ChatGPT Free now runs GPT-6 Luna, Claude Free runs Sonnet 5.5, and since 9 October 2026 free Gemini no longer lets you pick a model at all. It routes most prompts to Flash-Lite. Free AI models now come from almost every big lab, but rarely the lab's best one, and the version you get can change without notice.
This guide maps every free AI model you can use in October 2026, checked against each vendor's own pricing and help pages rather than a roundup. It covers the three routes to a free model: the free plans of chat apps, free developer APIs, and open-weight models you download and run on your own Mac. For each one you get the exact model, the real limit, and the catch, so you can decide what to use for free and what is worth paying for.
The Key Takeaways
- Chat apps: ChatGPT Free runs GPT-6 Luna with uncapped text chats, Claude Free runs Sonnet 5.5, and DeepSeek's free app runs V4.1-Flash-1017. ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini all keep their top models for paid plans.
- Gemini changed on 9 October: free accounts now get Auto model selection, which sends most prompts to Flash-Lite. Gemini 4 Argon is AI Pro and Ultra only.
- Free APIs are real: Google AI Studio serves Gemini 3.8 Flash and 2.5 Pro free, OpenRouter allows 50 free requests a day, and Groq gives 1,000 requests a day on gpt-oss-120b.
- Open weights cost hardware, not money: gpt-oss-20b runs in 16 GB of memory under Apache 2.0, and DeepSeek published its newest Flash model under the MIT License on 17 October.
- The catch: Google's free API tier uses your content to improve its products, and on free chat plans the vendor picks, and changes, the model you get.
What Counts as a Free AI Model in 2026
A free AI model is a model you can use without paying, and in 2026 there are exactly three ways to get one. The first is the free plan of a chat app such as ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini or DeepSeek, where the vendor picks the model for you. The second is a free API tier from a provider such as Google AI Studio, OpenRouter, Groq, NVIDIA or Cloudflare. There you call a model from your own code or an agent. The third is an open-weight model such as gpt-oss, Gemma 4 or DeepSeek V4.1 Flash, which you download and run on your own computer.
The three routes answer different needs. A chat plan suits someone who wants answers in a window. A free API suits a developer wiring a model into a script, an n8n flow or a coding agent. Open weights suit anyone who wants a model that keeps working offline and never sends a prompt to a server. Most guides blur the three together, which is why they disagree about what "free" means.
Each route also fails in its own way. Chat plans hide the model swap, free APIs hide the data trade, and open weights hide the hardware bill. The sections below take each route in turn, then the catch, then a verdict by job.
Free AI Models in Chat Apps: Which Model Each Free Plan Runs
Every major chat app has a free plan, and ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini all keep their flagship models for paid plans. The table lists the model each vendor names for its free plan in October 2026, taken from the vendor's own pricing or help page.
| Chat app | Free model (October 2026) | How the free limit works | Top model free users miss |
|---|---|---|---|
| ChatGPT | GPT-6 Luna, plus GPT-5 Thinking Mini | Text chats uncapped; uploads, images, voice and deep research limited | GPT-6 Sol, GPT-6.1 Sol, GPT-6 Astra |
| Claude | Sonnet 5.5 | Rolling 5-hour window, no fixed message count | Opus, Fable |
| Gemini | Auto: mostly Flash-Lite, sometimes Flash or Pro | Compute-based, refreshes every 5 hours up to a weekly cap; 32k context | Gemini 4 Argon |
| DeepSeek | DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash-1017 | No paid consumer plan listed | None sold to consumers |
| Microsoft Copilot | Not named by Microsoft | Paid plans give "higher usage than free" | Not named |
| Grok | Not named by xAI | "Limited Chat requests" | "Latest Grok models" are on Premium |
For how long you can actually keep chatting on each plan before the wall goes up, see the best free AI chatbots ranked by real message limits. This guide stays on the question of which model you get.
Which Model ChatGPT Free Runs
ChatGPT Free runs GPT-6 Luna, and OpenAI's pricing page marks GPT-6 Sol, GPT-6.1 Sol and GPT-6 Astra as unavailable on the free plan. Free accounts also keep GPT-5 Thinking Mini for harder questions. Text chats with GPT-6 are uncapped, "subject to abuse guardrails" in OpenAI's words, while uploads, image creation, voice, deep research and memory all stay limited. The free context window on the Instant model is 27K tokens, about the length of a long article. The full breakdown is in whether ChatGPT is really free.
Which Model Claude Free Runs
Claude Free runs Sonnet 5.5, the model Anthropic launched on 28 September 2026. Anthropic's own wording is that "anyone can chat with Claude using Sonnet 5.5 on Claude.ai". Opus and Fable are both marked "No" for Free on Anthropic's plan table. Usage resets on a rolling five-hour window with no fixed message count, and Pro gives "at least 5x more usage per 5-hour session than Free". Free still includes web search, Artifacts, memory, connectors and up to five Projects. The limits are covered in Claude's free plan explained.
Gemini Free: Auto Model Selection
Free Gemini runs on Auto model selection since 9 October 2026, and Google says most prompts now go to Flash-Lite. According to Google's help page on changes to Gemini model access, prompts "that need deeper reasoning may go to Flash or Pro". Switch smart model selection off, and every free response comes from Flash-Lite. Gemini 4 Argon, Google's newest model, is rolling out to Google AI Pro and Ultra subscribers only. Free accounts also get a 32k-token context window, against 128k on AI Plus and 1 million on AI Pro. More detail is in Gemini's free tier explained.
DeepSeek, Copilot and Grok
DeepSeek's free web chat and app run DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash-1017, which DeepSeek's changelog says replaced the previous version on 17 October 2026. DeepSeek lists no paid consumer plan, so free is the whole product, as our DeepSeek pricing explainer sets out. Microsoft Copilot and Grok are both free to use, but neither Microsoft nor xAI names the model a free account gets. xAI's pricing page lists "Limited Chat requests" on Free and reserves "Latest Grok models" for the $30 Premium plan.
Free AI Models Through an API: Where Developers Get Them
Five providers give developers free API access to capable models in October 2026: Google AI Studio, OpenRouter, Groq, NVIDIA and Cloudflare. Each one caps the free tier by requests, tokens or compute units rather than by money. The caps are low enough that free tiers suit prototypes and personal agents, not production apps.
| Provider | Free models | Free limit | Main catch |
|---|---|---|---|
| Google AI Studio (Gemini API) | Gemini 3.8 Flash, 3.6 Flash, 3.5 Flash-Lite, 2.5 Pro, 2.5 Flash, Gemma 4 | Per-model limits shown in AI Studio; daily quota resets at midnight Pacific | Free-tier content is used to improve Google's products |
| OpenRouter | Models with a :free suffix, or the openrouter/free router | 20 requests a minute; 50 a day, or 1,000 a day after buying 10 credits | A negative balance blocks free models too |
| Groq | gpt-oss-120b, gpt-oss-20b, Qwen3.8-27B and others | 30 requests a minute and 1,000 a day on gpt-oss-120b | 8K tokens a minute on that model |
| NVIDIA (build.nvidia.com) | Every model on the catalog | Up to 40 requests a minute for most models | Meant for prototyping |
| Cloudflare Workers AI | Most catalog models | 10,000 Neurons a day, reset at 00:00 UTC | Some Kimi and GLM models need a paid billing method |
Google AI Studio: Google's Own Models for Free
Google AI Studio is the free API tier to start with, because it serves Google's current Flash model, Gemini 3.8 Flash, and Gemini 2.5 Pro at no charge. Google's pricing page marks input and output as "Free of charge" for both, along with Gemini 3.6 Flash, 3.5 Flash-Lite and the open Gemma 4 family. Gemini 4 Argon, Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview and every Nano Banana image model are "Not available" on the free tier. No billing account is needed: a free project is enough. Our guide to how Google AI Studio's free tier works walks through getting a key.
OpenRouter Free Models
OpenRouter's free models are any model whose ID ends in :free, capped at 20 requests a minute and 50 requests a day. According to OpenRouter's rate-limit documentation, buying at least 10 credits once lifts the daily cap to 1,000 free requests. The openrouter/free router picks a free model for each request automatically, which helps when one free endpoint is busy. One trap: an account with a negative credit balance can get 402 errors "including for free models".
Groq, NVIDIA and Cloudflare
Groq, NVIDIA and Cloudflare each serve open-weight models for free, and they differ mainly in how they meter you. Groq's free plan allows gpt-oss-120b at 30 requests a minute, 1,000 requests a day and 8,000 tokens a minute. NVIDIA says every model on build.nvidia.com is "free to prototype with" at up to 40 requests a minute for most models. Cloudflare Workers AI gives everyone 10,000 Neurons a day, a compute unit whose cost varies by model. Some models, including Kimi K2.6 and GLM 5.3, require a paid billing method.
What Is No Longer Free: Hugging Face Inference
Hugging Face no longer includes free inference credits for free accounts, even though several free-model roundups still list it. Its pricing documentation shows "None" under monthly credits for free users, who can use Inference Providers only "by purchasing credits" or by upgrading to the paid PRO plan. The model weights on Hugging Face are still free to download, which leads to the third route.
Open-Weight Free AI Models You Can Run on a Mac
Open-weight models are free AI models in the fullest sense: you download the weights once, run them on your own machine, and pay nothing per prompt. The licence decides what you may do with them, and your Mac's memory decides which ones you can actually run.
| Model | Maker | Licence | Runs on a typical Mac? |
|---|---|---|---|
| gpt-oss-20b | OpenAI | Apache 2.0 | Yes, OpenAI says 16 GB of memory is enough |
| Gemma 4 (E2B, E4B, 12B, 26B A4B, 31B) | Google DeepMind | Apache 2.0 | The small sizes, yes |
| Qwen3.8-27B | Alibaba Qwen | Apache 2.0 | About 28 billion parameters, so a high-memory Mac |
| gpt-oss-120b | OpenAI | Apache 2.0 | Built for a single 80 GB GPU |
| GLM-5.3-Flash | Z.ai | MIT | No, about 321 billion parameters |
| DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash-1017 | DeepSeek | MIT | No, about 763 billion parameters |
| Kimi K3 | Moonshot AI | Custom Kimi K3 licence | No, about 2.8 trillion parameters |
Which Open Models Fit in Your Mac's Memory
Memory is the limit on a Mac, because the whole model has to fit in unified memory to run at a usable speed. OpenAI says gpt-oss-20b "can run on edge devices with just 16 GB of memory", which puts it within reach of a mainstream 16 GB MacBook. Google's model card targets Gemma 4's E2B and E4B sizes at phones and edge devices, and its 12B, 26B A4B and 31B sizes at consumer GPUs and workstations. The frontier open models, DeepSeek V4.1 Flash, GLM 5.3 and Kimi K3, are free to download but far too large for a laptop. Most people reach them through the free APIs instead. If you are choosing hardware for this, which MacBook runs local models well has the memory tiers.
How to Run an Open Model on a Mac
Ollama is the quickest route to an open model on a Mac. Install it, pull a model, and chat in the terminal or through a local API. Ollama can also run models in its own cloud, and says its free plan includes the gemma4:cloud model for computers too slow to run models locally. LM Studio, now branded LM Studio Bionic, downloads local models inside the app and runs them on Apple's MLX and llama.cpp. For a ranking of the open models themselves, see the best open-source AI models, and for coding specifically, the best free AI for coding.
The Catch With Free AI Models
Every free AI model costs you something other than money: your data, your choice of model, your rate limit, or your hardware. Knowing which one you are paying with is the difference between a good free setup and a frustrating one.
Your data: Google's pricing page answers "Yes" to "Used to improve our products" for free-tier Gemini API content, and "No" for most paid-tier models. Treat every free API as a place for test data, not client files.
Your choice of model: free chat plans pick the model for you. Gemini's Auto setting decides per prompt whether you get Flash-Lite, Flash or Pro, and ChatGPT Free has no access to GPT-6 Sol at all.
Your rate limit: 50 OpenRouter requests a day disappear in one evening of agent testing. Cloudflare's 10,000 Neurons buy far fewer tokens on a large model than on a small one.
Your hardware: an open model is free to download and expensive to run well. A 16 GB Mac handles gpt-oss-20b, not DeepSeek or Kimi K3.
The vendor's version can also change under you. DeepSeek swapped its free app to a new build on 17 October. Google changed free Gemini's model access on 9 October. Neither needed a new sign-up or a price change. Check the model name again before you rely on a free tier for anything that matters.
The Best Free AI Models, by Job
Use ChatGPT Free for everyday chat, Claude Free for writing, Google AI Studio for anything you build, and gpt-oss-20b on your Mac for anything private. No single free plan wins every job, so the table matches each job to its best free option.
| Your job | Best free option | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Everyday chat with no cap on text | ChatGPT Free (GPT-6 Luna) | Text chats are uncapped |
| Writing and editing | Claude Free (Sonnet 5.5) | The highest-scoring free chat model, with a five-hour usage window |
| Free model with no paid tier above it | DeepSeek (V4.1-Flash-1017) | DeepSeek lists no paid consumer plan |
| Free API for an app or agent | Google AI Studio | Gemini 3.8 Flash and 2.5 Pro at no charge |
| Trying many models through one key | OpenRouter :free models | One API, many free models, 50 requests a day |
| Offline and private on a Mac | gpt-oss-20b through Ollama | Apache 2.0, runs in 16 GB of memory |
When you outgrow the free tiers, the paid models are compared month by month in our ranking of the best AI models.
Use Several Free AI Models Without Juggling Accounts
The honest problem with free AI models is not any single limit, it is the number of accounts. Getting the best free answer means a ChatGPT login for one question and a Claude tab for the rewrite. Then a Gemini window for the image you dropped in, and a DeepSeek app for the day the others are busy. Each one keeps its own history, its own limit and its own idea of which model you deserve.
Fello AI removes that juggling. You ask once and switch between GPT, Claude, Gemini, DeepSeek, Grok, Perplexity, Kimi, GLM and Qwen in the same window. A weak answer from one model is a click away from a second opinion, not a new tab and a new sign-in. It runs natively on Mac, iPhone and iPad, and holds 4.7 stars across more than 27,000 reviews.
Fello AI is also a free option in its own right. According to the Fello AI FAQ, free users get up to 5 questions an hour on the premium models. After that the app switches to Free AI, Fello's own free compound model, until the hour resets. You keep working on the free model instead of waiting out the hour.
Conclusion
Free AI models in 2026 are capable, and they are unstable. Sonnet 5.5, DeepSeek V4.1 Flash and GPT-6 Luna all cost nothing to use. Google AI Studio hands developers Gemini 3.8 Flash and 2.5 Pro for nothing, and gpt-oss-20b runs on an ordinary MacBook. What no free route gives you is control: the vendor picks the model, the vendor changes it, and a free API may use your prompts to improve its products. Use ChatGPT or Claude for daily chat, Google AI Studio for anything you build, and an open model on your Mac for anything private. Pay only when one of those three stops being enough.
FAQ
What is the best free AI model right now?
Claude Sonnet 5.5, on Claude Free, is the strongest free chat model in October 2026. It scores 56.0 on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index v4.3.2, ahead of DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 at 45.1 and GPT-6 Luna at 38.1. Artificial Analysis measures them at maximum effort ("max with fallback" for Sonnet 5.5), which a free plan may not give you. ChatGPT Free is the one with uncapped text chats.
Which AI models are completely free to use?
DeepSeek's chat and app are completely free, and DeepSeek lists no paid consumer plan. Open-weight models such as gpt-oss, Gemma 4, Qwen3.8 and DeepSeek V4.1 Flash are free to download and run under Apache 2.0 or MIT licences. ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini are free to use with limits, and charge for their top models.
Do OpenRouter free models have limits?
Yes. OpenRouter caps free models at 20 requests a minute and 50 requests a day. Buying at least 10 credits once raises the daily cap to 1,000 free requests, and a negative account balance can block free models entirely.
Are open-source AI models free?
Open-weight models are free to download and use, but not free to run: you pay in hardware and electricity. Licences differ too. gpt-oss, Gemma 4 and Qwen3.8 use Apache 2.0, DeepSeek and GLM use MIT, and Kimi K3 has its own licence.
Do free AI models train on my data?
Some do. Google states that content sent through the free Gemini API tier is used to improve its products, while content on most paid-tier models is not. An open-weight model running locally on your Mac sends nothing to anyone, which makes it the only free route that is private by design.
