Pollinations
Verified Oct 16, 2026 ActiveOpen-source API for generating images, text, audio, video and embeddings, with a free keyless tier and paid credits
Listed on EffectHub ·
Pricing
- Pricing model
- Freemium
The keyless free API is limited per IP (one image every 45 seconds, one text answer every 30 seconds), uses one image model and adds a logo; beyond that it returns 402 and offers $0.01 per request via an x402 wallet. Keyed access is pay-as-you-go in Pollen credits priced per model, with free Pollen from quests; no plan price is listed.
Use tool ↗About Pollinations
Pollinations serves image, text, audio, video, 3D and embedding generation through one OpenAI-compatible API, a command-line tool and an MCP server for agents. A legacy free API needs no signup: putting a prompt in a URL returns an image or a text answer, rate-limited per IP and with a small logo on images. With an API key, every model is available without per-IP limits and usage is paid in Pollen credits, which can be bought or earned by completing open-source quests; apps can also let each user spend their own Pollen. The code is MIT-licensed on GitHub.
- Platforms
- Web · API
- API
- Yes
- Last verified
- Oct 16, 2026
Verified sources
- Free API Classic docs: no signup, one image per 45 seconds and one text answer per 30 seconds per IP, logo on images, $0.01 per request via x402 beyond the limit, and keys with free Pollen from quests for full access (15 October 2026)raw.githubusercontent.com ↗
- API guide describes OpenAI-compatible text, image, audio, video and embedding endpoints, key types, Pollen balance and per-model pricing (15 October 2026)gen.pollinations.ai ↗
- Developer index lists the API, CLI, MCP server catalog and Pollen balance pages (15 October 2026)gen.pollinations.ai ↗
Is Pollinations legit?
We don’t label tools safe or unsafe. Below are the records we checked ourselves, each with the date we read it.
- Domain registered
- Apr 29, 2021 (5 years ago)Registry record (RDAP), registrar NameCheap, Inc., looked up Sep 6, 2026
- TLS certificate
- Issued by Google Trust Services, valid until Jan 11, 2027Seen in our own connection to the site on Oct 16, 2026
- Last checked
- Oct 16, 2026The site answered
- Operated by
- Pollinations, GermanyOur research, card verified Oct 15, 2026
Pros & cons of Pollinations
The cheapest way to bolt generation onto a hobby project, a Discord bot or a classroom demo — a URL is the entire SDK, no key required to start. Do not put anything with an uptime promise on top of it.
Pros
- endpoints are plain GET URLs, callable from any language or a no-code tool
- covers image, text, speech, video, 3D and embeddings from one origin
- MIT licence and a public repository, so the exit path is real
- an MCP server exposes generation directly to Claude and similar assistants
Cons
- the anonymous free API allows one image every 45 seconds and one text answer every 30 seconds per IP
- free-API images carry a small Pollinations logo and use a single model
- support is GitHub issues and Discord, not a company inbox
- the model roster shifts, so outputs are not reproducible over time
Best for
- prototypes and bots that need image or text generation without a billing setup
- teaching and demo work where API-key plumbing gets in the way
- developers who want MIT-licensed code they could self-host if the service vanishes
Not for
- production products needing SLAs, guaranteed rates or a support contact
- regulated work requiring data-processing agreements
Watch out: The no-signup API is rate-limited per IP and watermarks images; anything beyond a demo needs an API key and Pollen credit, and the docs promise no uptime.
Alternatives to Pollinations
Pollinations head-to-head
Side-by-side fact sheets against the competitors our research or their makers name — pricing, platforms, API and both verdicts on one page.
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