OpenRouter
One OpenAI-compatible API in front of hundreds of models, with a free tier (model IDs ending in :free): 20 requests/min and 50 requests/day, raised to 1000/day once you have added $10 in credits one time. Paid per-token and BYOK models too. Free models may retain or train on what you send, so keep sensitive data on a cheap paid model.
Alternatives
6 workflows use OpenRouter
Let a free model triage your reading: one-line summary + reply flag
Point any OpenAI-compatible tool at an OpenRouter free model so each email/article/report comes back as a one-sentence summary plus a needs-reply flag, and you only open what earns it.
Run GLM-5.2 for the bulk, escalate the hard turns to Opus 4.8
Wire a cost-routing config that sends most work to cheap hosted GLM-5.2 and only the hardest turns to Opus 4.8, instead of paying Opus prices for everything.
Route through a gateway with a tested open-weights fallback
Keep model access from being a single point of failure: route through an OpenAI-compatible gateway and pin a fallback that is open-weights and has actually been tested, so a pulled or deprecated model is a two-minute config change, not a lost week.
Wire GLM-5.2 into Hermes: valid route, 64k-context check, no key in config
Validate a Hermes Agent config that runs GLM-5.2 through a real provider route (direct Z.AI or OpenRouter), clears Hermes's 64k minimum context, and keeps the API key out of config.yaml, before you start a session.
Read your token receipts right: volume and cost are different leaderboards
Attribute your model usage by both tokens and dollars, so you can see the flip the OpenRouter rankings show: cheap open models dominate volume while premium models dominate spend, and never mistake a high token ranking for value.
Advisor pattern: cap how often the expensive model gets called, and catch drift
Run a cheap executor with a rarely-consulted expensive advisor, but enforce a hard cap on advisor calls per task and a drift-check before the executor can keep going, so the benchmark's 63% discount doesn't quietly erode into nothing.