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Best Free AI Models for OpenClaw — Zero API Cost Setup

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zac

Originally published on Remote OpenClaw.

The best completely free AI model for OpenClaw is glm-4.7-flash running locally through Ollama, which costs nothing beyond electricity and has no rate limits, no API key, and no usage caps. If your hardware cannot run local models, Groq's free tier with Llama 4 Scout is the strongest free cloud alternative, offering 30 requests per minute and 1,000 requests per day with no credit card required.

As of April 2026, there are four practical paths to running OpenClaw at zero API cost: local models through Ollama, Google AI Studio's free tier, Groq's free tier, and OpenRouter's free model collection. Each path has different tradeoffs between hardware requirements, rate limits, and model quality.

Key Takeaways

  • Ollama local models are the only truly unlimited free option. No API key, no rate limits, no usage caps. Recommended starting model: glm-4.7-flash.
  • Groq free tier gives you Llama 4 Scout and Llama 3.3 70B at 700+ tokens per second with no credit card. Rate limit: 30 RPM, 1,000 requests/day on 70B models.
  • Google AI Studio free tier provides access to Gemini 2.5 Flash Lite and Gemini 2.0 Flash with per-minute and per-day rate limits. No billing setup required.
  • OpenRouter free models include 29+ models from Google, Meta, Mistral, and others. Free requests are deprioritized during peak traffic.
  • Local models need at least 6 GB VRAM for an 8B model or 16-20 GB for a 30B model. Apple Silicon Macs with 16+ GB unified memory work well.

Part of The Complete Guide to OpenClaw — the full reference covering setup, security, memory, and operations.

In this guide

  1. Which Free Option Should You Pick?
  2. Free Local Models via Ollama
  3. Free API Tier Providers
  4. Hardware Requirements for Local Models
  5. Setup Guide for Each Free Option
  6. Limitations and When to Pay
  7. FAQ

Which Free Option Should You Pick?

Your best free path depends on your hardware. If you have a machine with 16+ GB of VRAM or an Apple Silicon Mac with 32+ GB of unified memory, local Ollama models are the clear winner because they have no rate limits and no dependency on external services. If your hardware is too limited for local inference, Groq's free tier is the strongest cloud alternative.

Path

Best Model

Rate Limits

Requires Hardware

Best For

Ollama local

glm-4.7-flash

None

Yes (16+ GB VRAM)

Unlimited usage, privacy

Groq free tier

Llama 4 Scout

30 RPM, 1K/day

No

Fast inference, no hardware needed

Google AI Studio

Gemini 2.5 Flash Lite

Variable RPM/RPD

No

Google ecosystem, multimodal

OpenRouter free

Qwen3-Coder 480B

Lower priority, variable

No

Model variety, coding

Cloudflare Workers AI

Various open models

10K neurons/day

No

Edge deployment, simple tasks

A practical approach that many operators use: run Ollama locally for your primary workflow and keep a Groq or OpenRouter free tier API key configured as a fallback for when you need a different model or are away from your main machine. For a deeper comparison of local versus routed models, see our Ollama vs OpenRouter guide.

Free Local Models via Ollama

Ollama is an open-source tool that runs large language models locally on your machine with no API costs, no rate limits, and no data leaving your device. As of April 2026, Ollama's OpenClaw integration docs recommend glm-4.7-flash as the default local model.

Model

Parameters

VRAM Needed

Context

Best For

glm-4.7-flash

30B (3B active, MoE)

~18 GB

198K

Default OpenClaw local model

qwen3-coder:30b

30B (3.3B active, MoE)

~18 GB

256K

Coding-heavy OpenClaw workflows

qwen3.5:27b

27B

~17 GB

256K

Strong all-rounder, flexible sizes

qwen3.5:9b

9B

~6.6 GB

256K

Budget hardware, entry-level

llama3.3:70b

70B

~43 GB

128K

Maximum local quality (needs big GPU)

gemma3:27b

27B

~17 GB

128K

Google-family alternative

The key requirement Ollama's docs emphasize for OpenClaw is context length. OpenClaw is an agent system, not a lightweight chat interface, so Ollama recommends running with at least 64K context. At default settings, Ollama only allocates 4K context on machines with under 24 GB VRAM, which will cause OpenClaw to lose track of instructions and tool state.

# Set context to 64K before starting Ollama
OLLAMA_CONTEXT_LENGTH=64000 ollama serve

# Pull and run the recommended model
ollama pull glm-4.7-flash
ollama run glm-4.7-flash

For a detailed walkthrough of every model option, see our Best Ollama Models for OpenClaw guide.

Free API Tier Providers

Four cloud providers offer genuinely free API access to models that work with OpenClaw. All use OpenAI-compatible API formats, which means OpenClaw can connect to them through its standard provider configuration.

Groq Free Tier

Groq provides free API access with no credit card required at console.groq.com. The free tier includes Llama 4 Scout, Llama 3.3 70B, Qwen3-32B, and several other open-source models running on Groq's custom LPU hardware at 700+ tokens per second.

Rate limits on the free tier as of April 2026:

  • 30 requests per minute on most models (60 RPM on smaller ones)
  • 1,000 requests per day on 70B models
  • 14,400 requests per day on 8B models
  • 500,000 token daily budget on larger models

These limits apply at the organization level, not per user. You hit whichever limit arrives first.

Google AI Studio Free Tier

Google AI Studio offers free access to Gemini models with no billing setup. As of April 2026, the free tier includes Gemini 2.5 Flash Lite and Gemini 2.0 Flash. Rate limits vary by model and are controlled at the Google Cloud project level.

Important caveats: Google adjusted these quotas significantly in late 2025, with some models seeing daily quota cuts of up to 80%. Flash models generally have higher burst rates than Pro models. The authoritative place to check your current limits is inside AI Studio itself, not the documentation.

OpenRouter Free Models

OpenRouter offers 29+ completely free models as of April 2026, including Qwen3-Coder 480B (free), Llama 3.3 70B, Gemma 3 27B, and GPT-OSS 120B. No credit card required. Use any model ID ending in :free with the OpenRouter API.

The tradeoff: free requests are deprioritized during peak traffic, meaning response times can spike. For development and personal use this is rarely a problem, but for continuous agent workflows it can cause timeouts. For more on this, see our OpenRouter free models for OpenClaw guide.

Cloudflare Workers AI

Cloudflare Workers AI offers 10,000 free Neurons per day, which translates to a variable number of requests depending on model size and task complexity. Beyond the free allocation, it costs $0.011 per 1,000 Neurons. Workers AI runs open-source models on Cloudflare's edge network and uses a Neurons-based billing unit rather than per-token pricing.

This option is better suited for lightweight tasks and edge deployments than for sustained OpenClaw agent sessions. The Neurons budget runs out quickly with larger models.

Marketplace

Free skills and AI personas for OpenClaw — browse the marketplace.

Browse the Marketplace →

Hardware Requirements for Local Models

Running local models through Ollama requires dedicated GPU memory (VRAM) or unified memory on Apple Silicon. The general rule is approximately 0.6 GB per billion parameters at Q4_K_M quantization, plus additional memory for the KV cache that grows with context length.

Your Hardware

VRAM / Unified Memory

Best Model

Max Practical Context

Entry laptop / older GPU

8 GB

qwen3.5:9b

16-32K

RTX 3060 / M3 Pro 18 GB

12-18 GB

glm-4.7-flash

32-64K

RTX 3090/4090 / M4 Pro 24 GB

24 GB

qwen3.5:27b

64K

M4 Max 64 GB / dual GPU

48-64 GB

llama3.3:70b

128K+

M4 Ultra 128+ GB

128+ GB

qwen3-coder:480b (full)

256K

OpenClaw specifically needs at least 64K context for reliable agent operation. The KV cache for an 8B model at 64K context requires roughly 4-5 GB of additional memory on top of the model weights. This means a machine that can barely fit a model at default 4K context may struggle once you set the 64K context that OpenClaw requires.

Apple Silicon is particularly well-suited for local models because its unified memory architecture lets the GPU access all system RAM. An M4 Pro with 24 GB unified memory can comfortably run a 27B model at 64K context, which would otherwise require a dedicated GPU with 24+ GB VRAM.

# Check how much memory your model is actually using
ollama ps

# Verify context allocation
OLLAMA_CONTEXT_LENGTH=64000 ollama serve

Setup Guide for Each Free Option

Option 1: Ollama Local Setup

Install Ollama, pull a model, and point OpenClaw at your local endpoint. This is the only option with zero external dependencies.

# Install Ollama (macOS)
brew install ollama

# Start with 64K context for OpenClaw
OLLAMA_CONTEXT_LENGTH=64000 ollama serve

# Pull the recommended model
ollama pull glm-4.7-flash

# Configure OpenClaw to use Ollama
openclaw models set ollama/glm-4.7-flash

For the full local setup walkthrough, see our OpenClaw Ollama setup guide.

Option 2: Groq Free Tier Setup

Sign up at console.groq.com with no credit card. Get your API key from the dashboard.

# Set your Groq API key
export GROQ_API_KEY="your-key-here"

# Configure OpenClaw
openclaw models set groq/llama-4-scout

Option 3: Google AI Studio Free Tier Setup

Go to ai.google.dev, sign in with your Google account, and create an API key. No billing setup needed for the free tier.

# Set your Google API key
export GOOGLE_API_KEY="your-key-here"

# Configure OpenClaw
openclaw models set google/gemini-2.5-flash-lite

Option 4: OpenRouter Free Models Setup

Sign up at openrouter.ai and get your API key. Use any model ID ending in :free.

# Set your OpenRouter API key
export OPENROUTER_API_KEY="your-key-here"

# Configure OpenClaw to use a free model
openclaw models set openrouter/qwen/qwen3-coder:free

For more OpenRouter options, see our OpenClaw OpenRouter setup guide.

Limitations and When to Pay

Free models and free tiers are genuinely useful for learning, development, light personal use, and testing OpenClaw workflows. They are not suitable for everything.

When Free Is Enough

  • Learning OpenClaw and building your first skills and workflows
  • Personal productivity tasks with moderate daily usage
  • Development and testing before committing to a paid model
  • Privacy-sensitive work where data must stay local (Ollama only)

When You Should Pay

  • Rate limits break your workflow: If your OpenClaw agent needs more than 1,000 requests per day or sustained throughput, free cloud tiers will throttle you.
  • Quality matters for production: Free and local models are noticeably weaker than premium models on complex multi-step reasoning, long-context synthesis, and advanced coding tasks.
  • You need reliability: Free tiers offer no SLA. Groq and OpenRouter can deprioritize or queue free requests during peak traffic. Local models depend on your hardware staying online.
  • Your hardware is too weak for local: If you cannot run at least a 9B model at 64K context locally, and you need more than what free cloud tiers allow, the cheapest paid models start at $0.10 per million tokens. See our best cheap models for OpenClaw guide.

The most common upgrade path: start free with Ollama or Groq, identify which workflows actually need better quality or higher throughput, then upgrade only those specific workflows to a paid model while keeping free models for everything else.

FAQ

What is the best completely free AI model for OpenClaw?

The best completely free option is running glm-4.7-flash locally through Ollama. It costs nothing beyond electricity, has no rate limits, no API key, and no usage caps. If your hardware cannot run local models, Groq's free tier with Llama 4 Scout is the strongest free cloud alternative, offering 30 requests per minute with no credit card required.

Can I run OpenClaw with no API costs at all?

Yes. Install Ollama, pull a model like glm-4.7-flash or qwen3.5:9b, and configure OpenClaw to use your local Ollama endpoint. There is no API key, no billing, and no usage cap. The only cost is the electricity to run your machine.

What hardware do I need to run Ollama models for OpenClaw?

For an 8B-parameter model at Q4 quantization, you need at least 6 GB of VRAM or an Apple Silicon Mac with 16 GB unified memory. For the recommended 30B models like glm-4.7-flash, plan for 16-20 GB of VRAM or 32 GB of unified memory on Apple Silicon. OpenClaw also requires at least 64K context, which adds roughly 4-5 GB of memory for KV cache on top of the model weights.

Is Google AI Studio really free for OpenClaw?

Google AI Studio offers a free tier with no billing required. As of April 2026, the free tier includes access to Gemini 2.5 Flash Lite and Gemini 2.0 Flash with rate limits on requests per minute, tokens per minute, and requests per day. The limits are enough for light testing and personal use but too restrictive for sustained agent workflows that need hundreds of requests per hour.

How many requests can I make on Groq's free tier?

Groq's free tier allows 30 requests per minute on most models and 1,000 requests per day on 70B models according to Groq's rate limits documentation. The daily token budget is around 500,000 tokens for larger models and 14,400 requests per day for 8B models. No credit card is required to sign up at console.groq.com.

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