{"rid":"compute/openrouter","card":{"rid":"compute/openrouter","eid":"openrouter","topic":"compute","slug":"openrouter","provider":"OpenRouter","url":"https://openrouter.ai/docs/api-reference/limits","domain":"openrouter.ai","category":"inference API","tier":null,"verdict":"qualifies-with-caveat","vorder":1,"grp":"usable","confidence":"documented","binding":"request-rate","identity_kind":"email","identity_basis":"stated","needs_card":0,"needs_phone":0,"needs_id":0,"needs_institution":0,"country":null,"crypto":null,"interfaces":"rest","egress_metered":null,"per_object_bytes":null,"retention_days":null,"verified_at":"2026-10-22T00:00:00.000Z","verified_basis":"live","checked_on":"2026-10-22","stale_on":"2026-11-21","n_evidence":3,"usd_month":null,"usd_per_tb_month":null,"summary":"Free-model requests are capped by a table keyed on lifetime credits purchased, not on account age: 'Less than 10' credits in all time gives 20 requests a min...","duplicate_of":null,"n_unknown":9},"record":{"topic":"compute","slug":"openrouter","provider":"OpenRouter","url":"https://openrouter.ai/docs/api-reference/limits","category":"inference API","free_tier":{"stated":"Free-model requests are capped by a table keyed on lifetime credits purchased, not on account age: 'Less than 10' credits in all time gives 20 requests a minute and 50 requests a day; 'At least 10' credits gives 20 a minute and 1,000 a day. So the no-card allowance is 50 requests a day, and the 1,000-a-day figure that circulates requires USD 10 of purchases, which converts the free lane into a payment relationship. The page also notes 'Making additional accounts or API keys will not affect your rate limits, as we govern capacity globally'.","unit":"requests","metered_on":"wall-clock","source_url":"https://openrouter.ai/docs/api-reference/limits","read_on":"2026-10-22","notes":"recurring-daily-request-allowance"},"per_object_cap":{"stated":"not applicable","bytes":null,"source_url":"https://openrouter.ai/docs/api-reference/limits","notes":null},"retention":{"stated":"not applicable","days":null,"source_url":"https://openrouter.ai/docs/api-reference/limits","notes":null},"egress":{"terms":"not stated","metered":false,"free_allowance":null,"price_per_tb":null,"source_url":"https://openrouter.ai/docs/api-reference/limits"},"interface":["rest"],"interface_detail":"inferred from the tooling the provider documents; not probed","tooling":"not stated","chaining":"the fallback array is where this silently becomes a paid lane: a pipeline that lists a paid model as fallback bills for every request the free model refuses, which is why the free router (openrouter/free) is the only safe chain.","limits":[{"kind":"request-rate","value":"50 requests a day binds and it is a request count, not a token count: a 1,000-item job takes 20 days on the no-card lane, and the 20 rpm cap means the day's 50 requests are spent in under three minutes of traffic.","source":"https://openrouter.ai/docs/api-reference/limits"}],"limits_note":"50 requests a day binds and it is a request count, not a token count: a 1,000-item job takes 20 days on the no-card lane, and the 20 rpm cap means the day's 50 requests are spent in under three minutes of traffic.","binding":"request-rate","binding_note":"50 requests a day binds and it is a request count, not a token count: a 1,000-item job takes 20 days on the no-card lane, and the 20 rpm cap means the day's 50 requests are spent in under three minutes of traffic.","identity_cost":{"kind":"email","detail":null,"country":null},"reliability_note":"no reliability event recorded","confidence":"documented","evidence":[{"url":"https://openrouter.ai/docs/api-reference/limits","date":"2026-10-22","proved":"free usage limits table: 'Less than 10 | 20 | 50' and 'At least 10 | 20 | 1000' for requests per minute and per day, quoted"},{"url":"https://openrouter.ai/docs/faq","date":"2026-10-22","proved":"'If you have purchased at least 10 credits, your free model rate limit will be 1000 requests per day. Otherwise, you will be rate limited to 50 free model API requests per day', quoted"},{"url":"https://openrouter.ai/docs/guides/routing/model-variants/free","date":"2026-10-22","proved":"'If you list a :free model in a models fallback array, OpenRouter tries the next model in the array when the free model is rate-limited... a fallback to a paid model incurs charges even though the first model was :free', quoted"}],"verdict":"qualifies-with-caveat","verified_at":"2026-10-22T00:00:00.000Z","notes":"Corrects a claim that is easy to make from the same page: the 1,000-requests-a-day figure is not the free tier, it is the post-purchase tier. The no-card ceiling is 50 a day, which is 1,500 a month and is a chat allowance. The dossier record openrouter-free-ids carries the endpoint and the 401 on an unauthenticated call; it does not carry this credit threshold, which is the number that decides whether the allowance is usable.","extras":{"wave2":{"class":"capacity-shape","free_tier_kind":"recurring-daily-request-allowance","shape":{"vcpu":null,"ram_gib":null,"gpu_class":null,"gpu_count":null}}}},"claims":[{"path":"$.free_tier.stated","kind":"free-quota","num":20,"unit":"requests","per":"minute","currency":null,"usd":null,"fx_date":null,"parse":"ok"},{"path":"$.limits[0].value","kind":"limit:request-rate","num":50,"unit":"requests","per":"day","currency":null,"usd":null,"fx_date":null,"parse":"ok"}],"unknown":[["$.egress.metered","egress-unknown"],["$.egress.terms","not-stated"],["$.identity_cost.detail","process"],["$.per_object_cap.notes","process"],["$.per_object_cap.stated","not-applicable"],["$.reliability_note","none-observed"],["$.retention.notes","process"],["$.retention.stated","not-applicable"],["$.tooling","not-stated"]],"history":[],"drift":[]}