> Ollama
Ollama (ollama.com) is primarily a local runtime for open models - the ollama.com pricing page lists a Free plan at $0 whose first feature is "Run models locally" and states plainly that "Local models are always free" - and it also operates a cloud API for models too large for local hardware. The cloud side is priced per million tokens with a published table (for example gpt-oss:20b at $0.07 input / $0.30 output, gemma4 at $0.14 / $0.40, deepseek-v4.1-flash at $0.15 / $0.60 and kimi-k3 at $3.00 / $15.00), with higher peak pricing between 12:00 and 18:00 UTC Monday to Friday. Paid plans bundle usage credits: Pro is $20/mo including $60 of usage, Max is $100/mo including $300, and Team is $500/mo including $1,000 of shared credits, while Free accounts receive a starter amount of usage on a smaller set of starter models and can add credits to unlock all models.
// pros
- The local runtime path is free without any account or credit: "Local models are always free", and the download is available directly from ollama.com/download.
- The Free plan is explicit about no hidden charges: $0 with run models locally, starter usage credits included, access to starter models, and "No service fees".
- Fully published per-token cloud pricing with cached-input rates (for example gpt-oss:20b $0.07/$0.035 cached/$0.30, gemma4 $0.14/$0.05/$0.40), so cost can be modelled before use.
- Strong published privacy posture: prompts and responses are never logged or trained on, models are hosted primarily in the US with routing to Europe and Singapore, and hosting partners (NVIDIA Cloud Providers) are required to accept no-logging, no-training and zero-retention policies.
- Open source under github.com/ollama/ollama with broad tool integrations (Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode, VS Code, n8n), so agent workflows can be pointed at local or cloud models without changing tools.
// cons
- The Free plan's cloud allowance is not quantified: the pricing page says only "Starter usage credits included" and "starter models", with no dollar or token figure, and no rollover - included usage resets monthly and unused included usage does not carry over.
- Free accounts are limited to 1 concurrent request (Pro 3, Max and Team 10), and requests beyond the concurrency limit are queued or rejected if the queue fills.
- Peak pricing roughly doubles certain models between 12:00 and 18:00 UTC Monday to Friday (for example deepseek-v4.1-flash moves from $0.15/$0.60 to $0.30/$1.20).
- Cloud model choice is a defined list rather than an open catalog, and larger models require adding credits or a paid plan - it is not a free frontier-model endpoint.
- The cloud API is an account-bound service with one account per person, so it cannot be shared or pooled across a team without moving to the $500/mo Team plan.
Ollama's strongest free option is running models on your own hardware, which is free by architecture and removes per-token billing and provider data exposure entirely; use the cloud API only for models that will not fit locally. Pair a local Ollama instance with a paid frontier provider for tasks that exceed local model capability, and use the published per-token table plus off-peak timing if you rely on the cloud for routine agent work.
written by Mike Fleming, Uprouter editorial · verified against official sources September 16, 2026
Free tier present — value not quantified
This provider offers a free tier, but its terms don’t convert cleanly into a USD figure (e.g. request-count limits or capacity-dependent pools). We refuse to print a misleading zero here. See the note below and the official pricing page for the exact limits.
note: No free tier stated on official pages (checked 2026-09-16): the Ollama Free plan lists "Starter usage credits included" and "Includes access to starter models" at $0, but no dollar or token amount is published; local model usage is stated to be always free.
| Plan | Type | Monthly | Input /1M | Output /1M | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free tier (source-reported) | free | — | — | — | Free $0: light usage, 1 concurrent cloud model; session limits reset every 5h and weekly limits every 7 days; users measured roughly 250k tokens of input before it pauses. Pro $20/mo (3 concurrent, ~50x more), Max $100/mo (10 concurrent). |
| Free Tier | free | — | — | — | Limited trial access to cloud models. |
| Starter | subscription | $7.00/mo | — | — | Low-cost entry tier for individual developers. |
| Free account tier | free | — | — | — | Web search + web fetch included with free Ollama account/API key; generous individual-use limits (exact quota unpublished); max 10 results per query. |
| Ollama Cloud (higher rate limits) | subscription | — | — | — | Ollama subscription unlocks much higher search rate limits for production; no public pricing page found. |
Pricing normalized from public sources — always verify with the provider.
// model prices
| Model | Input /1M | Output /1M | Context |
|---|---|---|---|
| deepseek-v3.1:671b-cloud | — | — | — |
| gpt-oss-120b | — | — | 131k |
| gpt-oss:20b | — | — | 131k |
| Qwen3 Coder | — | — | 262k |
$ Does Ollama have a free tier?
Yes — Ollama offers a free tier. Always confirm current limits on Ollama's official pricing page — free tiers change without notice.
$ How much does Ollama cost per 1M tokens?
Ollama does not publish simple per-1M-token pricing (it may bill per request, per output, or via a subscription plan). Check their official pricing page for exact figures.
$ Is Ollama safe to use?
Uprouter rates Ollama as low risk. Risk is low. The local runtime is open source, requires no account and cannot be discontinued by a vendor decision, and the company behind the cloud service is well capitalised and public about itself - its blog states it serves 8.9 million developers and raised $88M from Benchmark, Theory Ventures, 8VC and Y Combinator, while the homepage cites more than 9M developers. The cloud service publishes exact per-token rates and its privacy FAQ states that prompt or response data is never logged or trained on and that hosting partners must accept no-logging, no-training and zero-retention terms. The residual exposures are billing and capacity rather than operator trust: the Free plan allowance is unquantified, included usage does not roll over, peak-hour pricing is higher, and free accounts are capped at one concurrent request. Risk ratings are editorial, evidence-based, and never influenced by affiliate relationships.
Raw community sentiment, shown unblended. Votes never feed into objective data fields like price, risk, or status — and never into sort order.
No published reviews yet — be the first.
// more_informationprice history · live status · risk & confidence · code snippets
price_history
No recorded changes yet.
live_status
full history →best-effort probes · not a guarantee · last 15h ago
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Uprouter runs its own probes; best-effort, not a guarantee. Probe results depend on our network location and cadence — for production, always use the provider’s own status page.
risk_&_confidence
Risk is low. The local runtime is open source, requires no account and cannot be discontinued by a vendor decision, and the company behind the cloud service is well capitalised and public about itself - its blog states it serves 8.9 million developers and raised $88M from Benchmark, Theory Ventures, 8VC and Y Combinator, while the homepage cites more than 9M developers. The cloud service publishes exact per-token rates and its privacy FAQ states that prompt or response data is never logged or trained on and that hosting partners must accept no-logging, no-training and zero-retention terms. The residual exposures are billing and capacity rather than operator trust: the Free plan allowance is unquantified, included usage does not roll over, peak-hour pricing is higher, and free accounts are capped at one concurrent request.
Confidence reflects how much verifiable evidence (official docs, probe history, community reports) backs this entry. Risk is our editorial assessment of operator reliability and terms — not financial advice.
code_snippets
# Ollama's own API — get a key from their dashboard
curl https://YOUR-PROVIDER-ENDPOINT/chat/completions \
-H "Authorization: Bearer THEIR_API_KEY" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{
"model": "deepseek-v3-1-671b-cloud",
"messages": [{ "role": "user", "content": "Hello" }]
}'Direct to the provider — Uprouter receives nothing; verify their current pricing before purchasing.
Ranked by neutral similarity signals only — live status, free-tier shape and free-credit proximity. Commercial relationships never influence this list.