months | One-time balance | No card confirmed | The trial credit expires three months after account creation. | Jul 17, 2026 | View documentationAccessed Sep 13, 2026 |
| #6 | Groq Cloud | 80/100 | Always free | Ongoing free access | No card confirmed | Free tier subject to published rate limits; must wait for quota reset or upgrade when exceeded | Jul 19, 2026 | View documentationAccessed Sep 13, 2026 |
| #7 | Cartesia | 75/100 | Voice-agent prepaid balance: $1 credit per month; Voice model credits: 20,000 credits per month | Recurring allowance | Not confirmed | Free output does not include commercial-use rights; voice-model credits and voice-agent dollars are separate. | Sep 19, 2026 | View pricingAccessed Sep 19, 2026 |
| #8 | Inference.net | 75/100 | Gateway requests: 1,000,000 requests per month; Tracing spans: 1,000,000 spans per month | Recurring allowance | Not confirmed | One free seat; underlying model inference is billed separately from Gateway and tracing allowances. | Jul 17, 2026 | View pricingAccessed Sep 13, 2026 |
| #9 | Weights & Biases Weave | 75/100 | Weave ingestion: 1 GB per month; Weave storage: 5 GB per month | Recurring allowance | Not confirmed | Weave ingestion and storage are separate from paid inference usage. | Jul 17, 2026 | View pricingAccessed Sep 13, 2026 |
| #10 | Roboflow | 75/100 | 15 credits/mo | Recurring allowance | Not confirmed | Public Plan use is for internal, non-commercial use, not on behalf of third parties. | Jul 17, 2026 | View pricingAccessed Sep 13, 2026 |
| #11 | Beam Cloud | 75/100 | $30 credit/mo | Recurring allowance | Not confirmed | Credits applied automatically to usage; pay-as-you-go beyond the free credit | Jul 17, 2026 | View pricingAccessed Sep 13, 2026 |
| #12 | Cloudflare Workers AI | 75/100 | 10K neurons/day | Recurring allowance | Not confirmed | 10,000 neurons per day reset at 00:00 UTC. | Jul 17, 2026 | View documentationAccessed Sep 13, 2026 |
| #13 | Galileo | 75/100 | 5K traces/mo | Recurring allowance | Not confirmed | External model or judge inference may still incur provider charges. | Jul 17, 2026 | View pricingAccessed Jul 17, 2026 |
| #14 | Helicone | 75/100 | 10K requests/mo | Recurring allowance | Not confirmed | Underlying model charges are separate. | Jul 17, 2026 | View pricingAccessed Jul 17, 2026 |
| #15 | JigsawStack | 75/100 | 1.0M tokens/mo | Recurring allowance | Not confirmed | Free plan requires a JigsawStack badge on the user's website footer. | Jul 17, 2026 | View pricingAccessed Jul 17, 2026 |
| #16 | LangSmith | 75/100 | 5K traces/mo | Recurring allowance | Not confirmed | External model calls outside included Fleet usage may be billed by the model provider. | Jul 17, 2026 | View pricingAccessed Sep 13, 2026 |
| #17 | Portkey | 75/100 | 10K logs/mo | Recurring allowance | Not confirmed | The free plan is not intended for production, and underlying model usage is billed separately. | Jul 17, 2026 | View pricingAccessed Jul 17, 2026 |
| #18 | LiveKit | 75/100 | 1K agent session minutes/mo + $2.5 credits | Recurring allowance | Not confirmed | Model inference has a separate $2.50 free credit; the equivalent number of inference minutes varies by model. | Jul 17, 2026 | View pricingAccessed Sep 13, 2026 |
| #19 | Cohere | 75/100 | 1K requests/mo | Recurring allowance | Not confirmed | Trial keys are limited to 1,000 requests per month and 20 req/minute on Chat API; suitable for testing and proofs of concept but not production or commercial use | Jul 19, 2026 | View documentationAccessed Sep 13, 2026 |
| #20 | OpenRouter | 75/100 | 50 requests/day | Recurring allowance | Not confirmed | The free-model allowance is 50 requests per day and 20 requests per minute; choose a model marked free. | Jul 17, 2026 | View pricingAccessed Sep 13, 2026 |
| #21 | Together AI (Startup Accelerator) | 65/100 | Up to $50K credit | One-time balance | Not confirmed | Not an automatic API signup credit; ordinary API use requires a $5 purchase. | Jul 17, 2026 | View pricingAccessed Sep 13, 2026 |
| #22 | Cerebras | 65/100 | $5 credit for 30 days | One-time balance | Verified payment method required for the $5 trial credit. | Free-tier request and token limits vary by model. | Jul 17, 2026 | View pricingAccessed Sep 13, 2026 |
| #23 | Microsoft Azure Founders Hub | 65/100 | $1K credit | One-time balance | Not confirmed | Further credits and program benefits depend on application approval. | Jul 17, 2026 | View documentationAccessed Sep 13, 2026 |
| #24 | AWS Activate / Amazon Bedrock | 65/100 | Up to $200K credit | One-time balance | Not confirmed | Founders and Portfolio awards have different eligibility rules and amounts. | Jul 17, 2026 | View pricingAccessed Sep 13, 2026 |
| #25 | NLP Cloud | 65/100 | $15 credit | One-time balance | A credit card is required for the Pay-As-You-Go plan that includes the $15 credit. | The separate low-throughput Free plan does not require a card but does not carry the $15 Pay-As-You-Go credit. | Jul 17, 2026 | View pricingAccessed Sep 13, 2026 |
| #26 | Scaleway Generative APIs | 60/100 | Free model tokens: 1,000,000 tokens total; Free audio transcription: 60 minutes total | One-time balance | Not confirmed | Usage beyond the allowances is billed; a valid payment method and identity verification may be required for standard rate limits. | Jul 17, 2026 | View documentationAccessed Jul 17, 2026 |
| #27 | Nebius AI | 60/100 | $1 credit for 30 days | One-time balance | Not confirmed | The signup credit expires after 30 days. | Jul 17, 2026 | View documentationAccessed Sep 13, 2026 |
| #28 | Hugging Face | 60/100 | $0.1 credits | One-time balance | Not confirmed | The monthly $0.10 credit applies only to Hugging Face-routed Inference Providers requests, not custom provider keys. | Jul 17, 2026 | View documentationAccessed Sep 13, 2026 |
| #29 | Fireworks AI | 60/100 | $1 credits | One-time balance | Not confirmed | Without a payment method, service suspends when the $1 starter credit is exhausted. | Jul 17, 2026 | View pricingAccessed Sep 13, 2026 |
| #30 | Upstage (Solar) | 55/100 | $10 credit | One-time balance | Not confirmed | $10 signup credit. | Jul 17, 2026 | View documentationAccessed Sep 13, 2026 |
| #31 | Anyscale | 55/100 | $100 credit | One-time balance | Not confirmed | $100 in one-time starting Anyscale credits. | Jul 17, 2026 | View pricingAccessed Sep 13, 2026 |
| #32 | Mistral AI (Experiment plan) | 55/100 | Free tier | Introductory offer | No card confirmed | Monthly free usage is shared across Studio, API, and Vibe. | Jul 19, 2026 | View documentationAccessed Sep 13, 2026 |
| #33 | Anthropic (Claude) | 35/100 | Free tier | Introductory offer | Not confirmed | Credit amount is not published; credits cannot be used through AWS Bedrock or Google Vertex AI. | Jul 17, 2026 | View pricingAccessed Sep 13, 2026 |
| #34 | Nebius AI Startup Program | 35/100 | Free tier | Free offer recorded | Not confirmed | No fixed startup-credit amount is published on the current program page. | Jul 17, 2026 | View pricingAccessed Sep 13, 2026 |
| #35 | xAI (Grok) | 30/100 | Free tier | Free offer recorded | Not confirmed | Free Grok plan includes limited access to real-time web and X search, voice mode, and connectors | Jun 24, 2026 | View documentationAccessed Sep 13, 2026 |
| #36 | Alibaba Cloud (Bailian) | 30/100 | Free tier | Free offer recorded | Not confirmed | Quota validity depends on activation date, region, and model scope. | Jul 17, 2026 | View documentationAccessed Sep 13, 2026 |
| #37 | Vercel AI Gateway | 30/100 | Free tier | Introductory offer | Not confirmed | Vercel pricing and Academy pages conflict on the free credit and model set. | Jul 17, 2026 | View pricingAccessed Jul 17, 2026 |
| #38 | Browserbase | 30/100 | Free tier | Introductory offer | Not confirmed | Browser hours, Agent runs, Search calls, Fetch calls, and model tokens use separate allowances. | Jul 17, 2026 | View pricingAccessed Jul 17, 2026 |
| #39 | GMI Cloud | 30/100 | Free tier | Introductory offer | Not confirmed | Only selected models have free inference endpoints. | Jul 17, 2026 | Visit provider websiteAccessed Sep 13, 2026 |
| #40 | Replicate | 30/100 | Free tier | Free offer recorded | Not confirmed | Models in Try for Free collection can be run without credit for a limited number of runs; after hitting the free use limit you must add billing | Jul 17, 2026 | Visit provider websiteAccessed Sep 13, 2026 |
| #41 | Voyage AI | 30/100 | Free tier | Introductory offer | Not confirmed | Token allowances vary by model family; they are not one universal balance. | Jul 17, 2026 | View pricingAccessed Jul 17, 2026 |
| #42 | NVIDIA NIM | 25/100 | Free tier | Introductory offer | Not confirmed | Developer and downloadable NIM free use is for research, development, and testing; production requires a commercial path. | Jul 17, 2026 | Visit provider websiteAccessed Sep 13, 2026 |
| #43 | Google AI Studio (Gemini) | 25/100 | Free tier | Introductory offer | Not confirmed | Gemini quotas vary by model and project. | Jul 17, 2026 | View pricingAccessed Sep 20, 2026 |
| #44 | OpenAI | 25/100 | Free tier | Introductory offer | Not confirmed | The amount and duration are not publicly fixed. Applying requires a unique partner-VC referral code, product/API-use description, business contacts, and funding details; standard billing begins automatically when credits are exhausted. | Jul 17, 2026 | Visit provider websiteAccessed Jul 17, 2026 |
Why these providers appear in this order
We score each provider’s recorded free offer: up to 40 points for recurring or durable access, 20 for a confirmed no-card signup, 15 for a stated allowance, 15 for distinct evidence links, and 10 for documented terms. Missing details earn no points. Ties favor longer-lasting access, then more detailed records, then provider name. The score does not measure product quality or whether the free offer covers this category. Read the full method before treating it as a recommendation.
Which providers are included?
We include active directory records tagged for AI inference APIs. A tag describes a provider’s capability; its recorded free offer may cover only part of that provider’s catalog. Check the model or endpoint in the provider’s terms before building on the allowance.
See the full AI inference APIs category, including records excluded from this guide.