12 Free LLM APIs You Can Use Right Now (No Credit Card, Real Limits Tested)

#ai #api #free #beginners

"Free LLM API" results are full of outdated lists and tools that quietly expired. I tested 12 providers that actually work in April 2026 and documented the real limits.

The Top 5 (Actually Usable)

1. Google AI Studio (Gemini) — Best Overall Free Tier

Models: Gemini 2.5 Flash, Flash-Lite, Embedding
Limits: 1,500 requests/day, 1M tokens/minute
Credit card: No
Context: 1M tokens
Verdict: Most generous free tier. Enough for a small production chatbot.

2. Groq — Fastest Free API

Models: Llama 3.3 70B, Llama 8B, Qwen3, Mixtral
Limits: ~14,400 requests/day (8B model), lower for larger models
Credit card: No
Speed: 315 tokens/sec on Llama 70B — nothing else comes close
Verdict: Best for latency-sensitive prototyping.

3. OpenRouter — Most Models Free

Models: 11+ free models including Gemini, Llama, Qwen
Limits: 20 req/min, 200 req/day per free model
Credit card: No
Verdict: Widest free model selection. Good for model comparison.

4. Cloudflare Workers AI — Truly Free Inference

Models: Llama, Mistral, and others
Limits: 10K neurons/day
Credit card: No (Cloudflare account needed)
Verdict: Best for developers already on Cloudflare.

5. Hugging Face Serverless — Open-Source Paradise

Models: Thousands of open-source models
Limits: Variable credits/month
Credit card: No
Verdict: Best for experimentation with niche models.

Can You Use Free Tiers in Production?

Short answer: only for very small scale. Google's 1,500 req/day handles ~500 conversations. Beyond that, you need paid tiers.

The smart move: stack free tiers. Route simple requests to Google's free tier, fast requests to Groq's free tier, and use OpenRouter's free models as fallback. Three free tiers combined handle more than any single one.