OpenRouter today
Starts at
$5.50/unit
- Contract
- No minimums or lock-in on Standard and Business
- Free plan
- Free plan with 25+ free models and 4 free providers; free models capped at 20 requests...
Flat tiers (4)
Priced in tiers, where OpenRouter charges by use.
| Alternative | Starts at | Against OpenRouter | States that OpenRouter doesn't | Contract | Free plan |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 UpstageCommitment tier Explore, read Oct 29, 2026 |
$100/moCommitment tier Explore plan, starting price | Not comparable | VPC or on-prem deployment | Not found | Studio agents include 10 free runs with no credit card; File Search beta is... |
 Cohereread Oct 29, 2026 |
$3/hour per instanceUsage price | Not comparable | Fine-tuning support, VPC or on-prem deployment | Model Vault supports monthly or annual commitments | Time-limited: Free Trial API key, rate limited, not for production or commercial use |
 Google Geminiread Oct 29, 2026 |
$0.25/1M tokensUsage price | Not comparable | Long context window | Not found | Free tier gives limited access to certain models with free input and output... |
 Perplexity APIread Oct 29, 2026 |
$0.0005/invocationUsage price | Not comparable | MCP server | Not found | Not found |
Other options (13)
No computed reason to switch, listed for completeness.
| Alternative | Starts at | Against OpenRouter | States that OpenRouter doesn't | Contract | Free plan |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Hugging FacePRO, read Oct 29, 2026 |
$9/moPRO plan, starting price | Not comparable | Fine-tuning support | Enterprise plan has annual commitments | Free account with unlimited public models, datasets and applications; paid... |
 Mistral AIPro, read Oct 29, 2026 |
$14.99/moPro plan, starting price | Not comparable | Fine-tuning support, VPC or on-prem deployment, MCP server | Not found | Free plan with limited access to Vibe (chat, search, creation, coding) and... |
 Anthropic ClaudePro, read Oct 29, 2026 |
$20/moPro plan, starting price | Not comparable | Long context window, HIPAA BAA | Enterprise is annual only; Pro and Team can be monthly or annual | Free plan with chat on web, desktop and mobile, web search, file creation... |
| OpenAIBusiness Standard seat, read Oct 29, 2026 | $25/userBusiness Standard seat plan, starting price | Not comparable | Long context window, HIPAA BAA | Not found | A free version of ChatGPT is available to everyone (consumer plan); details... |
 AI21 Labsread Oct 29, 2026 |
$0.20/1M input tokensUsage price | Not comparable | Long context window, Fine-tuning support, VPC or on-prem deployment | Not found | Trial: $10 credits for 7 days, no credit card needed |
 Amazon Bedrockread Oct 29, 2026 |
$2/1,000 queriesUsage price | Not comparable | Fine-tuning support, VPC or on-prem deployment, HIPAA BAA | Not found | Not found |
 Anyscaleread Oct 29, 2026 |
$0.0135/hourUsage price | Not comparable | Fine-tuning support, VPC or on-prem deployment | Pay-as-you-go is month-to-month; prepaid committed services are... | Trial: $100 in Anyscale credits on signup (one-time credit, not time-limited as stated) |
 Fireworks AIread Oct 29, 2026 |
$0.008/1M input tokensUsage price | Not comparable | Long context window, Fine-tuning support, VPC or on-prem deployment, HIPAA BAA | Not found | Trial: Muse Glimmer 30B SFT free via UI and Serverless Training API until 11/30, no... |
 Gemini Enterprise Agent Platformread Oct 29, 2026 |
$0.085/vCPU-hourUsage price | Not comparable | Fine-tuning support | Not found | A free usage tier renews monthly per account for each Agent resource (50... |
 Nebiusread Oct 29, 2026 |
$0.74/GPU-hourUsage price | Not comparable | HIPAA BAA | Usage commitments available for long-term workloads | Not found |
 Replicateread Oct 29, 2026 |
$0.000025/secondUsage price | Not comparable | Fine-tuning support, MCP server | Not found | Not found |
 Together AIread Oct 29, 2026 |
$0.15/1M input tokensUsage price | Not comparable | Fine-tuning support, VPC or on-prem deployment | Term continues until use stops or Company terminates; you may not... | Not found |
 xAI Grokread Oct 29, 2026 |
$2/1M input tokensUsage price | Not comparable | Long context window, HIPAA BAA | Not found | Free Console account with a Playground to test Grok models; API usage itself... |
No price found, or contact sales (7)
- Alibaba Qwenself serve
- Databricks Mosaic AIhybrid
- DeepSeekcontact the vendor
- Meta Llamahybrid
- Microsoft Azure OpenAI Servicehybrid
- SiliconFlowhybrid
- Snowflake Cortex AIhybrid
Questions
Is there a free alternative to OpenRouter?
Yes. 8 large language models have a free plan, including Hugging Face, Mistral AI, Anthropic Claude, OpenAI, Upstage.
How this page is made
Alternatives come from OpenRouter's own category, Large language models. Prices come from each vendor's pricing page and are compared at the same volume where both can be computed, and by starting price where neither can. "States that OpenRouter doesn't" lists what we found on the other vendor's site and didn't find on OpenRouter's, which doesn't prove OpenRouter lacks it. How prices are read.