FAQ

Questions people ask before signing up

Short answers, with the parts that are actually caveats left in rather than smoothed over.

Cost and billing

Is FreeModel actually free?: Partly. Providers hand out free quota, and the router spends that before it spends anything of yours. When no free-quota model fits the task, the request continues on a paid model at its listed rate. If you would rather get an error than a charge, send auto/best-free and it will only ever resolve to a model with quota left.
Where do I pay?: In the console, not on this site. This site is a catalogue and a reference; billing, subscriptions and balance live behind the account. Nothing here takes a payment.
What if I already pay providers directly?: Then bring your own keys. Add them in the console and that provider bills you directly; FreeModel adds nothing on top. Free models in the catalogue are still usable the same way.
Do free quotas expire?: Usually, and it is the provider's schedule, not ours. The most common shape is one million tokens valid for 90 days. We cannot extend a quota, restore one, or promise it will exist next month — so the router checks the live balance at request time.

Do I have to hand over my provider keys?: No. Use the platform key, or bring your own for the providers you already pay. Both routes go through the same router, so free-quota preference and failover behave the same either way.
How do I get a key?: Sign in to the console, open My → API Keys, create one. Keys start with sk-.
Can I look around before signing up?: Yes. /v1/models and the price catalogue are public and need no key. Worth doing if coverage is the thing you are checking.
Does it train on my traffic?: No. Requests are forwarded to the provider that serves them, and the routing log keeps what is needed to explain a call — which provider answered, which were skipped, why.

What happens when a provider goes down?: The request moves to the next candidate automatically. A rate limit, an exhausted quota or a rejected key are all just triggers to try the next one. You get an answer instead of an error, and the log records what was skipped.
Will I know which model actually answered?: Yes, in the routing log. What you give up by using a route rather than a model id is deciding which one answers. If you need exact reproducibility, or a named model for compliance, send a concrete id instead.
Can a route change what it resolves to between calls?: Yes, and that is the point — it re-decides as providers add, retire and reprice models. Two identical requests a month apart can land on different models, which is why the log exists.

Which clients work?: Anything that speaks the OpenAI API or the Anthropic one. In practice: Claude Code, Codex CLI, Cursor, Cline, Continue.dev, and the OpenAI SDKs in Python and Node. Setup guides are under Docs.
Can I call it from my own code?: Yes, and it is one argument. Point the OpenAI SDK's base_url at https://freemodel.online/v1 and everything else stays the same — streaming, tool calls, usage reporting, error shapes. See the SDK guide.
Why do I get a 404 on every request?: Almost always the base URL. The OpenAI base ends at /v1 and the Anthropic base stops at /api/gateway — each client appends its own path, so pasting one into the other gives you /v1/v1/.... This is the single most common setup mistake; Docs has the exact strings.