Compare 29 free alternatives to OpenAI for AI / ML. Every one of their free tier limits side by side, each with the date we last verified it.

Best OpenAI Alternatives with Free Tiers (2026)

29 free alternatives in AI / ML. Sorted by pricing stability.

Current OpenAI Situation

Risk Level: stable
Category: AI / ML

Recent Pricing Changes (5)

deprecated effective 2026-08-26 high impact
Assistants API deprecated, full shutdown August 26, 2026. Developers must migrate to Responses API + Conversations API Source ↗
deprecated effective 2026-05-12 high impact
DALL-E 2 and DALL-E 3 API access discontinued. Developers must migrate to gpt-image-1 (different pricing model, quality tiers changed from standard/hd to low/medium/high) or switch to free alternatives like Pollinations.AI or Lumenfall.ai Source ↗
deprecated effective 2026-05-07 high impact
Realtime API beta endpoints deprecated. Developers must remove OpenAI-Beta header, use new client_secrets endpoint, specify session_type, and update event names. GA Realtime API is the direct replacement. Source ↗
reduced effective 2026-02-09 high impact
Ads launched in ChatGPT Free and Go ($8/mo) tiers. Sponsored units from major brands appear below responses on first prompt. $60 CPM, $200K minimum ad commitment Source ↗
reduced effective 2025-06-01 high impact
Free trial credits ($5-$18 for new accounts) completely discontinued. Free tier now limited to GPT-3.5 Turbo at 3 RPM with no credits. All advanced models (GPT-4, DALL-E, Whisper) require paid access Source ↗
📖 In-depth migration guide available

Read our detailed OpenAI Realtime API Beta Shutdown: Migration Guide & Real-Time Audio Alternatives (2026) guide with curated recommendations and service comparison.

Recommended Migration Targets

These alternatives were identified from OpenAI’s pricing changes as recommended replacements.

AssemblyAI stable recommended
Free
AI / ML Read 2026-09-12 · catalogue date 2026-07-30
Groq stable recommended
Free
AI / ML Read 2026-08-15 · tried again 2026-09-13 and did not read the page
Replicate recommended
Free
AI / ML Read 2026-09-02 · catalogue date 2026-08-15
Free
AI / ML Read 2026-09-13 · catalogue date 2026-08-09
Free
AI / ML Read 2026-09-13 · catalogue date 2026-09-01
Pollinations.AI recommended
Free
AI / ML Read 2026-09-14 · catalogue date 2026-08-07
Deepgram stable recommended
Free Credits
AI / ML Read 2026-09-10 · catalogue date 2026-07-30
−2 time_limited_offer Tier "Free Credits" is a credit grant that runs out, not an ongoing free tier.
Free (Reduced)
AI / ML Read 2026-09-03 · catalogue date 2026-08-18
−3 free_tier_withdrawn Recorded product deprecation on 2026-06-01: Gemini 2.0 Flash and 2.0 Flash-Lite will be deprecated June 1, 2026. Developers must migrate to Gemini 2.5 Flash or 3.x Flash models. Google is consolidating the model lineup — 2.0 generation reaching end of life as 2.5 and 3.x become production-ready. Source: https://ai.google.dev/gemini-api/docs/deprecations

All Free Alternatives (29)

18 of these carry no recorded demerit and are indistinguishable under every signal we hold; their order rotates daily. 8 are demoted with the reason named, and 3 are listed last because they are not generally available or are not a free offer. How we rank.

Left out of this list: Pinecone (shares no subtype with this product), Qdrant (shares no subtype with this product), Kaggle (shares no subtype with this product), Roboflow (shares no subtype with this product), Scale AI (shares no subtype with this product), Weights & Biases (shares no subtype with this product), Comet ML (shares no subtype with this product), Clarifai (we have not classified this record), Neptune.ai (we have not classified this record), Labelbox (shares no subtype with this product), Composio (shares no subtype with this product), DeepAR (none of this category's subtypes apply), OCR.Space (shares no subtype with this product), Parseur (shares no subtype with this product), Reducto (shares no subtype with this product), Tavily AI (shares no subtype with this product), paperspace (shares no subtype with this product), Arize AX (shares no subtype with this product), Audio Enhancer (none of this category's subtypes apply), Braintrust (shares no subtype with this product), Clair (none of this category's subtypes apply), Langfuse (shares no subtype with this product), LangSmith (shares no subtype with this product), Langtrace (we have not classified this record), LangWatch (shares no subtype with this product), Mediaworkbench.ai (none of this category's subtypes apply), Othor AI (none of this category's subtypes apply), ReportGPT (none of this category's subtypes apply), Zenable (none of this category's subtypes apply), Exa (shares no subtype with this product), GPU-Bridge (we have not classified this record), Google Vertex AI Agent Engine (we have not classified this record), Google Vector Search 2.0 (shares no subtype with this product), Google Gemini Embedding 2 (shares no subtype with this product), Alibaba Cloud Qwen Code (none of this category's subtypes apply), E2B (shares no subtype with this product), Modal (shares no subtype with this product). Each is still listed in its category, with the vendor's own words we read that from on its page. How we decide this.

Free
AI / ML Read 2026-09-02 · catalogue date 2026-08-15
Free
AI / ML Read 2026-08-20 · tried again 2026-09-16 and did not read the page
Free
AI / ML Read 2026-08-17 · tried again 2026-09-16 and did not read the page
Maxim AI stable
Free
AI / ML Read 2026-07-30
AssemblyAI stable
Free
AI / ML Read 2026-09-12 · catalogue date 2026-07-30
Free
AI / ML Read 2026-09-02 · catalogue date 2026-08-12
Free
AI / ML Read 2026-09-03
Keywords AI stable
Free
AI / ML Read 2026-09-02
Free
AI / ML Read 2026-09-07 · catalogue date 2026-08-25
Groq stable
Free
AI / ML Read 2026-08-15 · tried again 2026-09-13 and did not read the page
Free (Limited)
AI / ML Read 2026-09-16 · catalogue date 2026-08-20
Free
AI / ML Read 2026-09-03 · catalogue date 2026-08-19
Free
AI / ML Read 2026-09-02 · catalogue date 2026-08-15
Free
AI / ML Read 2026-09-02 · catalogue date 2026-08-15
Free
AI / ML Read 2026-09-13 · catalogue date 2026-08-09
Free
AI / ML Read 2026-09-13 · catalogue date 2026-08-09
Free
AI / ML Read 2026-09-13 · catalogue date 2026-09-01
Free
AI / ML Read 2026-09-14 · catalogue date 2026-08-07
Trial Key
AI / ML Read 2026-09-02 · catalogue date 2026-08-16
−2 time_limited_offer Tier "Trial Key" is a trial that expires, not an ongoing free tier.
Free ($1 credits)
AI / ML Read 2026-09-07 · catalogue date 2026-08-24
−2 time_limited_offer Tier "Free ($1 credits)" is a credit grant that runs out, not an ongoing free tier.
Fireworks AI stable
Free ($1 credits)
AI / ML Read 2026-09-07 · catalogue date 2026-08-25
−2 time_limited_offer Tier "Free ($1 credits)" is a credit grant that runs out, not an ongoing free tier.
Basic (Free Credits)
AI / ML Read 2026-09-10 · catalogue date 2026-08-01
−2 time_limited_offer Tier "Basic (Free Credits)" is a credit grant that runs out, not an ongoing free tier.
Free Credits + Pay-as-you-go
AI / ML Read 2026-09-03 · catalogue date 2026-08-18
−2 time_limited_offer Tier "Free Credits + Pay-as-you-go" is a credit grant that runs out, not an ongoing free tier.
Deepgram stable
Free Credits
AI / ML Read 2026-09-10 · catalogue date 2026-07-30
−2 time_limited_offer Tier "Free Credits" is a credit grant that runs out, not an ongoing free tier.
Free (Reduced)
AI / ML Read 2026-09-03 · catalogue date 2026-08-18
−3 free_tier_withdrawn Recorded product deprecation on 2026-06-01: Gemini 2.0 Flash and 2.0 Flash-Lite will be deprecated June 1, 2026. Developers must migrate to Gemini 2.5 Flash or 3.x Flash models. Google is consolidating the model lineup — 2.0 generation reaching end of life as 2.5 and 3.x become production-ready. Source: https://ai.google.dev/gemini-api/docs/deprecations
xAI
Free Credits
AI / ML Read 2026-09-02 · catalogue date 2026-08-14
−3 free_tier_withdrawn Recorded free tier removal on 2026-04-13: No longer in force (2026-09-05). $25/month free API credits no longer offered — Grok API paid-only No longer in force as of 2026-09-05. This record cites nothing and xAI does not publish its sign-up credit terms on a page we can read, so it cannot be retracted on evidence; it is withdrawn because the claim it makes is contradicted by our own later record. Our xAI offer, verified 2026-08-14 and re-checked 2026-09-02, reads "Sign-up gives $25 in free API credits". Recorded separately: the URL that offer cites, docs.x.ai/developers/models, contains no occurrence of "free", "credit" or "$25" in its 5,452 characters of visible text, so that claim is also uncited and needs a source of its own. We hold no source for this record, so it does not set xAI's rating.
−2 time_limited_offer Tier "Free Credits" is a credit grant that runs out, not an ongoing free tier.
Pay-as-you-go
AI / ML Read 2026-09-12 · catalogue date 2026-07-09
not_a_free_offer Tier "Pay-as-you-go" is usage-billed from the first request.
Pay-as-you-go
AI / ML Read 2026-09-02 · catalogue date 2026-08-15
not_a_free_offer Tier "Pay-as-you-go" is usage-billed from the first request.
Retired
AI / ML Read 2026-09-02 · catalogue date 2026-08-20
offer_retired GitHub Models's offer is recorded as Retired.
Recompute today's order yourself. The order above is a permutation seeded only on the UTC date and the query key — no vendor name, slug, id or offer field is an input. The algorithm is published, so anyone can reproduce this page's order without asking us.
date
2026-09-17
query_key
alternative-to:OpenAI
seed
094321813d1b40c9c42d71b26c68127b1cda68c34471eab944ee40e62f1ef7ef
tie_count
18

Category Trends

See the broader pricing landscape for this category.

↑ AI / ML Pricing Trends

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the best free alternatives to OpenAI?
We publish no ranking of these. Nothing we record measures popularity or generosity, so naming a best or a top few would be our preference rather than our data. We hold 29 free alternatives to OpenAI, each listed below with its tier, category and the date we last verified it. Of those, 18 carry no recorded demerit and are indistinguishable under every signal we hold, so they are listed in an order that rotates daily, 8 are demoted with the reason named, 3 are listed last behind a stated gate. Our ranking rule is published at /criteria.
Is OpenAI's free tier still available?
Yes, OpenAI currently offers a free tier (Free). 5 recorded changes narrowed the terms, the most recent on 2026-08-26.
How many free alternatives to OpenAI exist?
There are 29 free alternatives to OpenAI tracked on AgentDeals across the AI / ML category.
Has OpenAI changed their pricing?
OpenAI has 5 recorded pricing changes. The most recent was on 2026-08-26: Assistants API deprecated, full shutdown August 26, 2026. Developers must migrate to Responses API + Conversations API Source: https://community.openai.com/t/assistants-api-beta-deprecation-august-26-2026-sunset/1354666

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