Built for Hermes · OpenClaw · Any OpenRouter-compatible agent

Route to the best free model. Fall back only when needed.

OptiSift plugs directly into Hermes, OpenClaw, and any OpenRouter-compatible agent. It tries every free model first, enforces a hard monthly spend cap, and only touches paid tiers when free ones fail — one env var to wire it up.

Start routing freeView on GitHub
400+ free models tracked4 providers · 15 min cadence$0 for free-tier hitsHard monthly spend caps

Fast, code-specialized free models first

Routes to Groq Llama and DeepSeek Coder free tiers — both optimized for instruction-following and code generation at zero cost.

OpenRouterDeepSeekGroqQwenMistralGeminiTogetherAnthropicOpenAIGROQ / LLAMAFREE TIERBUDGET TIERPAID FALLBACKBEST MATCH

Routing through providers

OpenRouterDeepSeekGroqTogetherMistralGeminiAnthropicOpenAI

The complete routing stack

Everything you need to run free-first LLM routing in production.

Without babysitting model availability, managing spend, or writing fallback logic yourself.

Policy chain executor

Core

Ordered tier waterfall: free → floor → paid. Advances on 429, 403, 5xx, timeout, or empty stream. Up to 3 failover attempts per request.

Streaming SSE passthrough

Core

Full text/event-stream proxy with mid-stream failure detection. If a free model drops the stream early, OptiSift retries the next tier without the client disconnecting.

Hard spend caps

Cost

Per-key and per-org monthly USD limits checked before any paid tier. Never silently overspend. Free models are always uncapped regardless of the limit.

Model health tracking

Consecutive failures put a model in a cooldown window. The routing engine skips unhealthy providers without DB round-trips — in-memory, process-local, auto-recovering.

Request logs & spend ledger

Every request logged: model used, tier, fallback chain, tokens, estimated cost, latency. Query /admin/spend or check the dashboard.

BYOK support

Attach your own Anthropic, OpenAI, or Groq keys per policy. Paid calls route through your provider accounts — no OpenRouter markup on direct calls.

OpenAI-compatible drop-in

Drop-in

POST /v1/chat/completions speaks the exact same schema. Change OPENAI_BASE_URL and the default model slug — that's the entire client change required.

5 routing modes

cheapest · balanced · quality · fastest · free_only. Set per-request via the virtual model slug or baked into the policy chain config.

Model change alerts

OptiSift probes 400+ free models every 15 minutes. Get notified by email when a free model goes paid, dies, or a new one appears.

Pricing

Free to watch. $9/mo to never worry.

Watch

Public dashboard, 3 alert subscriptions, weekly digest.
  • Live status for 377+ models
  • Heatmap & funnel views
  • 3 alert subscriptions
  • 7-day status history
  • Live status dashboard
  • 3 model alert subscriptions
  • Weekly status digest email
  • Public vertical rankings

Pro

For builders who ship on free models.
  • Everything in Watch
  • Unlimited alert subscriptions (email, webhook, Slack)
  • Failover proxy with auto-routing
  • 100 failover saves per month
  • 30-day ranking history
  • 7-day free trial
  • Unlimited alert subscriptions
  • Failover proxy with auto-switching
  • 100 model saves/mo
  • Full status history & export
  • Priority support
7 days free trial
$9.00/monthGet started
Recommended

Team

Multi-key management and full API access for agencies and engineering teams.
  • Everything in Pro
  • Up to 10 API keys
  • 500 failover saves per month
  • All vertical rankings + full history
  • Leaderboard API access
  • CSV export & priority support
7 days free trial
$29.00/monthGet started

Founding Member

Pay once, use forever. Lock in Team features for life — only 100 seats.
  • Lifetime Team features — no monthly fee
  • 1,000 failover saves on signup
  • Name in product credits
  • Locked-in pricing, forever
  • Influence the roadmap

Frequently asked questions

Everything you need to know about OptiSift and free-tier LLM tracking.

Stay in the loop

Weekly digest of free-model status changes, new additions, and ranking shifts.