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There is no shortage of "free AI chatbot" lists. What they leave out is where free actually stops. One service hands you its top model; another gives you a smaller thing wearing the same name. Some never say how many messages a day you get at all.

So on 4 August 2026 we opened each service's own pricing and help pages and read the free tier off them. One thing became obvious while checking: a surprising number of companies don't publish their free limits. Where that's true, the round numbers you see in blog posts ("20 messages a day") disagree with each other and cite nothing. Rather than copy one, this list says not published — which is itself the useful fact.

Pick by what you're doing

• Long documents — Claude. The free tier gets the full 200k-token window.
• Start with no new account — Gemini. A Google account is the whole signup.
• Switch between models — HuggingChat. 130 open-source models to choose from.
• Answers with sources — Perplexity. Basic search is unlimited.
• Maths and coding reasoning — DeepSeek.
• Lowest barrier to just try something — Gemini or Copilot.

At a glance

"Limit published" is about predictability, not quality. A "no" doesn't mean you can't use it free — it means the company won't tell you when you'll hit the wall.

The List

1. Claude (free, account required) — The free account reaches the same model family as paid, Opus and Sonnet included, with a 200k-token context window. Unusually, the pricing page states the free allowance in relation to paid — "50% of weekly limits" — rather than hiding it. Web search, memory across conversations, file creation and code execution are all in the free tier. Voice mode is paid.
2. Google Gemini (free, Google account) — Free covers the Flash model with some Pro access, image generation and editing, Deep Research, live conversation, Canvas and Gems. Paid tiers are described only as multipliers — "2x", "4x", "20x higher usage limits" — never as absolute numbers. If you already have a Google account, there is no signup step at all.
3. HuggingChat (free, no paid tier) — Pick from 130 open-source models, or let Omni route each question to a suitable one. There is no paid tier to upsell you to, which makes "the limits of free" a different question here than everywhere else on this list.
4. DeepSeek (free, account required) — Reasoning-focused models at no cost. But the company publishes no per-user limit. The word "unlimited" comes from third-party write-ups, not from DeepSeek's own documentation. Sign-in by email or Google is required.
5. ChatGPT (free, account required) — The most specific about what its free tier withholds: a 27K context window (about 12 pages of input), with messages, uploads, image generation, deep research and memory all marked "limited". Paid is A$13 (Go), A$30 (Plus), A$155 (Pro) a month. Measured purely on what free gives you it is not generous here — but it is the clearest about what is being limited.
6. Perplexity (free, unlimited basic search) — A search-shaped chatbot that cites its sources. Basic search is unlimited; the advanced Pro Search is capped per day. That cap is not stated on the pages we could open — third-party guides converge on five a day, but we could not confirm it at the source.
7. Grok (free, limit not published) — Text chat is free on grok.com and in X, with no card and no Premium subscription. xAI publishes no free-tier message cap. Third-party guides variously claim 20, 25–50, and 50 a day, which is reason enough to trust none of them; the only accurate number is the one under Settings → Usage in your own account. Image generation became paid in March 2026.
8. Microsoft Copilot (free, scope unclear) — Free in the browser and app, and built into Windows and Edge. This was the hardest free tier to pin down: after an April 2026 change to the limits inside the Office apps, the official pages don't state a daily or monthly quota, and sources disagree on what the free plan still covers.

One more, off the ranking: Hugging Face Spaces isn't a chatbot but a directory of free AI tools — background removal, speech-to-text and thousands more, running in the browser with nothing to install.

Keep the list on your own board

Save all eight (plus Spaces) to your board in one go, and pull it up when you need it — so next time you're trying to remember which one did the thing, you're not searching again.

FAQ

What is the ranking based on?

First, how much you get without paying; second, whether the company publishes those conditions. The top of the list opens real models or core features to free users and documents the boundary. The bottom is usable for free but leaves you guessing. This is not a performance ranking — we did not put the same prompt to all eight and score the answers.

Why eight?

Because eight had free terms we could actually verify. Hugging Face Spaces is a tool directory rather than a chatbot, so it sits outside the ranking rather than padding it to a rounder number.

What does "limit not published" mean?

That we could not find a number — messages per day, queries per month — on the company's own pricing or help pages. Numbers circulate in blog posts, but they are uncited and disagree with each other. This list does not repeat a figure it could not source.

How current is this?

Read from each service's own pricing and help pages on 4 August 2026. This category changes every few weeks — check the page before you commit to anything.

What is the board?

This list exists as a real, public SaveBoard board, so reading it and keeping it are the same action. Open it as-is, or copy it into your own account and add the tools you actually use.