--- title: Claude Code for FREE Forever — OpenRouter Setup (2026) description: A walkthrough showing how to use Claude Code for free by routing requests through OpenRouter instead of paying for Anthropic's API or Claude Pro subscription.... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/claude-code-for-free-forever-openrouter-setup-2026--rnmsi9wkn twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Claude Code for FREE Forever — OpenRouter Setup (2026) | daily.dev og:description: A walkthrough showing how to use Claude Code for free by routing requests through OpenRouter instead of paying for Anthropic's API or Claude Pro subscription.... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/claude-code-for-free-forever-openrouter-setup-2026--rnmsi9wkn og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/rNMSI9WkN.png og:image:alt: Claude Code for FREE Forever — OpenRouter Setup (2026) og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Claude Code for FREE Forever — OpenRouter Setup (2026) **[YouTube](https://daily.dev/sources/youtube)** · 9 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary A walkthrough showing how to use Claude Code for free by routing requests through OpenRouter instead of paying for Anthropic's API or Claude Pro subscription. The setup involves creating a free OpenRouter account, generating an API key, and configuring Claude Code's settings.json to point to OpenRouter's free model tier. This avoids local model downloads (unlike Ollama) and bypasses Anthropic rate limits at zero cost. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. 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