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OpenRouter Free Models Limits Explained: 50 vs 1,000 Requests a Day (2026)

By Hisham · Published · Facts and limits are dated; check the linked sources.

OpenRouter's free models are the easiest way to try many LLMs from one API, and their limits are simple once you know which counter you are hitting. This guide explains the free-model limits, what counts against them, how to check where you stand, and the options when they are not enough. For handling the 429 errors themselves in code, see the companion guide on OpenRouter free-tier 429s and fallback.

As of 2026-10-30, from OpenRouter's limits documentation and pricing page. OpenRouter changes these, so check the linked pages.

The limits in one table

Free model variants are the ones whose model ID ends in :free. They have two limits, by how many credits your account has bought in total:

Credits purchased (all time)Requests per minuteRequests per day
Less than $102050
At least $10201,000
  • The per-minute limit is the same for everyone: 20 requests per minute on free variants.
  • The daily limit is per account, per UTC day. Buying $10 of credits once (all time) raises it from 50 to 1,000. OpenRouter notes it grants the higher ceiling starting one credit below the threshold, to absorb rounding and top-up fees.
  • The Free plan on the pricing page lists 25+ free models from 4 free providers at 50 requests/day, and no BYOK.

What counts, and what does not

  • Failed attempts count toward the daily cap (pricing FAQ). A client that retries a failing request in a tight loop uses up the day quickly.
  • More accounts or API keys do not raise the limits. OpenRouter says it governs capacity globally; different models have different limits, so spreading load across models is the supported way to share it.
  • A negative credit balance blocks free models too. You may see 402 errors on free models until you add credits and bring the balance above zero.
  • Paid variants have no platform-level request cap. On paid models, limits come from the provider serving the request, apart from DDoS protection against traffic that dramatically exceeds reasonable usage.
  • BYOK requests are not gated by the free-model daily counter.

How to check your remaining free requests

Call GET https://openrouter.ai/api/v1/key with your key. The response includes free_model_daily_requests with used, limit and remaining for the current UTC day. The per-minute limit is not reported there.

curl -s https://openrouter.ai/api/v1/key \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $OPENROUTER_API_KEY"

When you hit a limit: 429 from OpenRouter or from the provider

A 429 can come from two places:

  1. OpenRouter itself, when you exceed the free-model per-minute or per-day limit (or DDoS protection).
  2. The upstream provider, when the provider serving the model is rate limiting or at capacity. OpenRouter's fallback routing retries other providers for the same model first, and you can list fallback models to try a different model when all providers for the first are exhausted.

OpenRouter's advice: retry with exponential backoff and honor Retry-After when present. For the daily cap, backoff does not help; the counter resets with the UTC day. A worked retry and fallback example is in OpenRouter free-tier 429s.

Options when the free limits are not enough

  • Buy $10 of credits once to move from 50 to 1,000 free requests a day. Note OpenRouter's 5.5% (Standard) fee on credit purchases.
  • Switch to the paid variant of the model, which has no platform-level request cap.
  • Use your own provider keys. On Standard and Business, OpenRouter includes $25,000 of list-price inference per month through BYOK with no fee, then 5%.
  • Spread work across providers you already have. A BYOK router such as SentioGate routes across your own OpenAI, Gemini, Groq, DeepSeek or OpenRouter keys and fails over on a 429. Without keys, SentioGate's free community pool gives 600 requests per 5 hours per user on model: "auto": a shared community evaluation tier for testing, not for production.
  • Compare other free tiers. See Free LLM API without a credit card and the best OpenRouter alternatives.

FAQ

How many free requests does OpenRouter give per day? 50 per day on free (:free) model variants, or 1,000 per day once your account has bought at least $10 of credits in total. Both tiers are limited to 20 requests per minute.

Do the free limits reset at midnight? The daily counter is per UTC day, so it resets at 00:00 UTC.

Does creating another API key give me more free requests? No. OpenRouter states that additional accounts or API keys do not affect rate limits.

Why do I get 402 on a free model? A negative credit balance can block free models. Add credits to bring the balance above zero.

Sources

All accessed 2026-10-30.