> For clean Markdown of any page, append .md to the page URL.
> For a complete documentation index, see https://openrouter.ai/docs/llms.txt.
> For full documentation content, see https://openrouter.ai/docs/llms-full.txt.
> For AI client integration (Claude Code, Cursor, etc.), connect to the MCP server at https://openrouter.ai/docs/_mcp/server.

# Free Variant

The `:free` variant allows you to access free versions of models on OpenRouter.

## Usage

Append `:free` to any model ID:

```json
{
  "model": "meta-llama/llama-3.2-3b-instruct:free"
}
```

## Details

Free variants provide access to models without cost, but may have different rate limits or availability compared to paid versions.

## Related Resources

* [Free Models Router](/docs/cookbook/get-started/free-models-router-playground) - Learn how to use the Free Models Router in the Chat Playground for zero-cost inference