Free LLM API credit — the sites that actually work

I run accounts on 30+ gateways. These are the ones I still use, what they give you, and the gotchas nobody mentions.

These are my referral links. You get the signup bonus either way; I get credit if you use them. Everything below is what I actually observed on my own accounts.

True SOTA

$20 credit on signup

Best forCodex and any OpenAI-compatible client

Modelsclaude-opus-5, GPT series

LoginGitHub, linux.do, or email

How I knowmy own account got it, and an unrelated poster advertised the same $20 for this site

The email whitelist is strict — Gmail / Yahoo / iCloud pass, most other providers get rejected. Sign in with GitHub and skip the problem.
There is a captcha at signup. Normal.

RouterPark

$20 on register, plus $5 every day you check in

Best forClaude Code — this one speaks the Anthropic API directly

ModelsClaude and GPT families

Loginemail

How I knowmy balance sat at exactly $20 after registering, which matches the advertised register bonus

The daily check-in is the real value here — it refills, so it outlasts a one-off bonus.

TokenBom

up to 750 credits on signup (~$10 at their own rate)

Best fortopping up when another site runs dry

Modelsmixed

Loginemail

How I knowI registered as somebody else's invitee and landed 500 credits, so the invitee bonus is real

Credits are their own unit, not dollars. 500 credits was worth roughly $7 on their pricing.

Dignal

10M tokens on signup (~$1 at their own rate)

Best forbreadth — 38 models confirmed available

Models38 models

Loginemail

How I knowtheir own stated rate is 5M tokens = $0.50

Smallest bonus on this list. Worth it for the model variety, not the credit.

How to actually use the key

Register, open the panel, create an API key. Then pick the block that matches your tool. If a site gives you credit and you never make a call, the credit just sits there.

Claude Code — needs a gateway that speaks the Anthropic API. RouterPark does:

export ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL=https://routerpark.com
export ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN=your-key-here
claude

Codex, or anything OpenAI-compatible — the rest of the list works here:

export OPENAI_BASE_URL=https://true-sota.com/v1
export OPENAI_API_KEY=your-key-here

Check the exact base URL on the site's own docs page before you debug anything — some forks put it on a different path, and a 404 looks exactly like a bad key.

Two gotchas that waste everybody's first hour

Email whitelists. Several of these accept Gmail / Yahoo / iCloud and quietly reject everything else, including most regional providers. If a site offers GitHub or linux.do login, use it and skip the whole problem.
Quotas change without warning. A site that was generous last month may have halved its limits since. That is why this list is short: it is what I still use, not everything I have signed up for.