Together AI Free Plan: What You Actually Get Before Paying
There is no Together AI free plan for API use — no free trial, $15 minimum purchase. Learn what the Playground offers free and what $15 buys.
By Galactic News Editorial · Published 2026-11-09T01:34:26+00:00 · Updated 2026-11-09T01:34:26+00:00
Together AI Free Plan: What You Actually Get Before Paying
Search for a Together AI free plan and you will find mixed answers. Some pages promise free credits. Others say there is no free tier at all. The official answer is clear. Together AI does not currently offer free trials. Access requires a minimum $15 credit purchase. This article explains what you actually get before paying, what the $15 buys, and how to test the platform without wasting money. Every fact below comes from Together AI's own docs and pricing page, checked in November 2026.
The Together AI Free Plan: The Short Answer
There is no free plan. Together AI's billing docs state it plainly: Together AI does not currently offer free trials. Access to the platform requires a minimum $15 credit purchase. The platform is fully prepaid. You need a positive credit balance to use it. If your balance reaches zero, API access is suspended until you add credits. The minimum is $15 for your organization's first purchase and $5 after that. Credits do not currently have an expiration date. That is the honest starting point for the together ai free plan question. Any page that promises free signup credits describes an old offer. Together AI stopped giving new accounts free credit. The docs also note that platform access requires the minimum $15 purchase, even if an account holds free credits from an earlier offer. Budget $15 as the entry cost. Treat anything below that as unavailable.
What You Can Try for Free: the Playground
The Playground is the closest thing to a together ai free plan that exists today. Together AI's Playground lets you try models in the browser. You can test chat, image, and other models without writing code. The Playground is a demo surface, not a free API tier. It lets you compare models and check output quality before you buy credits. Use it to pick a model. That is the free part of the together ai free plan story. Run a few prompts. See how the model handles your use case. The Playground does not replace API testing. Real API work needs credits. But it answers the first question every buyer asks: does this model do what I need? Spend time here before you spend money. It costs nothing and it prevents bad purchases.
What the $15 Minimum Purchase Buys
The $15 first purchase is a credit balance, not a subscription. Together AI has no monthly plan. You buy credits and spend them per use. Credits pay for API requests, dedicated inference, fine-tuning, and evaluation jobs. Serverless inference bills per token. Rates vary by model. For example, gpt-oss-120B costs $0.15 per million input tokens and $0.60 per million output tokens. That is a low rate. A $15 balance covers a large amount of testing at that price. Higher-end models cost more. Kimi K3 costs $3.00 per million input tokens and $15.00 per million output tokens. At that rate, $15 covers fewer calls. Check the per-model price on the pricing page before you choose. Pick a cheap model for testing. Move to a stronger model only when the task needs it. Credits never expire under the current policy. The $15 does not vanish if you pause for a month. That is a fair trade for a together ai free plan seeker who is ready to test the API.
Together AI Free Plan vs Pay-As-You-Go: the Comparison
| Feature | Before paying | After the $15 purchase |
|---|---|---|
| Free trial | None offered | Not applicable |
| Playground access | Yes, try models in the browser | Yes |
| API access | No, needs a positive balance | Yes, until balance hits zero |
| Minimum purchase | Not applicable | $15 first, $5 after that |
| Credit expiry | Not applicable | None currently |
| Auto-recharge | No | Yes, with a card as default |
The table shows the real shape of the offer. The free part is the Playground. The paid part starts at $15. There is no middle tier. That is simpler than a subscription, but it means there is no free API allowance to lean on.
How to Test Together AI for $15
Follow these steps to test what a together ai free plan would offer, for $15. First, use the Playground to pick one model. Do not buy credits before you know which model fits. Second, create an account and add $15 of credits from the billing settings. Card purchases usually appear in your balance within a few moments. Third, set up auto-recharge or leave it off. Auto-recharge tops up your balance when it falls below a threshold. It works only when a card is your default payment method. Leave it off while testing. Fourth, run your test calls on a cheap model. gpt-oss-120B at $0.15 per million input tokens is a good starting point. Fifth, check your balance after each test batch. The billing settings show your credit balance and usage. Sixth, note that some models on the pricing page list $0.00 rates. These are free to call while listed, but they can change. Do not build a product on a $0.00 rate without a fallback. When the $15 runs low, top up with $5. Later purchases have a $5 minimum. That is the cheapest way to keep testing.
When Together AI Is Worth the $15
Together AI suits developers who want open-weight models behind one API. It hosts a wide catalog of open models. Its API is OpenAI-compatible, so existing code often works with a changed base URL. The $15 entry is low for a developer tool. It is high for a casual user who only wants to try a chatbot. If you only need chat, skip the together ai free plan question entirely. The free tiers of ChatGPT or Claude are a better fit. If you need API access to open models, the $15 is fair. Compare it with alternatives before you pay. Some rivals offer free API tiers with rate limits. Together AI does not. Its advantage is model breadth and per-token pricing, not free access. Choose it for the catalog. Do not choose it for a free plan that does not exist.
Bottom Line
The together ai free plan does not exist as an API tier. Together AI offers no free trial. The entry cost is a $15 credit purchase, with $5 top-ups after that. What you get free is the Playground, where you can test models in the browser. Credits do not expire, and cheap models like gpt-oss-120B stretch $15 a long way. Test in the Playground first. Buy $15 only when you are ready to call the API. That is the full answer to the together ai free plan question.