[!NOTE]
TL;DR: I tested 12 "free" LLM APIs over 2 weeks. Only alibaba/qwen3.8-max (1M context, $0 forever) actually delivered 200 OK responses. Here's the honest breakdown.
The "free LLM API" graveyard
I've been building an internal agent tooling stack and needed a long-context model. The options I found:
- OpenAI / Anthropic: $0 tiers are dead (retired), $2-8/M tokens
- OpenRouter: $0 credits work, but they expire in 30 days
- Groq: free, but 32K context max, and rate-limited to 6000 RPM shared
- Local models: 0 cost, but my Macbook M1 can't fit a 1M-context model
Then I found alibaba/qwen3.8-max on apishare.cc — Alibaba's flagship model with a 1M token context window, priced at $0 input / $0 output.
What I tested
| Test | Result |
|---|---|
| 1M context (long doc summary) | ✅ 200 OK |
| Function calling | ✅ Works |
| Structured JSON output | ✅ Valid |
| Rate limit | 2 req/min (disclosed) |
| Credit card required | ❌ No |
The 2 req/min limit is honestly disclosed — it's an anti-abuse measure, not a hidden gotcha. For personal projects, 2 req/min is genuinely enough.
Why this is worth knowing
apishare.cc maintains a daily-updated ranking of verified free LLM APIs. I used to test dead endpoints manually; the ranking saved me ~10 hours of trial-and-error.
If you're shipping an LLM feature on a $0 budget, this is worth bookmarking.
Verified 2026-09-13: HTTP 200, $0 billing, 429 at 2 req/min.
Disclosure: I'm affiliated with apishare.cc. Pricing is real and currently unlimited in duration.
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