Cerebras swapped its free tier for a $5 trial that wants a card

Cerebras used to be the free-tier sleeper pick: fastest inference anywhere, permanent free allowance, no card. That deal is gone. The current shape is a 30-day trial with $5 of credit, and it requires a verified payment method upfront.

That changes its category. Card-free tiers (Groq, OpenRouter, Gemini) are where you point tutorials, demos, and anything you might abandon — because abandoning them costs nothing and risks nothing. A card-on-file trial is a different commitment: fine for a serious evaluation, wrong as a default in teaching material.

Plenty of guides still list Cerebras alongside the no-card tiers. If you're writing one: it moved columns.

Speed is still the pitch and it's still real — where it fits now that it costs a card: https://toolfreebie.com/cerebras-free-api/