Your AI reviewer just spent 40,000 tokens on one pull request. Who pays for that?
Most teams never ask. Then the invoice lands. Then the panic starts.
I test free model servers constantly. I read rate-limit headers. I count silent failures. I watch streams stall at minute three.
MonkeyCode is an open-source project with a free tier. It offers free model access and a free server option. The current allowance is 10 million tokens as of August 2026. Disclosure: This article was prepared as part of MonkeyCode's product outreach.
I did not find magic. I found trade-offs. Here is the FAQ I wish someone had written for me.
