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Free Tier Checker - What You Can Actually Get for $0/Month

🚀 Open the calculator

Meet Daniela Costa. Recent grad, freelancing on a tight budget. "I want to use AI but can't afford $20/mo right now. What's actually free?"

🔥 Free tiers feel like bait-and-switch. Want clear limits before relying on them.

The story

Free tiers in 2025-26 are remarkably generous. ChatGPT free: GPT-5.5 with daily limits, image generation, web browsing. Claude free: Sonnet 4.6 with daily message cap. Gemini free: Gemini 3 Flash unlimited + Pro with daily cap. Combined, three free accounts cover ~80% of typical personal AI use without paying.

Daniela's mix: writing client emails, research for freelance work, occasional brainstorming. With 3 free accounts (ChatGPT + Claude + Gemini) she can rotate when one hits its limit. Total cost: $0. Total productive hours: 5-10/week. Trade-off: model quality varies on free tiers, occasional 'come back tomorrow' messages.

Three rules for free-tier living. (1) Sign up for all three majors - they fail at different times of day. (2) Use 'cheap mode' first (Gemini Flash unlimited) before burning daily caps on Sonnet/GPT-5.5. (3) Plan your high-quality queries - save Sonnet/GPT-5.5 caps for the queries that actually need them.

About this calculator: Free Tier Checker - What You Can Actually Get for $0/Month

Free AI tiers are real. ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini all give meaningful free use. Find which combination covers your needs without spending a dollar.

Inputs you control

Input Impact on result Range Typical
Weekly AI use (hours) Light: <5. Moderate: 5-15. Heavy: 15+. Free tiers cover up to ~10 hours/week comfortably. 1 – 40 6
Avg queries per day ChatGPT free: ~30 GPT-5.5 queries/day. Claude free: ~30 Sonnet queries. Gemini free: ~50 Pro / unlimited Flash. 1 – 200 15
Quality requirement (1-10) 1=casual brainstorming. 5=professional emails. 8=complex reasoning. 10=research-grade. 1 – 10 6

Outputs computed for you · model: free_tier

Output How inputs affect it
Monthly cost ($) computed from inputs
Annual cost ($) monthlyUsd × 12

Below: live sliders. Move them to see numbers change in real time. * Output uses the generic compute model — for precise numbers use the full calculator below.

What you're looking at

Each input shapes your cost. Move the slider — see the impact.

6

Light: <5. Moderate: 5-15. Heavy: 15+. Free tiers cover up to ~10 hours/week comfortably.

Estimated: —
15

ChatGPT free: ~30 GPT-5.5 queries/day. Claude free: ~30 Sonnet queries. Gemini free: ~50 Pro / unlimited Flash.

Estimated: —
6

1=casual brainstorming. 5=professional emails. 8=complex reasoning. 10=research-grade.

Estimated: —

Ready to run the numbers?

Open the full calculator — pick a model, enter your tokens, see per-call, daily, monthly, and annual cost.

🚀 Open the full calculator →

Reading your result

Light use (under 5 hr/week, under 20 queries/day): free tiers cover. Combine ChatGPT + Claude + Gemini accounts. Rotate when caps hit.

Moderate use (5-15 hr/week, 20-50 queries/day): free covers most days. You'll hit caps occasionally. Either accept it or upgrade ONE subscription.

Heavy use (>15 hr/week, >50 queries/day): free not viable. You'll constantly hit caps. Upgrade to one $20 subscription matching primary use.

What "good" looks like:
  • Strong free-tier fit: Students, occasional users, hobbyists, budget-constrained
  • Moderate fit: Solopreneurs, side projects - works most of the time
  • Skip free tier: Daily professional reliance - frustration > savings
  • Combine 3 accounts: Always rotate - one's cap hit doesn't mean all are

Free-tier-friendly vendors right now

Verified 20 hours ago
  1. 1
    GPT-5 Mini
    $0.250 in · $2.00 out ·
  2. 2
    Command
    $1.00 in · $2.00 out ·
  3. 3
    devstral-2
    $0.400 in · $2.00 out ·

Three real scenarios

Same calculator, three different team sizes. Click a tab to see how the numbers shift.

$0.00 / month ≈ $0.00 / year

Student. 4 hours/week, 10 queries/day. ChatGPT + Claude + Gemini free covers all. $0/mo. Don't subscribe.

Healthy range: Free tiers cover 100%

See inputs used
weeklyAiHours
4
queriesPerDay
10
qualityNeed
5

Trade-offs

Cost isn't the only dimension. Click any constraint — see how recommendations change.

What matters most to you? Click any dimension — recommendations update.

Best fit for "cost":

  1. ChatGPT free GPT-5.5 limited, image gen
  2. Claude free Sonnet 4.6 limited, no images
  3. Gemini free Flash unlimited + Pro limited

All three are genuinely useful free. Sign up for all. Cost = $0. Coverage = ~80% of typical use.

Use cases

Pre-loaded scenarios for the most common applications. Click a tab to see realistic numbers — then the "Try this scenario" button to load it into the calculator above.

$0.00 / month ≈ $0.00 / year

Curious learner. 3 hr/week. Free Claude or ChatGPT covers it. Don't subscribe.

Healthy range: Free perfectly fine

See inputs used
weeklyAiHours
3
queriesPerDay
8
qualityNeed
6

What this calculator can't tell you

Honest limitations — every model is wrong; some are useful. Where this one falls short:

For these, use: Subscription Picker when ready to upgrade. Cost Calculator for API usage.

Where to go next

Ready to subscribe? Pick the right one →

When free isn't enough.

 Annual vs monthly billing →

Save 15-20% if you commit.

 Creator-tier bundle →

If you do creative work.

Methodology

Source
/ai-cost-economics
Extraction
Free-tier limits monitored monthly across major vendors.
Editorial gate
8-layer defense — see aicost.ai/ai-cost-economics
Last verified
6/4/2026, 8:00:00 PM

Author: Subu Vdaygiri, Founder & CEO of CloudIntelligence.ai. 17 years Fortune 100 (Ingram Micro, Siemens). Wharton CTO program · Kellogg CPO program · 10× AWS+Azure certified.

3 years of pricing history

Why this matters: pricing for major vendors has dropped 40-90% in the last 24 months. A budget set 12 months ago is probably wrong by 30%+.

View 3-year history for →
📖 Data sources & methodology 161 text models · 9 embeddings · 24 vision · 41 audio · 8 vector DBs across 10 vendor pages · last verified 2026-06-05

Methodology

  • All prices are USD per 1 million tokens, current as of 2026-06-05.
  • Vendor-published values have no mark. Inferred/extrapolated values are marked with * and listed below.
  • Batch API discounts are 50% off standard rates across providers that offer Batch mode.
  • Prompt caching discounts vary by provider (typically 80-90% off cached input tokens).
  • Regional data-residency surcharges (Anthropic 1.1x, OpenAI 1.1x, Google regional tiers) are NOT included in base rates.
  • Long-context pricing tiers apply when input exceeds model threshold.
  • Embedding prices are input-only (no output tokens generated).

Primary sources

Last-verified date is the most recent successful daily snapshot (aicost_pricing_snapshots) or, when no snapshot exists yet, the latest successful crawler run (aicost_crawler_runs). 10 of 10 vendors are currently verified. Aggregator services (TokenCost, AI Pricing Guru, etc.) are not listed.

Anthropic
2026-06-05
https://www.anthropic.com/pricing
Daily snapshot since Sep 2023 · 578 days captured
Anthropic Docs
2026-06-05
https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/about-claude/pricing
Daily snapshot since Sep 2023 · 578 days captured
OpenAI
2026-06-05
https://openai.com/api/pricing/
Daily snapshot since Sep 2023 · 579 days captured
Google AI
2026-06-05
https://ai.google.dev/gemini-api/docs/pricing
Daily snapshot since Dec 2023 · 554 days captured
Google Vertex
2026-06-05
https://cloud.google.com/vertex-ai/generative-ai/pricing
Daily snapshot since Dec 2023 · 554 days captured
DeepSeek
2026-06-05
https://api-docs.deepseek.com/quick_start/pricing
Daily snapshot since May 2024 · 493 days captured
xAI
2026-06-05
https://x.ai/api
Daily snapshot since Nov 2024 · 411 days captured
Mistral
2026-06-05
https://mistral.ai/pricing
Daily snapshot since Dec 2023 · 552 days captured
Cohere
2026-06-05
https://cohere.com/pricing
Daily snapshot since Sep 2023 · 578 days captured
Voyage AI
2026-06-05
https://docs.voyageai.com/docs/pricing

Inferred values (marked with * in calculator tables)

Derived from industry conventions, not directly published by the vendor. Typical conventions: cached input = 10% of base (90% off), Batch API = 50% of base (50% off).

Vendor / Model Field Why it’s inferred
Anthropic — Claude Sonnet 4.6 cachedInput Derived at 10% of input rate — Anthropic publishes 90% cache-hit discount on this tier.
Anthropic — Claude Sonnet 4.5 cachedInput Derived at 10% of input rate; same 90% cache-hit convention as Sonnet 4.6.
Anthropic — Claude Sonnet 4.5 batchInput Derived at 50% of standard input — Anthropic documents uniform 50% Batch discount.
Anthropic — Claude Sonnet 4.5 batchOutput Derived at 50% of standard output — Anthropic documents uniform 50% Batch discount.
Anthropic — Claude Haiku 4.5 cachedInput Derived at 10% of input rate — Anthropic 90% cache-hit discount convention.
OpenAI — GPT-5.4 Mini cachedInput Derived at 10% of input — OpenAI documents automatic 90% discount on cache hits across GPT-5.x tier.
OpenAI — GPT-5.4 Nano cachedInput Derived at 10% of input — OpenAI 90% cache-hit convention.
OpenAI — GPT-5.4 Nano batchInput Derived at 50% of input — OpenAI Batch API uniform 50% discount.
OpenAI — GPT-5.4 Nano batchOutput Derived at 50% of output — OpenAI Batch API uniform 50% discount.
OpenAI — GPT-5.4 Pro cachedInput Derived at 10% of input — OpenAI 90% cache-hit convention.
OpenAI — GPT-5.4 Pro batchInput Derived at 50% of input — OpenAI Batch API uniform 50% discount.
OpenAI — GPT-5.4 Pro batchOutput Derived at 50% of output — OpenAI Batch API uniform 50% discount.
OpenAI — GPT-5.2 cachedInput Derived at 10% of input; no residency uplift.
OpenAI — GPT-5.2 batchInput Derived at 50% of input.
OpenAI — GPT-5.2 batchOutput Derived at 50% of output.
OpenAI — GPT-5 cachedInput Derived at 10% of input.
OpenAI — GPT-5 batchInput Derived at 50% of input.
OpenAI — GPT-5 batchOutput Derived at 50% of output.
OpenAI — GPT-5.5 Pro cachedInput Derived at 10% of input — OpenAI does not publish a cached rate for *-pro models; using the family convention.
OpenAI — GPT-5.5 Pro batchInput Derived at 50% of input.
OpenAI — GPT-5.5 Pro batchOutput Derived at 50% of output.
OpenAI — GPT-5.2 Pro cachedInput Derived at 10% of input — pro-tier convention.
OpenAI — GPT-5.2 Pro batchInput Derived at 50% of input.
OpenAI — GPT-5.2 Pro batchOutput Derived at 50% of output.
OpenAI — GPT-5.1 batchInput Derived at 50% of input.
OpenAI — GPT-5.1 batchOutput Derived at 50% of output.
OpenAI — GPT-5 Pro batchInput Derived at 50% of input.
OpenAI — GPT-5 Pro batchOutput Derived at 50% of output.
OpenAI — GPT-5 Nano cachedInput Derived at 10% of input.
OpenAI — GPT-5 Nano batchInput Derived at 50% of input.
OpenAI — GPT-5 Nano batchOutput Derived at 50% of output.
Google — Gemini 3 Flash cachedInput Derived at 10% of input — Google caching discount convention ~90%.
Google — Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite cachedInput Derived at 10% of input — Google caching convention.
Google — Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite batchInput Derived at 50% of input — Google Batch API uniform 50% discount.
Google — Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite batchOutput Derived at 50% of output — Google Batch API uniform 50% discount.
Google — Gemini 2.5 Pro cachedInput Derived at 10% of input.
Google — Gemini 2.5 Flash cachedInput Derived at 10% of input.
Google — Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite cachedInput Derived at 10% of input — Google caching convention.
Google — Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite batchInput Derived at 50% of input — Google Batch API uniform 50% discount.
Google — Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite batchOutput Derived at 50% of output — Google Batch API uniform 50% discount.
Google — Gemini 2.0 Flash cachedInput Derived at 25% of input per Google 2.0 family caching rates.
Google — Gemini 2.0 Flash batchInput Derived at 50% of input — Google Batch API uniform 50% discount.
Google — Gemini 2.0 Flash batchOutput Derived at 50% of output — Google Batch API uniform 50% discount.
Google — Gemini 2.0 Flash-Lite cachedInput Derived at 10% of input — Google caching convention.
Google — Gemini 2.0 Flash-Lite batchInput Derived at 50% of input — Google Batch API uniform 50% discount.
Google — Gemini 2.0 Flash-Lite batchOutput Derived at 50% of output — Google Batch API uniform 50% discount.
xAI — Grok 4 (legacy) cachedInput Extrapolated at 25% of base.

Pricing is cross-verified against the LiteLLM community registry when available. Daily snapshots are kept in aicost_pricing_snapshots; every change is logged to aicost_price_changelog with old & new values for full audit trail. Read the full methodology →