Free Claude API key: is there one?
Anthropic bills the Claude API per token and we found no permanent free tier on its pricing pages. The Claude app has a free plan, but that is not an API key.
Checked October 2026. Limits are set by each company and change often.
Free ways to reach Anthropic models
- Vercel AI Gateway: $5 of free credit every 30 days, usable on the whole catalog, as long as you never buy gateway credit. It includes Claude models.
- OpenRouter: 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. Claude itself is paid there.
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 there a free Anthropic API key?
Anthropic bills the Claude API per token and we found no permanent free tier on its pricing pages. The Claude app has a free plan, but that is not an API key.
How can I try Anthropic models through an API for free?
Vercel AI Gateway: $5 of free credit every 30 days, usable on the whole catalog, as long as you never buy gateway credit. It includes Claude models. OpenRouter: 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. Claude itself is paid there.
Other free API keys
- Gemini
- Groq
- OpenRouter
- Vercel AI Gateway
- Mistral
- Cerebras
- NVIDIA NIM
- SambaNova
- SiliconFlow
- GLM (Z.ai)
- Cohere
- Hugging Face
- Fireworks
- Qwen
- Cloudflare Workers AI
- Pollinations
- OpenAI (ChatGPT)
For AI agents: this page as Markdown