Groq vs OpenRouter: free tiers compared

Both columns come from each provider’s own pages, with the day each line was read. Where a page does not state a value, the cell says so.

Groq and OpenRouter free tiers side by side
Line	GroqFree tier	OpenRouterFree tier
Free allowance	30 req/min · 1,000 req/day Chat models; 8K tokens/min and 200K tokens/day. 3 Oct	20 req/min · 50 req/day 1,000 req/day once the account has bought at least 10 credits. 3 Oct
Requests / min	30 openai/gpt-oss-120b, openai/gpt-oss-20b, qwen/qwen3.8-27b. 3 Oct	20 All free model variants together. 3 Oct
Requests / day	1,000 Chat models. Prompt-guard models: 14,400/day. 3 Oct	50 1,000/day once the account has bought at least 10 credits. 3 Oct
Tokens / min	8,000 3 Oct	Not published The limits page counts requests, not tokens. 3 Oct
Tokens / day	200K 3 Oct	Not published The limits page counts requests, not tokens. 3 Oct
Card to start	Not published The rate-limits page does not say whether a card is needed to sign up. 3 Oct	Not required The 50 req/day ceiling applies to accounts that bought fewer than 10 credits, so no purchase is needed. 3 Oct
Trains on your data	Not published The data page says “By default, Groq does not retain customer data for inference requests”. It does not address training. 3 Oct	Your setting An account setting decides whether requests may be routed to providers that train on your data, with a separate switch for free models. 3 Oct
Commercial use	Not verified	Not verified
OpenAI SDK	Yes No logprobs, logit_bias or n > 1. 3 Oct	Yes 3 Oct
Image input	Yes qwen/qwen3.8-27b; up to 3 images per request. 3 Oct	Yes Several free variants list image input; see the free model list. 3 Oct

20 of 24 cells above were read on the provider’s own page in the last 30 days (oldest check: 3 Oct 2026). Each check mark opens that page. The other 4 say “not verified” instead of repeating a number from someone else’s article.

Where they differ

Groq allows 30 requests per minute, against 20 on OpenRouter.
Groq allows 1,000 requests per day, against 50 on OpenRouter.

Only differences confirmed on both sides are listed. We do not rank speed or output quality: this site does not measure them.

Same code for both

Both expose an OpenAI-compatible endpoint. Choose either provider below and compare the three values that change.

base_url: https://api.groq.com/openai/v1
model: openai/gpt-oss-120b
key from: $GROQ_API_KEY

import os
from openai import OpenAI

client = OpenAI(
    base_url="https://api.groq.com/openai/v1",
    api_key=os.environ["GROQ_API_KEY"],
)

reply = client.chat.completions.create(
    model="openai/gpt-oss-120b",
    messages=[{"role": "user", "content": "Reply with the word: ok"}],
)
print(reply.choices[0].message.content)

Endpoint read on 3 Oct 2026· console.groq.com

The key is read from an environment variable on your machine. This site has no field for keys and never asks for one.

Other comparisons

Questions and answers

Which has the higher free limit, Groq or OpenRouter?

Groq: 30 req/min · 1,000 req/day. OpenRouter: 20 req/min · 50 req/day. The units differ between providers, so compare them against your own traffic.

Do Groq and OpenRouter need a credit card?

Groq: not published (the rate-limits page does not say whether a card is needed to sign up). OpenRouter: not required.

Which one trains on my prompts?

Groq: not published (the data page says “by default, groq does not retain customer data for inference requests”. it does not address training). OpenRouter: your setting.

Can I use both with the same code?

Yes. Both expose an OpenAI-compatible endpoint: https://api.groq.com/openai/v1 and https://openrouter.ai/api/v1. Only the base URL, the model name and the key change.