The key is free.
Here is exactly how to get one.
IDATHA Learn answers using a model key that belongs to you. That is why it costs nothing — not a trial, not a discount. Two services do this well: Groq and OpenRouter. Both are free to start, neither needs a card, and either takes about five minutes. If a site ever asks you for card details for a free key, stop and tell us — you are on the wrong screen.
Everything on this page was checked against the providers' own documentation on 25 October 2026. Free tiers change; if a number here looks wrong, the provider's page is right and this one is out of date.
Why a key at all?
Every answer costs a fraction of a cent to compute, and somebody has to pay it. We do not want that somebody to be a family in Kathu, so we do the opposite of most "free" products: the key is yours. The bill lands with a company that has a free tier built for exactly this, you can see your own usage, and you can revoke the key at any moment without asking us. It also means we never have a reason to meter you, slow you down or upsell you.
Free tiers are small on purpose. A learner asking twenty questions a day will never notice. A whole classroom sharing one key will hit the ceiling by ten in the morning — which is why the next section says one key per learner.
Option 1 — Groq Recommended
Groq is the fastest of the free options and the simplest to set up. It needs no card.
1. Open the console
Go to console.groq.com in a browser. On a phone this works, but a laptop is easier.
2. Sign in
Use "Continue with Google" if you have a Google account, or sign up with an email address. No card is asked for.
3. Create a key
In the left menu choose API Keys, then Create API Key. Name it IDATHA Learn so you remember what it is for.
4. Copy it once
The key appears one time only and starts with gsk_. Copy the whole thing. If you lose it, delete it and make another — that is normal and costs nothing.
5. Send it to your agent
Open @IDATHALearnBot in Telegram and paste the key as a message. It is stored locked on our side and never shown back to you or to anyone else.
What you get on the free plan (Groq's published limits, per model, on the free tier): about 30 requests a minute, 1,000 requests a day, and 8,000 tokens a minute. In plain terms: a learner can ask all day and not come close.
Option 2 — OpenRouter
OpenRouter is one key in front of many models, several of which are free. Choose this if you want to be able to switch model later without making a new key.
1. Open the site
Go to openrouter.ai and sign in with Google, GitHub or an email address.
2. Make a key
Open Keys in the menu, choose Create Key, name it IDATHA Learn. Set a credit limit of zero if it offers you one — free models do not need credit.
3. Copy it
The key starts with sk-or-. Copy the whole string.
4. Send it to your agent
Paste it into @IDATHALearnBot as a message, exactly as you did above.
What you get (OpenRouter's published free-model limits): 20 requests a minute, and 50 requests a day on an account that has never bought credit. If you ever put $10 of credit on the account the daily ceiling rises to 1,000 — but nothing here requires you to buy anything, and the key works the same without it.
Free models are the ones whose name ends in
:free — for example a Qwen or Llama variant. If the agent says the model is not
available, the free list has changed; tell us and we will point the bot at a current one.
Also free, if you want a third
Google — Gemini
Make a key at aistudio.google.com/apikey. The free tier is generous and Gemini is unusually good at South African languages, which matters here. The very newest models are paid-only, so choose a current free model when asked.
Cloudflare Workers AI
A free allowance of 10,000 neurons a day on the Workers free plan, which in practice is a few thousand short answers. More fiddly to set up than the two above, and best for someone already using Cloudflare.
Two honest warnings. Cerebras looks free but is a trial credit — it runs out and does not refill, so we do not recommend it for a child who will use this for a year. And several "free model" sites are simply someone else's key resold: if a service does not have its own sign-up page, do not put a child's questions through it.
Keeping the key safe
A key is a password. It can spend money on the account it belongs to — yours, not ours — so treat it the way you would treat a bank PIN.
- Send it in a private chat, never a group
- One key per learner
- Never post it on social media
- Delete and remake if you lose your phone
- Revoke at the provider any time
If a key ever leaks, go to the provider's API Keys page and delete it. The bot will stop answering until you paste a new one, which takes a minute. Nothing about the learner's history, marks or progress is lost — that lives with the account, not the key.
Questions people actually ask
Do I need a card?
No. Groq and OpenRouter both issue free keys without one, and the Gemini free tier does not need billing switched on. If a screen demands card details for a "free" key, close it and tell us.
What happens when the free limit runs out?
The agent says so plainly instead of going silent — it will tell you it is rate-limited and to try again shortly. The daily allowance resets at midnight.
Can my child's whole class share one key?
Please don't. The free ceiling is per account, so thirty children on one key will throttle each other within an hour. One key per learner is free anyway.
Can I stop it later?
Yes, two ways, both yours: delete the key at the provider, or tell the bot to forget it. Deleting the key is the harder stop — it works immediately and does not depend on us.
Which do you recommend?
Groq for almost everyone: fastest, fewest steps, 1,000 questions a day. OpenRouter if you want to try different models later.
Do you take a cut?
No. Nothing flows through us and we cannot see your usage or your bill. That is the point of you holding the key.
Ready when you are
Paste your key into the bot and the first lesson can start straight away.
Free, and always free to a learner. A service by IDATHA AI.