Pricing trends for AI / ML: 100 tracked pricing changes across 89 vendors. Direction: prices rising.

AI / ML Pricing Trends

Pricing direction: ↑ Prices rising

89
Vendors
19%
of All Tracked Changes
12
At-Risk Vendors
deprecated 49 reduced 20 restructured 11 removed 7 model change 5 restricted 4 increased 2 rebranded 2

Announced, not yet in effect

What this section prints is decided by the calendar, not by anything the vendor did. 33 records here carry a date after 2026-11-14. The vendor has announced them and they have not taken effect, so they are not part of the history below. On its own date a record here joins the Pricing Change Timeline, below.

Announced deprecated Google Gemini API effective 2028-05-14 low
The Gemini API keeps running. The embedding model gemini-embedding-001 can be called until May 14, 2028, when Google shuts it down. Google names gemini-embedding-2 as the replacement. Source ↗
Announced deprecated Google Cloud Video Intelligence API effective 2027-09-14 medium
Google Cloud Video Intelligence API shuts down on September 14, 2027. It has been deprecated and unsupported since September 14, 2026, and can be used until its shutdown. Google recommends migrating to its Gemini family of models. Source ↗
Announced deprecated Google Gemini API effective 2027-05-07 low
The Gemini API keeps running. Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite (gemini-3.1-flash-lite) can be called until May 7, 2027, when Google shuts it down. Google names gemini-3.5-flash-lite as the replacement. Source ↗
Announced deprecated Mistral AI effective 2027-04-30 medium
Mistral's API keeps running. Mistral Large 3 (mistral-large-2512), Mistral Medium 3.5 (mistral-medium-3-5), Voxtral TTS (voxtral-mini-tts-2603), Voxtral Mini Transcribe 2 (voxtral-mini-2602) and Voxtral Mini Transcribe Realtime (voxtral-mini-transcribe-realtime-2602) can be called until April 30, 2027, when Mistral retires them. Mistral's replacements: Mistral Large 4 for Mistral Large 3 and Mistral Medium 3.5, Voxtral TTS 3 for Voxtral TTS, Voxtral Mini Transcribe 3 for Voxtral Mini Transcribe 2, and Voxtral Mini Transcribe Realtime 3 for Voxtral Mini Transcribe Realtime. Source ↗
Announced deprecated OpenAI effective 2027-04-01 medium
The OpenAI API keeps running. The gpt-5.3-codex, gpt-5.1 and gpt-5.4-nano models can be called until April 1, 2027. OpenAI's replacements: gpt-6-sol for gpt-5.3-codex and gpt-5.1; gpt-6-luna for gpt-5.4-nano. Source ↗
Announced deprecated Google Gemini API effective 2027-04-01 medium
text-embedding-005, text-embedding-004, text-multilingual-embedding-002 and multimodalembedding@001 can be called on Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform (formerly Vertex AI) until April 1, 2027, when Google retires them. Google’s table names no replacement for them. Source ↗
Announced deprecated Google Gemini API effective 2027-03-31 low
The Gemini API keeps running. Live API preview model gemini-2.5-flash-native-audio-preview-12-2025 can be called until March 31, 2027, when Google shuts it down. Google names gemini-3.8-live as the replacement. The other Live API preview, gemini-3.1-flash-live-preview, has no shutdown date. Google had dated both in November and moved the dates. Source ↗
Announced deprecated Google Gemini API effective 2027-03-15 low
The Gemini API keeps running. Gemini 2.5 Flash Image (gemini-2.5-flash-image) can be called until March 15, 2027, when Google shuts it down. Google names gemini-3.1-flash-lite-image as the replacement. Source ↗
Announced deprecated OpenAI effective 2027-02-26 medium
The OpenAI API keeps running. The whisper-1, gpt-4o-transcribe, gpt-4o-mini-transcribe and gpt-4o-transcribe-diarize models can be called until February 26, 2027. OpenAI's substitute for each is gpt-live-transcribe or gpt-transcribe. The /v1/audio/translations endpoint also shuts down on February 26, 2027. OpenAI's replacement is /v1/realtime/translations. Source ↗
Announced deprecated OpenAI effective 2027-02-10 medium
The OpenAI API keeps running. The gpt-image-2 model and its gpt-image-2-2026-04-21 snapshot can be called until February 10, 2027, when OpenAI removes them from the API. OpenAI names gpt-image-2.6-sunburst or gpt-image-2.6-flare as the replacement. Source ↗
Announced deprecated OpenAI effective 2027-02-01 low
The OpenAI API keeps running. The gpt-5.5-cyber-preview model can be called until February 1, 2027, when OpenAI removes it from the API. OpenAI tells users to move to the most capable cyber model available to them. Source ↗
Announced deprecated Google Gemini API effective 2027-01-28 low
gemini-3.7-flash can be called on Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform (formerly Vertex AI) until January 28, 2027, when Google retires it. Google names gemini-3.8-flash as the replacement. On the Gemini API it is not shutting down and Google routes its requests to gemini-3.8-flash. Source ↗
Announced deprecated OpenAI effective 2027-01-20 low
The OpenAI API keeps running. The gpt-realtime, gpt-4o-realtime, gpt-realtime-mini, gpt-4o-mini-realtime, gpt-audio, gpt-4o-audio, gpt-audio-mini, gpt-4o-mini-audio and gpt-4o-mini-transcribe-2025-03-20 models can be called until January 20, 2027. OpenAI's substitutes: gpt-realtime-2.1 for gpt-realtime and gpt-4o-realtime; gpt-realtime-2.1-mini for gpt-realtime-mini and gpt-4o-mini-realtime; gpt-audio-1.5 for gpt-audio, gpt-4o-audio, gpt-audio-mini and gpt-4o-mini-audio; gpt-4o-mini-transcribe-2025-12-15 for gpt-4o-mini-transcribe-2025-03-20. Source ↗
Announced deprecated OpenAI effective 2027-01-14 medium
The OpenAI API keeps running. The gpt-4o (gpt-4o-2024-08-06 and gpt-4o-2024-11-20), gpt-4o-mini, gpt-4.1 and gpt-4.1-mini models, with their fine-tuned versions, can be called until January 14, 2027, when OpenAI shuts down their access. OpenAI names gpt-6-luna as the replacement for all four. Source ↗
Announced deprecated OpenAI effective 2027-01-06 low
The OpenAI API keeps running. The tts-1, tts-1-hd, gpt-4o-mini-tts-2025-03-20 and gpt-4o-mini-tts-2025-12-15 models can be called until January 6, 2027. OpenAI's replacement for each: gpt-realtime-2.1-mini. Source ↗
Announced deprecated OpenAI effective 2027-01-06 medium
The OpenAI API keeps running. From January 6, 2027, no organization can create new fine-tuning jobs on OpenAI's self-serve fine-tuning platform. Since May 7, 2026, organizations that never ran fine-tuning cannot create jobs. Since July 2, 2026, organizations that have not run inference on a fine-tuned model in the past 60 days cannot either. Fine-tuned models keep serving inference until their base model is deprecated. Source ↗
Announced restructured Google Gemini API effective 2027-01-01 medium
Gemini 3.8 Flash and Gemini 3.6 Flash on the Gemini API have introductory pricing through December 31, 2026 on Google AI Studio and Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform. Standard input is $0.75 per million tokens through December 31, 2026, then $1.50 from January 1, 2027. Output is $3.75 then $7.50. Batch and Flex input is $0.375 then $0.75, output $1.875 then $3.75. Priority input is $1.35 then $2.70, output $6.75 then $13.50. The Free tier stays free of charge. Source ↗
Announced deprecated Inception effective 2026-12-28 high
Inception is winding down the Mercury API, which serves Inception's Mercury diffusion language models. The API and the Inception Platform dashboard keep working as they do today through December 28, 2026. After that date the API stops serving requests, and users lose access to the dashboard and to any data submitted to it, such as request logs, billing history and invoices, so those must be saved before then. OpenRouter no longer lists any Mercury model. Source ↗
Announced deprecated Google Gemini API effective 2026-12-18 low
The Gemini API keeps running. The text-to-speech preview models gemini-2.5-flash-preview-tts, gemini-2.5-pro-preview-tts and gemini-3.1-flash-tts-preview can be called until December 18, 2026, when Google shuts them down. Google names gemini-3.8-flash-tts or gemini-3.8-flash-lite-tts as the replacement. Google moved this shutdown from an earlier date in November. Source ↗
Announced deprecated Google Gemini API effective 2026-12-13 low
gemini-live-2.5-flash-native-audio can be called on Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform (formerly Vertex AI) until December 13, 2026, when Google retires it. Google names gemini-3.8-live as the replacement. Source ↗
Announced deprecated OpenAI effective 2026-12-11 medium
The OpenAI API keeps running. gpt-5-2025-08-07 is available until December 11, 2026, replaced by gpt-5.6-sol. gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07 is available until December 11, 2026, replaced by gpt-5.6-terra. gpt-5-nano-2025-08-07 is available until December 11, 2026, replaced by gpt-5.6-luna. gpt-5-pro-2025-10-06 is available until December 11, 2026, replaced by gpt-5.6-sol with reasoning.mode: pro. o3-2025-04-16 is available until December 11, 2026, replaced by gpt-5.6-sol. o3-pro-2025-06-10 is available until December 11, 2026, replaced by gpt-5.6-sol with reasoning.mode: pro. Source ↗
Announced deprecated OpenAI custom GPTs effective 2026-12-11 high
On December 11, 2026, OpenAI retires custom GPTs on every ChatGPT plan, and custom GPTs and their GPT pages become inaccessible. FedRAMP workspaces and Enterprise workspaces with an approved deferral keep them until February 11, 2027. Existing GPTs keep working until the retirement date. A creator can migrate a GPT to a ChatGPT plugin, which carries its instructions, knowledge files and connected apps but not its custom actions; replacing a custom action may need a custom MCP server. Conversations with custom GPTs stay accessible after retirement. Source ↗
Announced deprecated Google Gemini API effective 2026-12-03 low
Google shuts down Gemini Omni 1.1 Flash (gemini-omni-1.1-flash) on the Gemini API on December 3, 2026. It can be used until that date. After the shutdown, requests that still name gemini-omni-1.1-flash are answered by a different model, gemini-omni-1.2-flash, billed at Gemini Omni 1.2 Flash rates. Google released Gemini Omni 1.2 Flash on 2026-11-05. The Gemini API keeps running. Source ↗
Announced deprecated OpenAI effective 2026-12-01 low
The OpenAI API keeps running. The gpt-image-1-mini, gpt-image-1.5 and chatgpt-image-latest models can be called until December 1, 2026. OpenAI's substitutes are gpt-image-2.6-sunburst or gpt-image-2.6-flare. Source ↗
Announced deprecated Google Gemini API effective 2026-12-01 medium
Google shuts down Gemini 2.5 Pro (gemini-2.5-pro) and Gemini 2.5 Flash (gemini-2.5-flash) on the Gemini API on December 1, 2026. Both can be used until that date. After the shutdown, requests that still name gemini-2.5-pro are answered by a different model, gemini-3.8-flash, billed at Gemini 3.8 Flash rates, and requests that still name gemini-2.5-flash are answered by gemini-3.5-flash-lite, billed at Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite rates. Google deprecated both on 2026-11-02 and lists breaking API changes in a migration guide for each replacement. Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite (gemini-2.5-flash-lite) is not deprecated. The Gemini API keeps running. Source ↗
Announced model change Cloudflare AI Search effective 2026-12-01 medium
Cloudflare AI Search usage is not charged until December 1, 2026, when usage-based billing begins. Every account receives 5 million ingestion tokens, 10 GB-month of storage, 1,000 semantic queries and 1,000 full-text queries each month. Usage beyond these amounts is billed at $0.75 per million ingestion tokens, $2.00 per GB-month of storage, $0.75 per 1,000 semantic queries and $0.10 per 1,000 full-text queries. Cloudflare first set the start for November 1, 2026 and moved it on November 2, 2026. Source ↗
Announced restructured Google Gemini API effective 2026-12-01 medium
Gemini 4 Argon on the Gemini API has introductory pricing through November 30, 2026. Standard input is $2.00 per million tokens through November 30, 2026, then $4.00 from December 1, 2026. Output is $10.00 then $20.00. Batch and Flex input is $1.00 then $2.00, output $5.00 then $10.00. Priority input is $3.60 then $7.20, output $18.00 then $36.00. It is not available on the Free tier. Source ↗
Announced restructured Google Gemini API effective 2026-12-01 medium
Gemini 4 Carbon (gemini-4-carbon), generally available on the Gemini API since November 10, 2026, has introductory pricing through November 30, 2026. Standard input is $2.00 per million tokens through November 30, 2026, then $4.00 from December 1, 2026. Output is $10.00 then $20.00. Batch and Flex input is $1.00 then $2.00, output $5.00 then $10.00. Priority input is $3.60 then $7.20, output $18.00 then $36.00. It is not available on the Free tier. Source ↗
Announced deprecated OpenAI effective 2026-11-30 low
The OpenAI API keeps running. Agent Builder, the Evals platform and the v1/prompts API can be used until November 30, 2026. Existing evals become read-only on October 31, 2026. ChatKit remains available. Migrate from Agent Builder to the Agents SDK or ChatGPT Workspace Agents. Migrate from Evals to Promptfoo. Move reusable prompt content into application code. Source ↗
Announced deprecated Anthropic API effective 2026-11-30 medium
Claude Sonnet 4.5 (claude-sonnet-4-5-20250929) retires from the Claude API on 2026-11-30, and requests to it fail after that date. Anthropic deprecated it on 2026-09-30 and names claude-sonnet-5-5 as the replacement. The Claude API and Anthropic's other models keep running. Amazon Bedrock and Google Cloud set their own retirement dates. Source ↗
Announced deprecated Cloudflare Workers AI effective 2026-11-20 medium
Workers AI keeps running. Cloudflare removes 24 Workers AI models on November 20, 2026: they can be called until then, and from that date requests to them fail with HTTP 410 Gone (error code 5028). Language models: @cf/moonshotai/kimi-k2.6, @cf/moonshotai/kimi-k2.7-code, @cf/zai-org/glm-5.2, @cf/zai-org/glm-5.3-flash, @cf/deepseek-ai/deepseek-v4-flash-0731, @cf/deepseek-ai/deepseek-v4-pro-0813, @cf/deepseek-ai/deepseek-r1-distill-qwen-32b, @cf/nvidia/nemotron-3-120b-a12b, @cf/qwen/qwq-32b, @cf/qwen/qwen3-30b-a3b-fp8, @cf/meta/llama-3.1-8b-instruct-fp8, @cf/meta/llama-3.2-1b-instruct, @cf/meta/llama-3.2-3b-instruct, @cf/meta-llama/llama-2-7b-chat-hf-lora, @cf/google/gemma-2b-it-lora and @cf/google/gemma-7b-it-lora; Cloudflare recommends @cf/deepseek-ai/deepseek-v4.1-flash-1017 or @cf/zai-org/glm-5.3 for frontier model needs and @cf/google/gemma-4-26b-a4b-it or @cf/qwen/qwen3.8-27b for smaller ones. Other models, each with Cloudflare's replacement: @cf/myshell-ai/melotts (@cf/deepgram/aura-2-en); @cf/stabilityai/stable-diffusion-xl-base-1.0, @cf/runwayml/stable-diffusion-v1-5-inpainting, @cf/bytedance/stable-diffusion-xl-lightning and @cf/lykon/dreamshaper-8-lcm (@cf/black-forest-labs/flux-2-klein-9b); @cf/openai/whisper-tiny-en (@cf/deepgram/nova-3); @cf/llava-hf/llava-1.5-7b-hf (@cf/moondream/moondream3.1-9B-A2B); @cf/google/embeddinggemma-300m (@cf/google/embeddinggemma-2, not yet available). Source ↗
Announced deprecated Google Gemini API effective 2026-11-19 low
The Gemini API keeps serving gemini-3.6-flash with no shutdown date. On Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform (formerly Vertex AI), gemini-3.6-flash can be called until November 19, 2026, when Google retires it. Google names gemini-3.8-flash as the replacement. Source ↗
Announced deprecated MiniMax effective 2026-11-18 low
MiniMax's API keeps running. MiniMax is retiring the M2.5 and M2.7 model families. These models are no longer available to new users from 2026-10-19 and are retired on 2026-11-18. Source ↗

Pricing Change Timeline

Every record we hold is listed here, newest first. A record is never removed from this list, so a vendor named here stays named here whatever its verdict does afterwards.

removed Mistral AI effective between 2026-11-01 and 2026-11-05 high
Mistral's Free plan no longer includes API access. Free mode covers Vibe and Studio; creating API keys and calling the API require billing activation and pay-as-you-go with prepaid credits. Source ↗
deprecated xAI effective 2026-11-02 low
xAI's API keeps running. xAI retired the grok-imagine-image-quality image model on 2026-11-02. Requests to grok-imagine-image-quality and grok-imagine-image-pro are now served by grok-imagine-image-2.0 at low quality, at a lower per-image price, and need no changes. Source ↗
reduced OCR.Space effective between 2026-10-03 and 2026-10-30 medium
By October 30, 2026, OCR.Space's free OCR API plan includes 1,000 Engine 3 conversions a month, down from 2,500 on October 3. Engine 1 is retired, and OCR.Space redirects calls to it to Engine 2. The 25,000 monthly requests for Engines 1 and 2 are unchanged. Source ↗
deprecated NVIDIA NIM effective 2026-10-27 low
NVIDIA's free API endpoints keep running, and GLM 5.3 Flash (z-ai/glm-5.3-flash) is not affected. GLM 5.3 (z-ai/glm-5.3) can be called on NVIDIA's free endpoints until October 27, 2026; NVIDIA's model page says it will be deprecated on 10/27/2026 and no longer supported after 10/28/2026. Source ↗
removed Ollama Cloud effective between 2026-10-26 and 2026-10-27 high
Between October 26 and 27, 2026, Ollama replaced its Free plan and starter usage credits with a $0 Pay as you go plan that charges per token for every cloud model. Source ↗
restructured Mem0 effective 2026-10-26 medium
On October 26, 2026, Mem0 stopped selling its Starter ($19/month), Growth and Pro plans to new accounts and moved to two plans, Free and Custom. On Free, Mem0 pays for model calls only for the first 30 days (10,000 adds and 1,000 retrievals a month); after that, adding memories needs your own LLM key, with which Free allows 50,000 adds and 10,000 retrievals a month. Mem0 Free accounts that signed up before October 26, 2026 have their model calls paid by Mem0 until November 25, 2026. Source ↗
deprecated OpenAI effective 2026-10-23 medium
The OpenAI API keeps running. The gpt-3.5-turbo, gpt-4, gpt-4-turbo, gpt-4-1106-preview, gpt-4.1-nano, gpt-4o-2024-05-13, gpt-image-1, o1, o1-pro, o3-mini and o4-mini models, with their fine-tuned versions, can be called until October 23, 2026, when OpenAI shuts down their access. OpenAI names a substitute for each model: gpt-3.5-turbo to gpt-5.6-terra; gpt-4, gpt-4-turbo, gpt-4-1106-preview and gpt-4o-2024-05-13 to gpt-5.6-sol; gpt-4.1-nano to gpt-5.6-luna; gpt-image-1 to gpt-image-2.5-sunburst or gpt-image-2.5-flare; o1 to gpt-5.6-sol; o1-pro to gpt-5.6-sol with reasoning.mode: pro; o3-mini to gpt-5.6-sol; o4-mini to gpt-5.6-terra. Source ↗
deprecated Google Gemini API effective 2026-10-23 low
The Gemini API keeps running. The Deep Research agent preview deep-research-pro-preview-12-2025 can be called until October 23, 2026, when Google shuts it down. Google names deep-research-preview-04-2026 as the replacement. Source ↗
deprecated Google Gemini API effective 2026-10-22 low
The Gemini API keeps running. Gemini Omni Flash Preview (gemini-omni-flash-preview) and the Veo 3.1 preview models (veo-3.1-generate-preview, veo-3.1-fast-generate-preview and veo-3.1-lite-generate-preview) can be called until October 22, 2026, when Google shuts them down. Google names gemini-omni-1.1-flash as the replacement for all four. Source ↗
deprecated Together AI effective 2026-10-22 low
The Together AI API keeps running. meta-llama/Llama-3.3-70B-Instruct-Turbo and deepseek-ai/DeepSeek-V4-Flash-0731 can be called on serverless inference until October 22, 2026, when Together removes them. Together recommends meta-models/Muse-Glimmer-30B or a dedicated endpoint in place of Llama 3.3 70B, and deepseek-ai/DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash in place of DeepSeek-V4-Flash-0731. Source ↗
deprecated Google Gemini API effective 2026-10-20 medium
On Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform (formerly Vertex AI), Google retired gemini-2.5-pro, gemini-2.5-flash and gemini-2.5-flash-lite on October 20, 2026. Google names gemini-3.8-flash as a replacement for all three. On the Gemini API, Google shuts down gemini-2.5-pro and gemini-2.5-flash on December 1, 2026. gemini-2.5-flash-lite has no shutdown date on the Gemini API. Source ↗
deprecated NVIDIA NIM effective 2026-10-19 low
NVIDIA's free API endpoints keep running. NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super (nvidia/nemotron-3-super-120b-a12b) can be called on NVIDIA's free endpoints until October 19, 2026; NVIDIA's model page says it will no longer be supported after 10/19/2026. Source ↗
increased Stability AI effective 2026-10-19 low
By October 19, 2026, Stability AI had cut Stable Audio 3.0 from 26 to 8 credits a generation and Stable Audio 2.5 from 20 to 8, so the 25 free credits a new account gets now cover three Stable Audio generations. Stable Audio 3.0 had cost more than the whole grant. Stability's pricing page gave 26 and 20 credits on October 5, 2026, and its new docs pricing page gives 8 for both on October 19. Source ↗
deprecated NVIDIA NIM effective 2026-10-15 low
NVIDIA's free API endpoints keep running. NVIDIA retired Kimi K3 (moonshotai/kimi-k3) from its free endpoints on build.nvidia.com on October 15, 2026; its model page says it is no longer supported after 10/15/2026. Source ↗
reduced LLM7.io discovered 2026-10-07 · effective date unknown high
The free tier limits have been significantly reduced. The free tier now allows 60 requests per minute and 100,000 tokens per 24 hours, whereas previously it allowed 10 requests per minute and 500,000 tokens per 24 hours without a token. The free tier with a token now allows 60 requests per minute and 100,000 tokens per 24 hours, whereas previously it allowed 40 requests per minute and 1,000,000 tokens per 24 hours. Source ↗
restructured Mistral AI discovered 2026-10-07 · effective date unknown medium
Mistral's pricing page stopped listing an API credit on the Free plan. It had listed $10 a month. Mistral's docs still say each plan includes monthly usage but give no amount. Source ↗
restructured Together AI effective 2026-10-07 low
Together AI raised the minimum first credit purchase from $5 to $15; later purchases can still be $5. Its billing docs said $5 in the Internet Archive's capture of 2026-09-29 and have said $15 since the page was modified on 2026-10-07. Source ↗
reduced Hugging Face effective 2026-10-07 medium
Hugging Face stopped giving free accounts included monthly Inference Providers credits; free users now have to buy credits or upgrade to PRO to call Inference Providers. Source ↗
reduced Groq effective 2026-10-06 low
Groq cut the free limits of gpt-oss-safeguard-20b from 30 to 3 requests a minute and from 8,000 to 2,000 tokens a minute; 1,000 requests and 200,000 tokens a day are unchanged. The Internet Archive's capture of console.groq.com/docs/rate-limits on 2026-09-28 lists 30 RPM and 8K TPM, and its capture of 2026-10-06 lists 3 RPM and 2K TPM. Groq announced no change. The other free chat models keep 30 requests and 8,000 tokens a minute. Source ↗
restructured Maxim AI discovered 2026-10-04 · effective date unknown low
The free tier is now the 'OSS' tier and is described as being for developers, small teams, and self-managed deployments. While still free, the description is more specific. A 14-day free trial of 'Bifrost Enterprise' is also offered. Source ↗
reduced Exa effective 2026-10-01 medium
Between 2026-09-16 and 2026-10-01, Exa replaced the $20 sign-up credit with a one-time $10 bonus for completing onboarding, which only a user's first team earns. The $10 monthly credit, available in full on the day of sign-up, continues. Source ↗
reduced Modal effective 2026-10-01 medium
Since October 1, 2026, Modal charges for network egress: the Starter plan includes 1 TiB a month, Team 10 TiB and Enterprise 100 TiB, and egress beyond that costs $0.04 per GiB. Source ↗
deprecated OpenAI effective 2026-09-28 low
gpt-3.5-turbo-instruct, babbage-002, davinci-002 and gpt-3.5-turbo-1106 shut down in the OpenAI API on September 28, 2026. OpenAI names gpt-5.6-terra as the replacement. Source ↗
deprecated OpenAI effective 2026-09-24 medium
Sora 2 video generation in the OpenAI API shut down on September 24, 2026: OpenAI removed the Videos API and the sora-2 and sora-2-pro models, and names no replacement. Source ↗
deprecated Groq effective 2026-09-21 medium
Groq keeps running. Groq decommissioned its Compound and Compound Mini systems, model IDs groq/compound and groq/compound-mini, on September 21, 2026, after announcing it on August 24; requests to those IDs return errors. Groq named no replacement. Source ↗
restricted Google Gemini API effective 2026-09-18 medium
Since 2026-09-18 Google serves the Gemini 2.5 models only to users who have used them before, and points new projects to 3.5 Flash-Lite or 3.8 Flash. Source ↗
reduced Othor AI discovered 2026-09-15 · effective date unknown high
The free plan now includes 2 data sources and 20 requests/day, down from 5 data sources and unlimited analytics. Unconfirmed. We could not check this change against an archived copy of Othor AI's page, so it does not count toward the rating. Source ↗
deprecated Groq effective 2026-09-14 medium
Groq replaced Qwen3.6 27B (qwen/qwen3.6-27b) with its successor, Qwen3.8 27B (qwen/qwen3.8-27b), on its free and developer plans on September 14, 2026, and shut qwen/qwen3.6-27b down that day; code that calls it needs the new model ID. Source ↗
restructured DeepSeek API effective 2026-09-10 medium
On 2026-09-10, DeepSeek released deepseek-flash (V4.1-Flash) and retired deepseek-v4-flash and deepseek-v4-flash-vision-exp. These retired names still route to V4.1-Flash at Flash prices. Flash prices fell from 04:00 UTC; V4 Pro prices did not change. Source ↗
model change Vast.ai discovered 2026-09-02 · effective date unknown medium
The startup program now offers a credit *match* up to a set amount, dollar-for-dollar on verified compute spend, rather than a flat $2,500 in free credits. The program is for companies actively using the platform, not for evaluation. Unconfirmed. We could not check this change against an archived copy of Vast.ai's page, so it does not count toward the rating. Source ↗
model change Anthropic API discovered 2026-09-02 · effective date unknown high
Anthropic API's own page now redirects to platform.claude.com, and the lineup behind it advanced. Claude Fable 5.1 is $10/$50 per MTok, Opus 5 is $5/$25, Sonnet 5 is $2/$10 and Haiku 4.5 is $1/$5. Anthropic also states that Sonnet 5's $2/$10 introductory pricing is now the standard price and the rise to $3/$15 scheduled for September 1, 2026 will not occur. Source ↗
model change LangSmith discovered 2026-09-01 · effective date unknown high
The free tier now includes pay-as-you-go pricing for traces beyond 5k/month, and introduces LCUs and LSUs for additional costs related to compute and storage. Unconfirmed. We could not check this change against an archived copy of LangSmith's page, so it does not count toward the rating. Source ↗
reduced Zenable discovered 2026-09-01 · effective date unknown medium
The free tier now includes 15 PR Reviews/Week and 100 Agentic Code Review Credits/Day, down from 25 PR reviews and 100 tool calls. Unconfirmed. We could not check this change against an archived copy of Zenable's page, so it does not count toward the rating. Source ↗
model change Ollama Cloud effective between 2026-08-27 and 2026-09-01 high
Ollama's Free plan now includes starter usage credits and starter models only; buying usage credits unlocks the other cloud models. Before, Free included cloud models with a usage limit. Source ↗
reduced Modal effective 2026-09-01 medium
Since September 1, 2026, the Starter plan's $30 of monthly compute no longer covers Modal's Shared Endpoints: their tokens are billed from the first request, even before the $30 is used. Source ↗
deprecated OpenAI effective 2026-08-26 high
Assistants API deprecated, full shutdown August 26, 2026. Developers must migrate to Responses API + Conversations API Source ↗
deprecated MiniMax effective 2026-08-20 high
MiniMax closed its paid Music Generation and Lyrics Generation APIs to new users on 2026-08-20, and says its free music models (Music-3.0-free, Music-2.6-free, music-cover-free) will be discontinued, with no date given. M2.7 and Hailuo prices are unchanged. Source ↗
restructured DeepSeek API effective 2026-08-16 high
At 16:00 UTC on 2026-08-16, DeepSeek introduced peak and off-peak pricing, with off-peak at half the peak rate. V4 Flash and V4 Pro output prices rose, with Flash from $0.28 to $1.32 at peak and Pro from $0.87 to $3.96 at peak. Source ↗
reduced Groq effective 2026-08-16 medium
Groq shut down Llama 3.1 8B and Llama 3.3 70B on its free and developer plans. On the free plan Llama 3.1 8B had allowed 14,400 requests and 500,000 tokens a day; the free chat models left (gpt-oss-120b, gpt-oss-20b and a Qwen 27B model) allow 1,000 requests and 200,000 tokens a day each. Source ↗
increased Composio effective 2026-08-15 medium
Composio's new pricing, for signups on or after 2026-08-15, raised the free plan from 20,000 tool calls a month (triggers counted inside them) to 100,000 tool calls and a separate 50,000 triggers a month, with 3 team members. Accounts from before 2026-08-15 keep the old plan through 2026-12-31. Source ↗
restructured Mistral AI effective 2026-08-14 high
Mistral's free API moved to a $10 monthly allowance shared across Studio, the API and Vibe Code; when it is used up, usage can stop unless pay-as-you-go is on. Before, the docs described a free API tier with restrictive rate limits, and the Free plan listed no API credit. Source ↗
restricted Mistral AI effective 2026-08-05 medium
Since 2026-08-05 Mistral's consumer terms exclude Mistral AI Studio and its API, which Mistral limits to business customers; API use falls under its Commercial Terms. Source ↗
reduced Roboflow effective 2026-07-30 high
Roboflow's free Public plan went from "$60/mo free credits" to "15 credits / month" between the Internet Archive's 2026-06-23 and 2026-07-30 captures of its pricing page. Roboflow states no dollar value for a credit; its Core plan sells 50 credits for $99 a month. Source ↗
reduced Cloudflare Workers AI effective 2026-07-28 high
On 2026-07-28 Cloudflare took Kimi K2.6, Kimi K2.7 Code and GLM-5.2 off the Workers Free plan; they now need the Workers Paid plan (or, from 2026-08-07, prepaid AI Gateway credits). Source ↗
reduced Exa effective 2026-07-24 high
Between 2026-07-17 and 2026-07-24, Exa replaced its free tier of up to 20,000 requests a month with $10 of credits a month, plus $20 of credits on sign-up. Source ↗
reduced Groq effective 2026-07-17 medium
Groq shut down Llama 4 Scout and Qwen3 32B on its free and developer plans. Their model IDs were meta-llama/llama-4-scout-17b-16e-instruct and qwen/qwen3-32b, and Groq announced the shutdown on June 17. On the free plan Llama 4 Scout had allowed 30,000 tokens a minute and Qwen3 32B 60 requests a minute, each with 500,000 tokens a day. Groq named gpt-oss-120b as the replacement for Qwen3 32B, and gpt-oss-120b or Qwen3.6 27B for Llama 4 Scout. Source ↗
removed Cerebras effective 2026-07-16 high
Cerebras's free access became a time- and credit-bounded trial for new accounts: $5 in credits after adding a verified payment method, expiring 30 days after they are granted. Cerebras says there is no permanently free tier; continued use needs a Pay as You Go purchase. Source ↗
reduced Pollinations.AI effective 2026-07-10 high
Pollinations ended the free Pollen that refilled every hour on every account (0.01 to 0.4 Pollen an hour, by tier). Free Pollen now comes only from Quests, whose rewards are paid once and land as Quest Pollen; further use needs purchased Pollen. The change did not touch the keyless image and text endpoints, which Pollinations documents as the free Classic API. Source ↗
deprecated Google Gemini API effective 2026-06-01 high
Gemini 2.0 Flash and 2.0 Flash-Lite were shut down on 2026-06-01, as Google announced on 2026-02-18. Google names gemini-3.6-flash as the replacement for 2.0 Flash and gemini-3.1-flash-lite for 2.0 Flash-Lite. Source ↗
reduced Cerebras effective 2026-05-23 medium
Between 2026-05-15 and 2026-05-23, Cerebras renamed its Free tier Free Trial and cut it from 30 to 5 requests a minute and from 60K-64K to 30K tokens a minute on gpt-oss-120b, Llama 3.1 8B and Qwen 3 235B. The 1M tokens a day did not change. Source ↗
deprecated OpenAI effective 2026-05-12 high
dall-e-2 and dall-e-3 were removed from the OpenAI API on 2026-05-12. OpenAI names gpt-image-2, gpt-image-1 or gpt-image-1-mini as substitutes, and gpt-image-1 itself shuts down on 2026-10-23. Source ↗
deprecated OpenAI effective 2026-05-12 high
The Realtime API beta was removed on 2026-05-12; OpenAI's generally available Realtime API replaces it. Source ↗
rebranded Google Vector Search 2.0 effective 2026-04-22 low
On April 22, 2026, Vertex AI Vector Search 2.0 was renamed Agent Retrieval. This was part of the Vertex AI to Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform naming changes. The documentation page is now titled "Agent Retrieval (formerly Vector Search 2.0)". Source ↗
restructured DeepSeek effective 2026-04-17 medium
DeepSeek V3.2 replaces V4 branding. Pricing dropped: chat model $0.30→$0.28/M input, $0.50→$0.42/M output. Reasoner model pricing unified with chat at $0.28/$0.42 (was $0.55/$2.19). Free token welcome package appears removed. Source ↗
removed Alibaba Cloud Qwen Code effective 2026-04-15 high
Qwen Code's free Qwen OAuth tier was discontinued on 2026-04-15, and new requests on it are rejected. Qwen's docs point users to Alibaba Cloud Coding Plan, OpenRouter, Fireworks AI or another provider. Source ↗
reduced Comet ML effective 2026-04-14 medium
Between 2026-03-23 and 2026-04-14, Comet cut the team members allowed on Opik Free Cloud from unlimited to 10. Source ↗
rebranded Keywords AI discovered 2026-04-13 · effective date unknown low
Rebranded to Respan, free tier preserved We hold no source for this record, so it does not set Keywords AI's rating.
restricted Google Gemini API effective 2026-04-01 medium
Google began enforcing billing-account-level spend caps on April 1, 2026. When a tier's spend cap is reached, API requests pause until the next billing month. Affects pay-as-you-go developers who may see unexpected request pausing. Source ↗
reduced xAI (Grok) effective 2026-03-19 medium
Between 2026-03-18 and 2026-03-19, xAI put Grok Imagine image and video generation behind a paywall for free Grok users. SuperGrok ($30/month) included it, and from 2026-03-25 SuperGrok Lite ($10/month) included basic images and videos. Source ↗
restricted Google Gemini API effective 2026-03-02 medium
Accounts opened after 2026-03-02 cannot spend the $300 Google Cloud welcome credit on the Gemini API or AI Studio. Source ↗
reduced Brave Search API effective 2026-02-12 medium
Brave replaced its free plan's 2,000 queries a month with $5 of free credit a month on each plan. Search costs $5 per 1,000 requests, so the credit covers 1,000 Search requests. The credit requires attributing the Brave Search API on the project's website. Source ↗
reduced Google Gemini effective 2025-12-06 high
Google cut the Gemini API free tier's rate limits on 2025-12-06. Gemini 2.5 Flash went from 10 requests a minute and 250 a day to 5 and 20, and Gemini 2.5 Pro went to no free requests. Google's rate-limits page stopped listing free-tier limits the same day. Source ↗
deprecated Neptune.ai effective 2025-12-03 high
Neptune shut down its hosted app and API on March 5, 2026, after agreeing to be acquired by OpenAI; new sign-ups and trials had closed on December 3, 2025. Source ↗
removed Together AI effective 2025-08-31 low
Together AI stopped giving new accounts $1 of free credit and began requiring a $5 credit purchase. Its notice is titled "August 2025 Changes to Free Tier and Billing"; the docs sentence offering the credit went between 2025-08-18 and 2025-08-31 (Internet Archive captures). Source ↗
deprecated Kluster AI effective 2025-07-24 low
kluster.ai shut down its inference, fine-tuning and dedicated deployment services on 2025-07-24, announced on 2025-07-17, which ended its free trial and $5 signup credits. Source ↗
removed xAI effective 2024-12-31 low
xAI's $25 a month of free API credits was a public beta offer that ran until the end of 2024. Since then xAI has not offered API credits to every account; API usage is billed per token. Source ↗
removed OpenAI effective 2024-03-20 high
Between 2024-03-13 and 2024-03-20, OpenAI stopped giving new API accounts the $5 free trial credit, which could be used during an account's first 3 months. New accounts now have to buy prepaid credits, $5 minimum, to use any paid model. Source ↗

We hold 40 more records filed under this category that are not counted above: entries the vendor has since reversed, our own index housekeeping, and corrections to earlier entries of our own. Read the full change log.

At-Risk Vendors

All 12 of the 89 vendors we list in this category that carry one. A vendor is named here for as long as a demotion is in force against it: a one-off pricing event, recorded against a source we cite, whose date falls in the last 180 days — or a standing condition, also cited, such as a product retired or a free tier withdrawn and not restored, which does not expire with time. A demotion can lift with nothing about the vendor having changed, and that happens on the day the vendor's newest qualifying event passes 180 days.

Stable Picks

All 38 of the 89 vendors we list in this category that qualify, not a selection of them. A vendor is named here for as long as no demotion is in force against it and we hold no change record for it dated in the last 90 days — any record, including ones the timeline above does not count. A vendor can join this section on a day we recorded nothing about it, when the later of those two clocks runs out: 90 days after its newest record, or the day the demotion against it lapses. It leaves on the day we file a new record, or the day we can no longer vouch for the terms we list.

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