The best free AI model APIs
Dozens of providers now serve real models at $0. Most lists stop there. This one adds the part that matters: independent proof that the model behind each free tier is actually good, ranked on a single benchmark that scores every one of them. The weak free models are left off.
What is the best free AI model API right now?
The best free AI model APIs in 2026 pair a genuinely capable model with a real zero-cost tier. Ranked on the one benchmark that scores them all, the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index (v4.3.2): Meta Muse Spark 1.3 leads at 48 of 100, free through the OpenCode Zen Contributor tier, followed by StepFun Step 5 Preview at 44 and Google Gemini 3.8 Flash at 41. 5 of the 12 ranked models are open-weight, so they survive a free tier being withdrawn. Every model here scores at least 20, so the weak free models are filtered out.
Every free model on one yardstick
The Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index is the one independent benchmark that scores all of these models, so it is the only fair way to rank them together. It is a demanding scale: on v4.3.2 the best model at any price scores 58, so a free model in the 20s to 40s is genuinely capable.
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Muse Spark 1.3 | 48 |
| Step 5 Preview | 44 |
| Gemini 3.8 Flash | 41 |
| Ling 3.1 Flash | 41 |
| MiMo V2.6 Flash | 38 |
| Qwen3.8 27B | 34 |
| Gemini 3.6 Flash | 34 |
| Inkling Small | 26 |
| Inkling | 25 |
| Nemotron 3 Ultra | 23 |
| Ling 3.0 Flash Fin | 23 |
| Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite | 22 |
The free models, ranked
Sort by intelligence or context window, and filter to open-weight models. Coding is 20% of the index itself, carried by Terminal-Bench 4.0 and SciCode, so it is already folded into the ranking. Each row links to the providers that serve it free.
Good free models, ranked by intelligence
Every model here clears the quality bar (Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index of at least 20) and is callable at $0 on at least one hosted provider. Sort, or show only open-weight models.
| # | Model | AA Index | Context | Free via |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Muse Spark 1.3 Meta | 48 | 1M | OpenCode Zen |
| 2 | Step 5 Preview StepFun | 44 | 1M | OpenCode Zen |
| 3 | Gemini 3.8 Flash Google | 41 | 1M | Google AI Studio |
| 4 | Ling 3.1 Flash InclusionAI | 41 | 262K | OpenCode ZenOpenRouter |
| 5 | MiMo V2.6 Flash Xiaomi· open weight | 38 | 200K | OpenCode Zen |
| 6 | Qwen3.8 27B Alibaba· open weight | 34 | 262K | GroqCloudflare Workers AI |
| 7 | Gemini 3.6 Flash Google | 34 | 1M | Google AI Studio |
| 8 | Inkling Small Thinking Machines· open weight | 26 | 1M | OpenRouter |
| 9 | Inkling Thinking Machines· open weight | 25 | 1M | OpenRouter |
| 10 | Nemotron 3 Ultra NVIDIA· open weight | 23 | 1M | OpenCode ZenOpenRouterNVIDIA NIM (build.nvidia.com) |
| 11 | Ling 3.0 Flash Fin InclusionAI | 23 | 262K | OpenCode Zen |
| 12 | Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite Google | 22 | 1M | Google AI Studio |
AA Index is the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index (0-100, v4.2): one independent score that blends reasoning, knowledge and coding across ten evaluations, so it ranks every model on the same yardstick. The scale runs low: the best model at any price scores 57. Coding is 20% of it, carried by Terminal-Bench v2.1 and SciCode. Where a lab ships several reasoning-effort settings, the figure is the highest one Artificial Analysis publishes, named in each model's note. Free-via links open each provider; verify current limits at the source, as free tiers change often.
The free tiers, and their limits
The same model is often free on several providers, each with its own catch. Here is what each free tier actually gives you, verified against the provider source on October 11, 2026. Free tiers change often: confirm at the link before you build on one.
| Provider | Free tier | Catch |
|---|---|---|
| Google AI Studio | Gemini 3.8 and 3.6 Flash plus 3.5 and 3.1 Flash-Lite free of charge (3.x Pro is not); per-model request limits are shown only in the AI Studio dashboard | Inputs may be used to improve the model. |
| OpenRouter | 19 zero-priced models (15 tagged :free) at 20 req/min and 50 req/day, or 1,000/day after a one-time $10 credit purchase | Account signup only. |
| OpenCode Zen | About a dozen models free for a limited time through the OpenCode CLI and Desktop, including Muse Spark 1.3, Step 5 Preview, Ling 3.1 Flash, MiMo V2.6 Flash, Nemotron 3 Ultra and several stealth models | Inputs may be used to improve the model. |
| NVIDIA NIM (build.nvidia.com) | Free API access for prototyping to NVIDIA Developer Program members; about 40 req/min after phone verification (last publicly stated limit) | Phone verification. |
| GroqFastest-class inference on custom LPU hardware | Free plan: 30 req/min, 1,000 req/day and 8K tokens/min on the large models (gpt-oss-120b, Qwen3.8 27B) | Account signup only. |
| Cloudflare Workers AI | 10,000 neurons/day free across the model catalog (a usage credit, not a request cap) | Account signup only. |
How this list is built
Two grounded inputs. First, which providers serve a model at $0, checked against each provider's own rate-limit documentation and the live OpenRouter API, and dated. Second, how good that model actually is, measured by the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, read from the public Artificial Analysis leaderboard. This site does not run the evaluations.
One benchmark, so the ranking is fair
Earlier versions of this page mixed coding benchmarks because no single coding test scored every model. The fix is to rank on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, the one independent benchmark that scores all of them. It is a single 0-100 number that blends ten evaluations across four weighted categories: Agents 30%, Coding 20% (Terminal-Bench 4.0 and SciCode), Scientific Reasoning 20% and General 30%. Coding ability is already folded into the figure and every model is judged on the same yardstick. Artificial Analysis stopped publishing the individual evaluation scores on its public leaderboard with v4.2, so this page no longer breaks Terminal-Bench and SciCode out as their own columns rather than showing figures it cannot cite. The quality gate is the index is demanding: on v4.3.2 the best model of any price scores 58 and the strongest free model here scores 48, so the 0-100 scale runs low. A free model scoring at least 20 is genuinely capable. Several models that are free today score below the bar and are not ranked: Google Gemma 4 26B A4B (17) and 31B (15), NVIDIA Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (13) and Nemotron 3 Super (13), and Cohere North Mini Code (10). They are still free; they are just not models we would tell you to build on.
Why "free" has a catch
A free API tier is a customer-acquisition cost for the provider, not charity. That shapes the three catches in the table above: rate limits (requests per minute and per day, often tightened over time), data use (several free tiers may train on your inputs, so never send confidential data), and availability (community-funded free pools can be throttled without notice). For anything beyond prototyping or low-volume personal use, price the paid tier with the cost-per-task calculatorbefore you depend on a free one. The OpenRouter AI guideexplains that pool's daily limits, paid-credit fee and routing tradeoffs.
Most of these free models are open-weight, part of a wider shift: open-source LLMs are overtaking closed models, and many of the best open-weight models can run locally if a hosted free tier ever disappears.
Free, but not ranked
A model is ranked only once the Artificial Analysis index scores it. These are offered free but not yet scored on that benchmark, so they are not ranked here:
- Big Pickle, Space Bunny, Exo and Jev 1.13 (OpenCode Zen). Stealth or unannounced models offered free for a limited time while their makers collect feedback. No named lab, no published weights and no Artificial Analysis score, so they cannot be ranked.
- LongCat 2.5 Preview (OpenCode Zen). A preview successor to LongCat 2.0, free for a limited time. Artificial Analysis does not score it yet.
- MiMo V2.5 (OpenCode Zen). Listed as free in the Zen docs but missing from the live Zen model endpoint, and Artificial Analysis has removed it from the index entirely, so there is no score to rank it on.
- Laguna S 2.1 and Laguna XS 2.1 (OpenRouter). poolside open-weight coding models, free on OpenRouter, but Artificial Analysis does not score either.
- Apodex 1.1 Mini and dots.3 Note Preview (OpenRouter). Artificial Analysis scores the full Apodex 1.1 (26) but not the Mini that is free, and does not score dots.3.
For per-token rates once you outgrow the free tiers, see the AI model release tracker, or rank paid models by value on the value leaderboard. For when each of these shipped and what it charged on day one, see AI model releases by month.
Know a free tier that is missing, or one whose limits have changed? Submit it or send a correction. Featured and enhanced listings are available.
Frequently asked questions
- What is the best free AI model API in 2026?
- For raw quality, Muse Spark 1.3 leads at 48 of 100 on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, free through the OpenCode Zen Contributor tier. Read the terms before you use it: that tier grants permission to train future Meta models on your prompts and completions. For an open-weight model you can also self-host, MiMo V2.6 Flash is the strongest at 38. For a first-party free tier from a frontier lab, Gemini 3.8 Flash on Google AI Studio is the strongest, and Google keeps the older Gemini 3.6 Flash free alongside it. The best one depends on whether you optimize for capability, open weights, or who gets to keep your data.
- Are free AI models good enough for real work?
- Increasingly, yes. The top free model here, Muse Spark 1.3, scores 48 of 100 on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, a demanding scale where the best model at any price scores 58. So the leading free models sit about ten points below the frontier, roughly where paid flagship models were a few months earlier. The real limits are throughput and terms rather than quality: free tiers cap requests per minute and per day, and several of them take your prompts as payment, so they suit prototyping, low-volume tools and personal use more than high-traffic production or anything confidential.
- What is the catch with free AI model APIs?
- Three things. First, rate limits: most free tiers cap requests per minute and per day (often tightened over time, as Groq did in 2026), and some disappear outright: Cerebras replaced its always-free tier with a $5 credit that expires after 30 days. Second, data use: several free tiers (Google AI Studio outside the EEA, the OpenCode Zen free models) may use your inputs to improve their models, so do not send confidential data. Third, availability: free pools are rotated without notice. OpenCode Zen cut its free list from 36 models to about a dozen in October 2026, labels every remaining one limited time, and OpenRouter dropped Qwen3.8 27B from its free pool the same month.
- Which of these free models are open-weight?
- 5 of the 12 ranked models are open-weight, meaning you can also download and self-host them: Xiaomi MiMo V2.6 Flash, Alibaba Qwen3.8 27B, Thinking Machines Inkling Small, Thinking Machines Inkling and NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Ultra. The closed ones are Meta Muse Spark 1.3, StepFun Step 5 Preview, Google Gemini 3.8 Flash, InclusionAI Ling 3.1 Flash, Google Gemini 3.6 Flash, InclusionAI Ling 3.0 Flash Fin and Google Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite. Open weights matter most for free use, because if a hosted free tier disappears the model itself does not.
- How are these free models graded?
- On a single benchmark that scores every model here: the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index (v4.3.2). It is one 0-100 number blending ten independent evaluations across four weighted categories, Agents 30%, Coding 20%, Scientific Reasoning 20% and General 30%, so one figure ranks the whole table on the same yardstick. Scores are read from the public Artificial Analysis leaderboard, or from a model's own Artificial Analysis page once it leaves the default leaderboard view; this site does not run the evaluations. A model is listed only if it scores at least 20. Note that v4.3.2 is not comparable with the v4.2 figures this page carried in September 2026: it swapped t3-Banking for AutomationBench-AA and moved to Terminal-Bench 4.0 and GDPval-AA v2.1, which moved most scores down by a few points. The figures on this page were re-read on 2026-10-11.
Sources
- Artificial Analysis (2026). Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index (v4.3.2). Scores read 2026-10-11 from the public leaderboard. https://artificialanalysis.ai/leaderboards/models
- Google AI Studio (2026). Free-tier terms and rate limits. Verified 2026-10-11. https://ai.google.dev/gemini-api/docs/pricing
- OpenRouter (2026). Free-tier terms and rate limits. Verified 2026-10-11. https://openrouter.ai/docs/api-reference/limits
- OpenCode Zen (2026). Free-tier terms and rate limits. Verified 2026-10-11. https://opencode.ai/docs/zen/
- NVIDIA NIM (build.nvidia.com) (2026). Free-tier terms and rate limits. Verified 2026-10-11. https://build.nvidia.com/
- Groq (2026). Free-tier terms and rate limits. Verified 2026-10-11. https://console.groq.com/docs/rate-limits
- Cloudflare Workers AI (2026). Free-tier terms and rate limits. Verified 2026-10-11. https://developers.cloudflare.com/workers-ai/platform/pricing/
- OpenRouter (2026). Models API (used to verify which models are currently $0). https://openrouter.ai/api/v1/models
Machine-readable data: /free-ai-models.json. Methodology and the benchmark source are documented in the site repo.