Free-offer comparison
Free RAG Tools and APIs
A RAG pipeline can bill for ingestion, storage, retrieval, and generation. Check which of those steps the recorded free offer covers.
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 | 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 |
| #2 | Cloudinary | 100/100 | 25 credits/mo | Recurring allowance | No card confirmed | The 25-credit monthly balance is shared across transformations, storage, image bandwidth, and video bandwidth. | Jul 17, 2026 | View pricingAccessed Jul 17, 2026 |
| #3 | 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 |
| #4 | 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 |
| #5 | 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 |
| #6 | LlamaCloud / LlamaParse | 75/100 | 10K credits/mo | Recurring allowance | Not confirmed | Page capacity is approximate because credit consumption varies by parsing mode and document complexity. | Jul 19, 2026 | View pricingAccessed Jul 19, 2026 |
| #7 | Helicone | 75/100 | 10K requests/mo | Recurring allowance | Not confirmed | Underlying model charges are separate. | Jul 17, 2026 | View pricingAccessed Jul 17, 2026 |
| #8 | 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 |
| #9 | 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 |
| #10 | Mem0 | 70/100 | Memory adds: 10,000 requests per month; Memory retrievals: 1,000 requests per month | Recurring allowance | Not confirmed | 10,000 memory-add requests per month. | Jul 17, 2026 | View pricingAccessed Sep 13, 2026 |
| #11 | Weaviate | 70/100 | 1K requests/mo | Recurring allowance | Not confirmed | 1,000 Query Agent request units per month; Ask can consume four units per query. | Jul 17, 2026 | View pricingAccessed Sep 13, 2026 |
| #12 | Milvus (Zilliz Cloud) | 65/100 | 5 GB | Ongoing free access | Not confirmed | Free tier on serverless cluster; paid plans start at $0.30/GB or $99/mo dedicated | Jul 17, 2026 | View pricingAccessed Sep 20, 2026 |
| #13 | Google Cloud AI Startup Program | 65/100 | Up to $350K credit | One-time balance | Not confirmed | $350,000 is the maximum advertised program award, not a guaranteed signup credit. | Jul 17, 2026 | View pricingAccessed Sep 13, 2026 |
| #14 | 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 |
| #15 | Jina AI | 60/100 | 10.0M tokens | One-time balance | Not confirmed | The free token tier is labeled for non-commercial use only (CC BY-NC) on the provider page. | Jul 17, 2026 | View documentationAccessed Sep 13, 2026 |
| #16 | Pinecone | 60/100 | $300 credit for 21 days | One-time balance | Not confirmed | Starter is an ongoing $0 plan with its own resource limits. | Jul 17, 2026 | View pricingAccessed Sep 13, 2026 |
| #17 | 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 |
| #18 | E2B | 55/100 | Free tier | Introductory offer | No card confirmed | The $100 credit is a one-time balance; sandbox session and concurrency limits also apply. | Jul 17, 2026 | View pricingAccessed Jul 17, 2026 |
| #19 | 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 |
| #20 | Qdrant | 30/100 | Free tier | Introductory offer | Not confirmed | Idle free clusters are suspended after one week and deleted after four weeks unless reactivated. | Jul 17, 2026 | View documentationAccessed Sep 13, 2026 |
| #21 | Confident AI / DeepEval | 30/100 | Free tier | Introductory offer | Not confirmed | The hosted Free plan allows five test runs per week; additional runs are locked rather than billed as overages. | Jul 17, 2026 | View pricingAccessed Jul 17, 2026 |
| #22 | 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 |
| #23 | 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 |
| #24 | 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 RAG platforms and 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 RAG platforms and APIs category, including records excluded from this guide.