Connect a free model and understand quotas

Choose a free allowance

Choose a model currently listed with free pricing in the OpenRouter catalog. Check its context, tool support and quota, then select that model directly.

Connect a model

Create a restricted provider API key and budget in its console. Run the command below on your server, choose OpenRouter API Key and enter the key you created.

openclaw onboard --auth-choice openrouter-api-key

Select the full model identifier from the catalog and try a short conversation and a tool call. If quota runs out, check the provider console or choose another available model.

Official connection guide ↗

Free model variants ↗

Ollama is another option for local models. Choose a model size suited to your host's memory, compute and disk.

Ollama route ↗