About sponsored/tokens
sponsored/tokens works like an ad-supported inference pool for coding agents. Sponsors put money into a shared pool, developers sign in, get an API key and point their coding agent at the pool to use models without charge, and each session names the payer. Sponsor names appear on the pool map, on developers' account pages and as a final line at the end of a task, linking to the sponsor's site and noting what the session cost them.
When the pool runs dry, developers can continue with their own credits or bring their own provider keys, which are tried after the pool and the balance. Image, speech and music models are reachable by adding a +image, +audio or +music suffix to the model name. The site states that prompts are not retained or used for training, that it uses standard APIs without lock-in, publishes open prices, screens every sponsor and is operated by a European company under GDPR. A launch promo gives sponsors bonus multipliers on their own top-ups.
Key features
- Free token pool for coding agents
- Sponsor names shown at the end of each session
- Fallback to your own credits or provider keys
- Image, audio and music models via model id suffixes
- No prompt retention and no training on prompts
- Standard APIs with open prices
Good fit for
- Running a coding agent without paying for tokens
- Sponsoring developer tools to reach agent users
- Mixing pooled tokens with your own API keys
sponsored/tokens: questions and answers
- What is sponsored/tokens used for?
- sponsored/tokens is a shared supply of free AI model tokens for coding agents, paid for by sponsors whose names appear in each developer's session. It is a good fit for running a coding agent without paying for tokens, sponsoring developer tools to reach agent users and mixing pooled tokens with your own API keys.
- Is sponsored/tokens free?
- Yes. sponsored/tokens is free to use. Free for developers while the sponsored pool lasts; after that, use your own credits or provider keys. Sponsors pay into the pool, with a launch promo of 1.5x on balance top-ups after a $20 sponsorship.
- Is sponsored/tokens open source?
- No. sponsored/tokens is proprietary (closed-source) software and can't be self-hosted. In the AI Infrastructure category, open-source options include Ollama, llama.cpp and vLLM.
- What are some alternatives to sponsored/tokens?
- sponsored/tokens competes with OpenRouter and Together AI.
Open-source alternatives to sponsored/tokens
See all
Ollama
AI Infrastructure
Get up and running with Kimi, GLM, MiniMax, DeepSeek, gpt-oss, Qwen, Gemma and other model
MITvs ChatGPT★ 182k
llama.cpp
AI Infrastructure
LLM inference in C/C++
MITvs OpenAI API Platform★ 130k
vLLM
AI Infrastructure
A high-throughput and memory-efficient inference and serving engine for LLMs
Apache-2.0vs Amazon Bedrock★ 93k
PrivateGPT
AI Infrastructure
Complete API layer for private AI applications on local models: RAG, skills, tools, MCP, t
Apache-2.0vs ChatGPT★ 58k
SGLang
AI Infrastructure
SGLang is a high-performance serving framework for large language models and multimodal mo
Apache-2.0vs Amazon Bedrock★ 37k
MLC LLM
AI Infrastructure
Universal LLM Deployment Engine with ML Compilation
Apache-2.0★ 23k
SaaS alternatives to sponsored/tokens
See all
OpenRouter
AI Infrastructure
Unified API gateway for accessing many large language models from one endpoint
SaaS
Together AI
AI Infrastructure
Cloud platform for running, fine-tuning and training open and custom AI models
SaaS
api-hub.ai
AI Infrastructure
Single API for accessing many AI models behind one endpoint
SaaSAudn Corporation
AI Infrastructure
OpenAI-compatible LLM API aimed at red teaming and security testing, billed from prepaid credits
SaaS
DeepInfra
AI Infrastructure
Pay-per-use API for running open-source AI models
SaaS
Fireworks AI
AI Infrastructure
Inference platform for running and fine-tuning generative AI models at low latency
SaaS

