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OpenRouter Rate Limits – What You Need to Know

Updated

TL;DR

  • Free usage: 50 requests/day, 20 requests/minute
  • Purchased > $10 worth of Credits: 1000 requests/day, 20 requests/minute
  • Paid models: No enforced rate limits from OpenRouter, but upstream model providers may throttle or experience downtime
  • 429 errors: These are signals to slow down—build in smart retries

 

If You’re New and Using Free Models

When you first start using OpenRouter and haven’t made any payments yet, you are on a free-tier quota designed to give you a taste of what’s possible. You can use any of the Free models, but you are limited by:

  • 50 requests per day
  • 20 requests per minute

Pro Tip: If you’re building a tool with multiple users under your key, these limits can be hit quickly. Make sure to back off and pace your calls—or upgrade.

 

Why You Might See Rate Limits on Free Models

Free-tier usage of popular models is subject to rate limiting by the provider, especially during peak times. This is true even if you have credits in your OpenRouter account. When this happens, you’ll typically see a 429 Too Many Requests error.

⚠️ Important: Failed attempts still count toward your daily quota.

We know this isn’t ideal, and we’re actively working on securing more capacity for free models so these issues will be less disruptive in the future.

If you get a 429 Too Many Requests response, don’t panic—it’s just the system telling you to slow down.

How to Handle It:

  • Look at the x-ratelimit-* headers in the response to understand how many calls you have left
  • Implement exponential backoff: e.g., wait 1s → 2s → 4s → 8s, then retry
  • Consider using circuit breakers if you’re sending many concurrent requests

What Happens After You’ve Added $10 or More in Credits

Once you’ve purchased at least $10 in credits on your account, your limits increase significantly:

  • 1,000 requests per day

  • 20 requests per minute

This tier is ideal for indie developers, prototypes with a small user base, or early-stage apps. 

What matters is that you’ve purchased $10 in credits at some point. Even if your balance later dips below $10, you’ll still keep the higher limits.

 

Using Paid Models – What About Their Limits?

When you’re using paid models (like Claude, GPT-4, Mistral etc.), OpenRouter does not set hard rate limits. Additionally, if you Bring Your Own Keys (BYOK), then the rate limits are dependent on your account with the provider. 

 

Related Resources

If you follow the steps above and still cannot resolve the issue, please raise a support ticket at https://openrouter.ai/support with the requested details. The support team will guide you through the next steps and help resolve billing issues promptly.

 

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