# What free AI agent tiers include

Canonical URL: https://industrycontents.com/guides/free-ai-agents/
Language: en-GB
Published: 2026-10-12
Structure updated: 2026-10-25

> Dated article snapshot. Canonical web page may receive later updates. Vendor figures retain their stated source-check dates. Illustrations are not product benchmarks.

Published: 2026-10-12 · Structure updated: 2026-10-25. Vendor prices and source checks retain the dates stated below.

## Quick answer

Free AI-agent offers can mean ongoing usage, expiring trial credits or free capacity such as concurrent calls. Match the allowance, renewal window and required controls to the workload before treating a free offer as a production budget.

## Key terms

**Free tier**: Free tier is an ongoing plan with defined allowances and restrictions.

**Trial credits**: Trial credits is a limited promotional usage balance that may expire.

**Capacity allowance**: Capacity allowance is a limit such as seats or concurrent calls that does not necessarily include usage charges.

IC Guides · AI Agents · Start here

Documentation researchedNo hands-on testTracker data as of 11 October 2026

## What free looks like in the tracker

The free offers in the tracker include different types of usage and capacity; they cannot be compared as one shared unit.

| Provider | Free allowance | What it does not tell you |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Zapier | 400 activities a month on the Agents plan | Activities are separate from Zap tasks. Zapier is moving Agents to AI by Zapier, so confirm eligibility. |
| CrewAI | 50 executions | Production scale is custom enterprise pricing. |
| Delos | A free Office Suite plan | It is a separate offer. Do not read it as a price for Delos Workers. |
| Yellow.ai | 500 sessions free | Sessions and paid resolutions are different units, so free sessions are not deducted from resolutions. |
| Retell AI | 20 concurrent calls free | Per minute usage is still billed. |

Caption: Free allowances recorded in the tracker and the production costs or limits those allowances do not establish.

## More free and trial limits, read from vendor pages on 12 October 2026

| Provider | What the vendor offers | Catch |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Retell AI | $10 in free credits, 20 concurrent calls free, no platform fee | Voice minutes are billed from the first minute at $0.07 to $0.31 |
| Vapi | $5 in free credits, 4 concurrent calls, 1 phone number, 14 days of data retention | Hosting is prepaid at $0.05 a minute, and models and voice are extra |
| Lindy | $50 in credits, no card, credits last 7 days | Paid Team seats start at $29.99 a month for 3,000 credits each, rechecked 25 October 2026, billed from the first day for direct sign ups |
| n8n | Free trial with Pro level features, including 1,000 executions, 5 concurrent, 180 second timeout, 800 Assistant credits | Trial limits are well below Starter’s 2,500 executions. The free Community Edition is self hosted. |
| Gumloop | 14 day trial of Pro | Pro is from $37 a month with 20,000 credits and an 8% orchestration fee |
| UiPath | Community plan, free forever. A 60 day Standard trial. | Production agent entitlement and units are quoted |
| Manus | 300 daily refresh credits on the free plan, 1 concurrent task | Per the Manus help center, daily credits work only with the Lite model and free users are capped at 1,500 a month |

Caption: Free credits and trial conditions described on the reviewed pricing pages, alongside their main limitations.

A free allowance only helps if it counts the same unit as the paid plan. Retell's 20 free concurrent calls are a capacity allowance, not a usage allowance, so you still pay per minute. Lindy's $50 expires in 7 days, which at the Team rate equates to 5,000 credits, our inference. Run your real task inside the window and record what it used.

## What to look for

Check the unit the allowance is counted in, and whether it matches the unit you will pay for later. Check whether the allowance resets monthly or runs out once, which features are locked (such as limits on users or playbooks) and what the first paid step costs.

## Where free misleads you

A free allowance does not establish the cost or suitability of the full production workload.

Free tiers are sized for a demo. Fifty executions might cover a low-frequency task, but not a workflow triggered hundreds of times a day. Match the allowance to the frequency and billed events. The risk is building a workflow on the free plan and then meeting a price you did not plan for.

## Plan the test window

Write the acceptance test before starting expiring credits. Have source files, credentials and sample inputs ready. Spend the allowance on the same normal and failure cases you will compare elsewhere, rather than using half of it to explore unrelated features.

A free allowance also has an opportunity cost. If setup takes six hours at an assumed $50, the trial consumes $300 of staff time before subscription fees. That does not make the trial bad; it makes a second unnecessary rebuild expensive.

### Translate to production

With invented usage of five units per task and 400 free units, the mathematical ceiling is 80 attempts. If 20% need a full retry, 60 tasks would consume 360 units under that assumption. Feature limits, expiry and model restrictions can reduce the usable capacity further. Check whether the free and paid products even count the same unit.

## Price the missing controls

List the permissions, logs, retention, support and concurrency needed for your deployment. Price the lowest tier that supplies those, even if the free tier has enough units. Conversely, do not buy an enterprise package merely because a narrow, non-sensitive test exceeds a free allowance.

Compare one-time credits, recurring allowances, free seats and free concurrency in separate columns. A capacity entitlement such as concurrent calls does not pay for minutes. A self-hosted licence does not pay for the server or the person maintaining it.

## Questions to ask before you build on a free tier

- What is the first paid plan, and what does it include?

- Can I export my work if I leave?

- What happens at the free limit, whether throttling, a hard stop or overage?

- Is the free plan available in the future, or only for new customers?

See each row in the [AI Agent Pricing Tracker](https://industrycontents.com/ic-lab/ai-agent-pricing-tracker/). Start with the [pillar guide](https://industrycontents.com/guides/which-ai-agent-what-it-costs/).

On method, allowances come from public rates recorded in the IC tracker. We did not test the products. Prices change, so check each row's date. [Send a correction](https://industrycontents.com/ic-lab/ai-agent-pricing-tracker/#add-your-company).

IC Lab · AI Agent Pricing Tracker

Vendor prices change. The tracker records when.

Every entry links to the vendor's pricing page and shows the date we checked it. [Open the tracker](/ic-lab/ai-agent-pricing-tracker/), or get major pricing changes by email every Friday in TalkHead.

**Related guides** [AI agent glossary](/guides/ai-agent-glossary/) · [Lindy pricing](/guides/lindy-pricing-seats-credits/) · [Manus alternatives](/guides/manus-alternatives-cost/) · [Claude Code usage limits](/guides/claude-code-usage-limits/) · [Which AI agent, and what it costs](/guides/which-ai-agent-what-it-costs/) · [AI Agent Pricing Tracker](/ic-lab/ai-agent-pricing-tracker/) · [All AI agent guides](/guides/)

## What can you accomplish on a free AI agent plan?

A free plan can be useful for testing a narrow workflow, such as drafting a simple automation, making a short voice call or running a limited set of agent tasks. It is less reliable as a production budget because trials can expire, allowances can reset differently, and model or infrastructure charges may sit outside the offer. Before connecting business data, check access controls and retention terms, not only the price.

## When does upgrading make sense?

Measure one repeatable task during the trial. Record the number of attempts, credits or minutes consumed, and whether a person had to finish the work. Upgrade only after estimating the cost of the same workload over a full month. If a free plan lacks essential audit logs, permissions or data controls, price the appropriate paid tier before deployment.

## Frequently asked questions

### Are free AI agents really free?

Some offer ongoing allowances; others provide time-limited trial credits. Free concurrency or seats do not necessarily include free usage. Read the billing unit and expiry rules together.

### Can I run a business process on a free plan?

Use a free tier to validate a process, not as evidence that the full production workload will be covered. Check capacity, reliability, data handling and the cost of additional usage.

### What happens when the free credits run out?

Depending on the provider, work may pause, require a paid upgrade or continue with paid usage. Check the specific plan terms before enabling automatic charges.

## Read beyond this guide

**[Why AI workers challenge the per-seat SaaS model](https://industrycontents.com/ai-agents-breaking-saas-user-definition/)** Read the business analysis behind this implementation decision. **[See the wider AI agent pricing comparisons](https://industrycontents.com/ic-lab/compare/)** Compare billing units and vendor documentation before choosing.