OpenRouter free API key: how to get one
Dozens of free models from many labs behind one key.
Checked October 2026. Limits are set by each company and change often.
OpenRouter
- Kind
- Always free, no card needed
- Free limits
- Models ending in :free get 20 requests a minute and 50 a day. Buy $10 of credit once and it rises to 1,000 a day for good.
- Models
- A rotating set of free models from DeepSeek, Meta, Google, Mistral, Qwen and others
Free models are rate limited at busy times and change without notice.
How to get it
- Sign up at openrouter.ai.
- Open Keys and create a key.
- Paste it under OpenRouter, press Sync all models and pick a model whose name ends in "free".
Then use it with every other AI at once
Paste the key into MultiScreenAI next to any others you have. One message goes to every model on one screen, and test mode times them and hides the names. A few free keys together go a long way.
Questions
Is the OpenRouter API key really free?
Yes, there is a free tier, with no card needed. Models ending in :free get 20 requests a minute and 50 a day. Buy $10 of credit once and it rises to 1,000 a day for good.
Which models does a free OpenRouter key reach?
A rotating set of free models from DeepSeek, Meta, Google, Mistral, Qwen and others
Can I use the OpenRouter key with other AIs at the same time?
Yes. Paste it into MultiScreenAI next to your other keys and one message goes to every model at once, answers side by side.
Other free API keys
- Gemini
- Groq
- Vercel AI Gateway
- Mistral
- Cerebras
- NVIDIA NIM
- SambaNova
- SiliconFlow
- GLM (Z.ai)
- Cohere
- Hugging Face
- Ollama Cloud
- Fireworks
- Qwen
- Cloudflare Workers AI
- Pollinations
- OpenAI (ChatGPT)
- Claude (Anthropic)
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