Vercel’s AI Gateway gives you one API key for more than 400 AI models: text, image, video, speech, and more. And if you haven’t made a payment on your Vercel account yet, you get $5 of AI Gateway credit every 30 days.
That alone is a nice way to try out models without signing up for a dozen different providers. But the part worth checking regularly is the promotions. Vercel runs them all the time, and some models end up completely free to use.
Free right now
As of October 20, 2026, these models cost nothing to use, neither for input nor output:
minimax/minimax-m3.1-flashreflection/beam-freenvidia/nemotron-3.5-lightning-freestealth/glyph-clusterconvaiinnovations/layaconvaiinnovations/laya-freepoolside/laguna-s-2.1-free(an agentic coding model, listed as going away on October 31, 2026)
50% off right now
A few high-performance models are currently at half price:
| Model | Input | Output |
|---|---|---|
google/gemini-4-argon |
$2/M tokens | $10/M tokens |
inception/mercury-3 |
$0.10/M tokens | $0.35/M tokens |
mistral/mistral-large-4 |
$0.68/M tokens | $2.09/M tokens |
There’s also heygen/heygen-video-1 at 50% off, if you’re working with video.
How to use them
Create an API key in the AI Gateway section of your Vercel dashboard and set it as AI_GATEWAY_API_KEY. Then you call any model by its name, like minimax/minimax-m3.1-flash. It works with the AI SDK, and also with tools that speak the OpenAI or Anthropic API format if you change the base URL.
Check back often
These promos change. New models get added as free or discounted around their launch, and others disappear. The list above is a snapshot, so check the promos page to see what’s currently on offer before you pick a model for your next project.