Does openrouter have a limit for free models? If so, is there a way that I can get around it besides making a new account or using the other models?

So i'm checking out some cursor alternatives, and it seems that a lot of them can use openrouter. Is using the free models like gemini flash 2 (1m context window) or gemini 1.5 pro good, or is it worse?

Not exactly the most right sub to ask this, but I found that lots of people on here are very helpful, so here's ny question - why is OpenRouter allowing me ONE THOUSAND free mesaages per day, and Chutes is just... providing one of the best models completely for free? Are they quantized? Do they 'scrape' your prompts? There must be something, right?

So a 'little bit' of bad news especially to those specifically using Deepseek v3 0324 free via openrouter, the limits have just been adjusted from 200 -> 50 requests per day. Guess you'd have to create at least four accounts to even mimic that of having the 200 requests per day limit from before.

For clarification, all free models (even non deepseek ones) are subject to the 50 requests per day limit. And for further clarification, say even if you have say $5 on your account and can access paid models, you'd still be restricted to 50 requests per day (haven't really tested it out but based on the documentation, we need at least $10 so we can have access to higher request limits)

Hey everyone,

I’ve read through the OpenRouter API rate limits documentation, but I’m still unclear about how rate limiting works for paid models.

From what I understand:

• Free models have strict daily caps (50 or 1000 requests depending on credit balance).

• For paid models, it seems there are no fixed request-per-minute limits — usage is mainly controlled by your credit balance.

• Adding more credits doesn’t increase a hard rate limit, but just allows more requests as long as you have credits.

• There’s no official service tier or quota upgrade system like OpenAI’s usage tiers.

• Throughput may depend on the underlying model provider.

Can anyone confirm if that’s accurate?

Also, has anyone experienced 429 errors or other signs of throttling when using paid models heavily? Was it from OpenRouter or the upstream provider?

Appreciate any insights!

Google Colab isn't really a good long term alternative because of limits, and I've had my accounts completely stomped on. I've heard of the free models on OpenRouter though

Are these any good for RP? Should I bother with them?

For the first time, I hit my daily limit using OpenRouter free models (Deepseek R1 zero free and Qwen 32B free, by the way). So, I wanted to ask: what criteria is used to determine it's a new day of usage? Do you have to wait 24 hours until it's exactly the same time as when you got the message of reaching the limit? Or is it more of an approximate threshold, like a conventional reset moment according to a specific time zone? If the latter is the case, what hour and timezone would that reset be? In other words, how can I know when to expect to be able to use my daily 200 requests again?

I tried to use the horizon alpha model in roo code but I got an error saying I'm out of credits. It's a free model right?

Free limit gives 200 requests per day, and i need around 400, so i have to create new account and get another api key. My question is they check IP or something so i can freely add another key and wrap in a try catch if first one fails aka gets limit? I'm using on a dummy non profitable app.

So a 'little bit' of bad news especially to those specifically using Deepseek v3 0324 free via openrouter, the limits have just been adjusted from 200 -> 50 requests per day. Guess you'd have to create at least four accounts to even mimic that of having the 200 requests per day limit from before.

EDIT: All free models (even non deepseek ones) are subject to the 50 requests per day limit. And for further clarification, say even if you have say $5 on your account and can access paid models, you'd still be restricted to 50 requests per day (haven't really tested it out but based on the documentation, we need at least $10 so we can have access to higher request limits)

This is a heads up that there are a couple models on OpenRouter good for RP that are 100% discounted. You can use them in ST without paying. Try them out and let me know what you think!

- https://openrouter.ai/models/undi95/toppy-m-7b

- https://openrouter.ai/models/huggingfaceh4/zephyr-7b-beta

- Less good for RP but for completeness: https://openrouter.ai/models/mistralai/mistral-7b-instruct

(In case it wasn't clear, I'm the main dev - "alex | OpenRouter" in discord)

I got three replies.

Three.

All 47 other requests got errors, or load hangs for upwards of 20 minutes that I had to cancel and try again.

And I'm expected to pay money for this?

I use Deepseek 0324 on open router and it’s good, but i’ve literally been using it since it released so i’d like to try something else. I’ve tried Deepseek r1 0528, but it sometimes outputs the thinking and sometimes don’t. I’ve heard skipping the thinking dumbs the model down, so how to make it output the thinking consistently? If you guys have any free or cheap models recommendations feel free to leave it here. Thanks for reading!

Please recommend some free models on openrouter. They may not be as good as frontier models but they should some basic tasks like document editing or bug fixes etc.

Hey everyone,

I was testing some of the free models from OpenRouter today. Here are the ones I found most usable:

- deepseek/deepseek-chat-v3-0324:free

- meta-llama/llama-4-maverick:free

- deepseek/deepseek-r1:free

- qwen/qwen3-235b-a22b:free

deepseek-chat was my favorite. Have you guys had much success with free models?

-Nick

I have this error:

I have 15 credits and my limit is 1000 requests per day for free models. But today I did only 400+ requests. I started using openrouter a few days ago and my total requests is 629.

How is this possible?

TDLR: Chutes will be throttling Openrouter's free tier (including those that paid $10) and prioritizing paying users from Chute. This is why there's been a number of errors lately for those not in the loop! This doesn't mean you can't use it, it'll just be slower.

Haven't seen anyone post an update about this on Reddit and wanted to share.