OpenRouter is a single account that gives you access to models from many companies. Some of those models are free to call, which makes it a convenient second provider next to Gemini or Groq.
Create the key
- Sign in at openrouter.ai and open the Keys page.
- Create a new key and give it a name. If the form offers a credit limit, you can leave it empty for free models.
- Copy the key and store it somewhere private.
Which models are free
Free models have an ID that ends in :free. The suffix matters: the same model without it is billed.
Two that work well for questions about text and images are Google’s open Gemma 4 models:
google/gemma-4-31b-it:freegoogle/gemma-4-26b-a4b-it:free
Both accept images, so charts and diagrams work as well as plain text.
The free limits
OpenRouter counts free-model requests across your whole account:
| Credits you have ever bought | Requests per minute | Requests per day |
|---|---|---|
| Less than 10 | 20 | 50 |
| 10 or more | 20 | 1,000 |
Things to know:
- The 50 is shared. Using two free models does not give you 50 each.
- The day is a UTC day. The count resets at 00:00 UTC, not at your local midnight.
- A one-time purchase raises the limit. Buying 10 credits once (OpenRouter grants the higher limit from 9) moves the daily limit to 1,000, even if you only ever call free models afterwards.
- Failed attempts count too. A request that errors still uses one of the 50, so a model that keeps failing can empty the day quickly.
- A negative balance blocks free models. If paid usage ever takes your credits below zero, free models stop working until you top up.
- Free endpoints can be busy. At peak times a free model may answer slowly or refuse a request. That is capacity, not a problem with your key.
To see how many free requests you have left today, call https://openrouter.ai/api/v1/key with your key as a bearer token; the response includes the used and remaining counts.
Keep the key safe
Do not paste the key into screenshots, chats or public code. If you write scripts, read it from an environment variable such as OPENROUTER_API_KEY.
Using the key in LuciQA
LuciQA is a desktop app that answers questions about what is on your screen. Open Settings, pick OpenRouter, paste the key, choose one of the two Gemma models and save. Because both accept images, text and image questions use the model you picked.
With 50 requests a day, OpenRouter works best as a second opinion rather than your only provider. See the free AI APIs comparison for providers with larger free allowances.