How to get tokens and quotas: free tiers, prepaid credit, and subscriptions

The scene

You do not yet have model access, or you are about to run out, and you want an official path — not a shared key from somewhere you cannot trust.

Tools involved

What they did

1. Decide whether you need a quota inside a chat app or an API you can call from your own tools. These are usually separate sign-ups and do not automatically share balance.
2. If you are only trying things: Google’s AI Studio pricing page marks many Gemini models as “Free of charge” on the Free Tier, and says you can “Start building free of charge with generous limits, then scale up with prepaid.” That is an official free tier, not an unlimited one; the request cap is whatever the console and docs say that day.
3. If you want pay-as-you-go: open billing on that provider’s developer platform. DeepSeek’s docs say charges are deducted from a topped-up balance or a granted balance, with the granted balance used first, and they recommend topping up for actual usage and rechecking the pricing page. xAI’s product page says a Playground is included with every account and that API pricing is usage-based.
4. If you prefer a monthly chat plan: Anthropic’s official pricing page lists Free at $0 (“Free for ever”), Pro at $17 per month with an annual discount ($200 billed up front) or $20 if billed monthly, Max at $100 per month (including $100 a month in API credits), and Ultra at $200 per month (including $200 a month in API credits). ChatGPT’s official pricing page lists Free, Go, Plus, Pro, Business, and Enterprise; on 10 Nov 2026 the static HTML clearly showed Pro marked $100, but other plan dollar amounts were not reliably readable from that HTML, so use the figures shown when you open the official page.
5. Do not buy a shared token or a resold API key from an unknown seller. Official credit can be inspected, rotated, and disputed in your account. An unofficial key can vanish, and it may expose the files you send it.

Copyable prompt

I am setting up access for [chat app, API, or both] in [country/region]. Ask me no more than three questions if you need them, then give me a checklist of official sign-up steps and what I should record (account email, plan or billing type, and where usage is shown). Do not suggest unofficial key sellers. If you are not sure a free tier still exists, say I must confirm it on the official page.

Rewritten here for you to try; not a verbatim excerpt from elsewhere. What it asks：Use this so an agent can build an official sign-up checklist. It should ask at most three questions and tell you to confirm any free tier on the official page.

Things to watch

Whether you can register, pay, or use a free tier in your region is up to the official rules that day; this site cannot promise access. The API credits included with Claude Max and Ultra are listed as plan benefits on the official page; the exact scope is whatever your account documentation says. Prices change; see the check date on this article.