OrcaRouter free models

The terms in full

OrcaRouter serves selected catalog models at $0 under model ids ending in -free, and the built-in orcarouter/free router covers that free tier behind a single id. Calls to these ids never touch the account wallet, and the allowance is a request rate rather than a balance, so a workspace can keep calling the free tier indefinitely while it stays inside the limits. Free traffic is capped by requests per minute and requests per day. Those ceilings are public, returned for every tier by the GET /api/free-package/public endpoint, and the provider tunes them live. They are tiered by lifetime spend: a workspace that has never topped up gets a deliberately small daily allowance and also a per-request prompt-size cap, which is the one limit the provider does not publish as a number, and crossing the lifetime-spend threshold raises both. Paying is optional and only buys higher limits. Free access additionally requires the workspace owner to have linked a GitHub account that has been registered for some time, unless the workspace has paid enough to be exempt. Model ids without the -free suffix bill at the upstream per-token price, and a free id never falls back to a paid model.

• When it runs out Requests are rejected (429) until the window resets.
• Clock Standing free route with no stated end date. The request-per-minute and request-per-day ceilings are published per tier at the public free-package endpoint and are tuned live, and the lower tier also carries a per-request prompt-size cap that the provider does not publish as a number. The provider describes the free tier as best-effort capacity rather than a guarantee.
• Region No region restriction stated by the provider.

Models

The free lineup is the catalog ids ending in -free plus the orcarouter/free router, which scores each request by difficulty and picks among the workspace's free models. The provider states that the lineup rotates as models join and leave with capacity, so its documentation deliberately lists no ids: the current ids, and the paid model each one shadows, come from the public free-package endpoint. On 2026-10-01 the orcarouter/free model page listed one model in the router, deepseek/deepseek-v4-flash-free, on the light tier.

Signup, payment, data

• Signup An OrcaRouter account and API key are required, and free routes never touch the wallet. Free access is also gated on the workspace owner having linked a GitHub account that has been registered for some time, unless the workspace has paid enough to be exempt. A workspace that meets neither condition has its free requests refused.
• Card / payment Not stated by the provider.
• Training Not stated by the provider.
• Data terms Not stated on the reviewed routing, billing, and free-model pages; downstream model/provider policies may vary.

What the provider's page says

Every structured number above is backed by one of these quotes, checked verbatim against the page our crawler fetched. A field with no quote is shown as not stated.

• at exhaustion “429 err_free_rate, with retry_after_seconds (also sent as the Retry-After header) A rate window is full. The value is the seconds left in the window that tripped - to the next minute, or to 00:00 UTC. Wait out retry_after_seconds, then…” source

Evidence pages, re-read nightly

• https://docs.orcarouter.ai/routing/free-models
• https://www.orcarouter.ai/models/orcarouter/free
• https://docs.orcarouter.ai/operations/billing-and-usage

Change history

1. 2026-10-01 Terms changed: OrcaRouter OrcaRouter free models (free terms, models detail, signup)
   • free terms OrcaRouter serves selected catalog models at $0 under model ids ending in -free, and the built-in orcarouter/free router covers that free tier behind a single id. Calls to these ids never touch the account wallet, and the allowance is a request rate rather than a balance, so a workspace can keep cal
   • models detail The free lineup is the catalog ids ending in -free plus the orcarouter/free router, which scores each request by difficulty and picks among the workspace's free models. The provider states that the lineup rotates as models join and leave with capacity, so its documentation deliberately lists no ids:
   • signup An OrcaRouter account and API key are required, and free routes never touch the wallet. Free access is also gated on the workspace owner having linked a GitHub account that has been registered for some time, unless the workspace has paid enough to be exempt. A workspace that meets neither condition
   • clock Standing free route with no stated end date. The request-per-minute and request-per-day ceilings are published per tier at the public free-package endpoint and are tuned live, and the lower tier also carries a per-request prompt-size cap that the provider does not publish as a number. The provider d
2. 2026-09-30 Listing corrected: OrcaRouter OrcaRouter free models our correction, not a provider change
   • free terms OrcaRouter provides orcarouter/free and explicit -free model IDs that never touch the account wallet and can be used indefinitely, subject to request-rate, daily, and per-request prompt-size limits. The per-minute and per-day request ceilings for every tier are published at GET /api/free-package/pub
   • models detail orcarouter/free plus the explicit -free model IDs, which are marked by the -free suffix and a zero-price block in /v1/models and the public pricing catalog. The free lineup rotates and the documentation deliberately does not list the IDs, so the current set is read from GET /api/free-package/public.
   • signup OrcaRouter account and API key required, and free routes never touch the wallet. Free access also requires the workspace owner to have linked a GitHub account that has been registered for some time, unless the workspace has paid enough to be exempt. A workspace without one is refused on free models
   • clock Standing free route with no stated end date. Request-rate and daily ceilings are tuned live and published per tier at GET /api/free-package/public, with the day window rolling at 00:00 UTC. The per-request prompt cap on the lowest tier is not published as a number.
3. 2026-09-17 Terms changed: OrcaRouter OrcaRouter free models (free terms, models detail, signup)
   • free terms OrcaRouter provides orcarouter/free and explicit -free model IDs that never touch the account wallet and can be called indefinitely within rate limits. Requests are capped per minute and per day, and the day window resets at 00:00 UTC. The rpm and rpd numbers for each tier are published at GET /api/
   • models detail orcarouter/free plus the explicit -free model IDs, which rotate as capacity allows. On 2026-09-17, orcarouter/free listed one model: deepseek/deepseek-v4-flash-free. The orcarouter/auto alias can select paid models and is not part of this free program.
   • signup An OrcaRouter account and API key are required. Free requests can be refused unless the workspace owner links a GitHub account that has been registered for some time, or the workspace has paid enough to be exempt. Free routes never touch the wallet.
   • clock Standing free route. Per-minute and per-day request limits are published per tier and tuned live, and the per-request prompt-size cap is unpublished.