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Free-tier types: long-term free tier vs signup credit vs periodic reset vs limited-time
Short answer: free allowances come in four shapes — long-term free tiers (no end date, rate-limited calls), signup credits (one-time, with an expiry), periodic resets (re-issued daily, weekly, or monthly), and limited-time campaigns (a fixed end date). The shape decides the validity, the rate limits, and what happens when it runs out. All 43 verified offers are grouped below.
Comparison tables
Long-term free tiers (2 entries)
No end date; call within rate limits for free.
| Offer | Free allowance | Requirements | Reset | Verified |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| GLM-4.5-Flash / GLM-4.7-Flash free models | Officially marked fully free; concurrency shown per account | Account | Long-term free models; no claim needed; call right after registering | 2026-11-08 |
| Free public translation API | Call directly with no registration; no cap stated on the official site | None stated | Long-term free; no registration, no key needed | 2026-11-03 |
Signup credits / one-time allowances (18 entries)
Granted on signup, with a validity period; gone when used up.
| Offer | Free allowance | Requirements | Reset | Verified |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spark-X2.6 free trial credits | 1 billion tokens | Account, Real-name verification | One-time claim; credit validity as shown in the console | 2026-11-05 |
| New-user free credits (over 70M tokens across models) | About 1M tokens per model, valid 90 days | Account, Real-name verification | Issued automatically after activation; each model counted separately; expires after 90 days | 2026-11-01 |
| New-user token gift pack | 20M tokens + 120 image/video generations | Account, Real-name verification | One-time gift pack; validity as shown in the console | 2026-11-08 |
| New-user 1M tokens per model trial pack | 1M tokens per model, valid 1 year | Account | Once per master account; campaign runs until 2026-12-31 | 2026-11-01 |
| New-user all-model resource pack | 3M tokens | Account | Issued automatically after creating your first API key or first trial | 2026-10-29 |
| Signup credits + real-name verification voucher | ¥14 credit on signup; invite + real-name verification earns a ¥16 voucher (180 days) | Account, Real-name verification | One-time credit; voucher valid 180 days | 2026-10-27 |
| New-user free trial benefit | ¥15 voucher, valid 3 months | Account, Real-name verification, Phone number | Issued to the API account automatically after real-name verification | 2026-10-27 |
| Inference trial credits | $5 free credit, expires in 30 days | Account, Card required | One-time trial credit, expires 30 days after grant; daily cap 1M tokens | 2026-10-27 |
| New-user Sandbox promo credits | $100 promo credit, valid 90 days (Sandbox only) | Account | One-time credit, usable only in the Novita Sandbox | 2026-10-27 |
| New-user credits | 250 credits on first login, valid 14 days | Account | One-time new-user gift, expires after 14 days | 2026-10-28 |
| Sandbox free-edition model message credits | 200 model message credits + 5,000 API calls per month | Account | Sandbox free edition by default on registration; bring your own key when credits run out | 2026-11-04 |
| Code sandbox Hobby credits | $100 one-time usage credits, no card required | Account | One-time credits, until used up | 2026-11-01 |
| Browser automation Launch credits | $30 one-time credits, no card required | Account | One-time credits, with concurrent session limits | 2026-11-01 |
| Free tokens with a new API key | 10M tokens per new key (shared across Reader/Embedding/Reranker) | Account | One-time credits; check balance under API Key & Billing | 2026-11-01 |
| First embedding tokens free | First 200M embedding tokens per account free | Account | One-time credits; 50M for some older models | 2026-11-01 |
| Speech API signup credits | $200 free credits, no card required, never expire | Account | One-time credits, never expire; roughly hundreds of hours of transcription | 2026-11-01 |
| Speech transcription signup credits | $50 free credits, no card required | Account | One-time credits; lower concurrency on the free tier | 2026-11-01 |
| Builder bundle credits | $25 inference credits + $25 Tavily + $100 LangSmith, etc. | Account | One-time bundle; claim each item in the dashboard after email verification | 2026-11-05 |
Daily reset (13 entries)
Re-issued every day; generally no rollover for unused amounts.
| Offer | Free allowance | Requirements | Reset | Verified |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| API-Inference daily free credits | 250 magic particles per day (200 check-in + 50 for binding Alibaba Cloud) | Account, Real-name verification | Resets daily; unused credits do not roll over | 2026-10-27 |
| Daily free tokens | 500,000 tokens per day (input + output) | Account, Phone number | Issued before 02:00 daily; no rollover | 2026-10-16 |
| Promo models daily free tokens | 10M tokens per day, first come first served | Account | Resets at 24:00 (UTC+8) daily, first come first served | 2026-10-09 |
| Token Factory free model API | Free calls within the daily pts usage cap | Account | Resets at 00:00 Beijing time; daily credits vary by account | 2026-11-01 |
| K2-Horizon daily free credits | 10M tokens per key per day (input + output) | Account | Resets at 00:00 UTC | 2026-10-31 |
| :free free models | 20 RPM / 50 requests per day; 1,000 per day after the account has been topped up $10 | Account | Resets daily; model IDs end in :free | 2026-10-27 |
| Free Plan fast inference | Per model: 30 RPM / 1,000 requests per day / 200K tokens per day | Account | Per-model rate limits; resets daily | 2026-11-08 |
| Gemini API free tier | Free tier for Gemini Flash and other models, 5–30 RPM / per-model daily caps | Account | Resets daily; actual limits as shown in the AI Studio quota panel | 2026-11-08 |
| Daily free Neurons | 10,000 Neurons per day | Account | Resets at 00:00 UTC (08:00 Beijing time) | 2026-11-01 |
| Daily credits in the desktop app | 100 credits per day, each batch valid 30 days | Account | Claim daily inside the Qoder desktop app | 2026-10-27 |
| Hunyuan Hy4 limited-time free access | Free credits gifted daily, Nov 4–15 | Account | Gifted daily during the campaign; subscribers get more | 2026-11-04 |
| Daily check-in credits | 100 per daily check-in + 500 per monthly login + 2,000 on registration | Account | Check-in refreshes daily; invite credits also available | 2026-10-27 |
| Web Search API (MCP) free daily | 100 searches per day, no account, no key | None stated | Resets daily; called via the MCP server | 2026-11-05 |
Weekly reset (1 entry)
Re-issued every week.
| Offer | Free allowance | Requirements | Reset | Verified |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Public-beta shared credit pool | 120,000 credits per rolling 5 hours / 1,200,000 per week | Account, Phone number | Dual limits: rolling 5-hour window + weekly window; public-beta benefit | 2026-11-05 |
Monthly reset (9 entries)
Re-issued every month; generally no rollover for unused amounts.
| Offer | Free allowance | Requirements | Reset | Verified |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free tier monthly credits | $5 Gateway credits per month | Account, Card required | Monthly cycle counted from the first Gateway request | 2026-10-27 |
| Trial edition free credits | 500 credits/month, valid within the month, no rollover | Account | Issued monthly; unused credits expire at month end | 2026-10-28 |
| Student plan free for one year | 1,000 credits/month × 12 months, no rollover | Account, Student status, Real-name verification | Issued monthly, no rollover across months; no card required | 2026-11-01 |
| Search API free tier | 1,000 API credits per month, no card required | Account | Resets on the 1st of each month | 2026-11-01 |
| Scrape/search free tier | 1,000 credits per month, no card required | Account | Resets monthly; roughly 1,000 pages | 2026-11-01 |
| Search API Starter free credits | $10 per month + $10 signup gift, no card required | Account | $10 credits per month, plus a $10 onboarding bonus on signup | 2026-11-01 |
| Starter monthly free compute | $30 free credits per month | Account | Issued monthly; overage billed at GPU/CPU list prices | 2026-11-01 |
| Document parsing free tier | 10,000 credits per month | Account | Resets monthly; basic parsing from 1 credit/page | 2026-11-01 |
| Inference Starter free credits | 5M embedding tokens per model per month + 500 reranks/month | Account | Issued monthly, separately per model | 2026-11-01 |
Limited-time campaigns (fixed end date)
| Offer | Free allowance | Ends |
|---|---|---|
| New-user 1M tokens per model trial pack | 1M tokens per model, valid 1 year | 2026-12-31 |
| Hunyuan Hy4 limited-time free access | Free credits gifted daily, Nov 4–15 | 2026-11-15 |
How to tell which shape an offer is
Look at each offer’s “cadence” and “ends” fields: cadence “ongoing” means a long-term free tier; cadence “one-time” means a signup credit — check the validity in the allowance wording; cadence “daily / weekly / monthly” means a periodic reset — check the reset time and whether unused amounts roll over in the “reset” field; an “ends” date means a limited-time campaign, removed after expiry.
Whether running out costs money depends on the vendor: some stop, some switch to pay-as-you-go. See FAQ Q10 — and before claiming, confirm on the vendor’s official page whether there is a “stop when exhausted” type switch.
FAQ
Do unused periodic-reset allowances roll over?
Almost never. For example, ModelScope’s 250 magic particles per day state “unused credits do not roll over”, WorkBuddy’s 500 credits state “unused credits expire at month end”, and the Kiro student plan states “no rollover across months”. Unless the allowance wording explicitly says it rolls over, assume it does not.
Does the allowance survive after a limited-time campaign ends?
Limited-time allowances follow the campaign end date — for example, WorkBuddy’s Hunyuan Hy4 campaign ends 2026-11-15. Expired campaigns no longer apply.
Disclaimer: table data comes from vendor official pages; allowances can change or end at any time — check the official page before claiming.