Free (rate-limited)
ERNIE 5.5 Flash Preview is free on OpenRouter and Kilo Code
ERNIE 5.5 Flash Preview is free for a limited time on OpenRouter and Kilo Code, with about 1 million tokens of context
Baidu’s ERNIE 5.5 Flash Preview now has free routes on OpenRouter and Kilo Code, with no charge for input or output. It is a post-trained preview of the ERNIE 5.5 Flash base model, with about 280 billion total parameters, 14 billion active per token, and about 1 million tokens of context. It is a good fit for coding, 3D modeling, knowledge work, and content creation in an agent harness. The OpenRouter free endpoint is rate-limited, and no end date has been announced. On Baidu’s Qianfan platform the model is pay-per-use: during the promotional peak window (8:00–22:00 Beijing time), it costs ¥1 per million input tokens and ¥4 per million output tokens, with off-peak rates at half that; the international list price is $0.28 per million input tokens and $1.13 per million output tokens.
- Eligibility
- An OpenRouter or Kilo Code account can call the matching free route. The free routes are rate-limited, and prompts and outputs may be used to improve the model.
- Benefit duration
- Free for a limited time; no end date has been announced
The briefing
Baidu’s ERNIE 5.5 Flash Preview now has free routes on OpenRouter and Kilo Code, with no charge for input or output. It is a post-trained preview built on the ERNIE 5.5 Flash base model, with about 280 billion total parameters, 14 billion active per token, and about 1 million tokens of context. It is a good fit for coding, 3D modeling, knowledge work, and content creation in an agent harness, and it currently accepts text input only.
What you get
The model ID on both OpenRouter and Kilo Code is baidu/ernie-5.5-flash-preview:free. It has about 1 million tokens of context, a completion cap of about 921,000 tokens, and support for tool use. Reasoning is on by default, and only the high effort setting is available. The OpenRouter free endpoint allows up to 20 requests per minute. Accounts that have purchased fewer than 10 Credits get up to 50 requests per day; after at least 10 Credits have been purchased, the daily cap rises to 1,000.
No end date has been announced. Prompts and outputs on the free routes may be used to improve the model. This is not an official credit grant: Qianfan’s own API is pay-per-use. During the promotional peak window (8:00–22:00 Beijing time) it costs ¥1 per million input tokens and ¥4 per million output tokens, with off-peak rates at half that. The international list price is $0.28 per million input tokens and $1.13 per million output tokens.
How to use it
- Create an OpenRouter API key, set the Base URL to
https://openrouter.ai/api/v1, and use the model namebaidu/ernie-5.5-flash-preview:free. - In Kilo Code, select the model
baidu/ernie-5.5-flash-preview:free.
See the OpenRouter model page, the OpenRouter free-endpoint limits, the Kilo model catalog, and the ERNIE 5.5 Flash Preview release page.
