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SiliconFlow — free tier setup
What you get free
Jurisdiction caveat first: the catalog records the CN-hosted endpoint (api.siliconflow.cn); "jurisdiction and data-handling policy unverified." Assume prompts transit Chinese infrastructure on that endpoint and route accordingly.
Permanently free small models with rate caps, alongside a large paid catalog. Per the catalog: "Permanently free models, no credit card required. 200+ paid models also available. Free models: 30 RPM, 60K TPM." The gotcha beyond jurisdiction: there are two platforms — CN (cloud.siliconflow.cn / api.siliconflow.cn) and international (cloud.siliconflow.com / api.siliconflow.com, confirmed to exist via docs.siliconflow.com this session but not probed and not in the catalog). Keys are per-platform; don't mix them.
Friction check
| Credit card | no |
| Phone verification | unknown (login "via SMS, email, as well as OAuth through GitHub and Google") |
| Org/membership | none |
| Est. time to first key | ~5m (signup → API Keys page, 3 steps) |
| Trains on your prompts | unknown (CN-hosted endpoint; policy unverified) |
The rest of this guide — the key-obtain walkthrough, first request, the limits that will bite you, and the rotation runbook — ships with the Indie field library. What you’ve read above is the real first section, not a blurred preview; the remainder simply isn’t in this page.