---
title: "Jina Search Foundation API free inference"
description: "10M tokens for new accounts; it does not recur. See verified limits, model IDs, privacy terms, and primary sources for Jina Search Foundation API."
canonical_url: "https://freeinferencing.com/provider/jina_ai_search_foundation/"
md_url: "https://freeinferencing.com/provider/jina_ai_search_foundation.md"
last_updated: "2026-09-19"
---

# Jina Search Foundation API

> 10M tokens for new accounts; it does not recur.

## Classification

- **Directory:** Current
- **Free access:** One-time trial
- **Status:** Current trial
- **Confidence:** High
- **Payment card:** No
- **Account:** Required
- **Equivalent paid value:** Up to $0.50 once
- **API endpoint:** `https://api.jina.ai/v1`

## Models mentioned

No stable model IDs were recorded in this snapshot.

## Limits and terms

```yaml
signup_tokens: 10000000
recurrence: false
free_token_expiry: not_documented
conservative_embedding_and_rerank_requests_per_minute: 100
conservative_embedding_and_rerank_tokens_per_minute: 100000
caveat: The product table gives the conservative limits above while the
  versioned OpenAPI page publishes higher Free-tier limits; use the lower
  figures until response headers or the dashboard resolve the conflict.
```

## What happens to your prompts?

**Partially private.** Jina excludes model training on request content, but retention and broader support or improvement handling remain imprecise.

Privacy is audited separately from price. Review the current governing terms before sending sensitive or regulated data.

## Data governance and agreements

```yaml
data_governance:
  review_status: partial
  plan_scope: Jina AI Search Foundation APIs after Elastic's October 2025
    acquisition; current Elastic data terms supersede portions of Jina's legacy
    legal page.
  prompt_retention: Request data, inputs, prompts, and uploaded content are
    processed to provide the APIs; no current public per-request retention
    period was found.
  response_retention: not_documented
  ordinary_logging: Operational, diagnostic, and usage metadata may be retained
    and used in aggregated, anonymized form to operate, secure, and improve the
    services.
  model_training: Jina's published terms state customer request data, inputs,
    prompts, and uploaded content are not used to train its models.
  product_improvement: Aggregated and anonymized metadata can be used for service
    improvement; the terms exclude request content from model training but do
    not promise that all content is excluded from every support or
    product-development activity.
  human_or_operator_access: Access is governed by confidentiality, service
    delivery, security, support, and current Elastic data-processing controls;
    no operator-blind statement is published.
  subprocessors_and_routing: Jina AI is owned by Elastic, and current processing
    is governed by Elastic's DPA and privacy statement with their subprocessors.
  deletion_controls: Contract termination requires deletion or return of
    confidential information and data under Jina's published terms, subject to
    mandatory retention; current self-service per-request deletion is not
    documented.
  caveat: The acquisition creates a policy-transition risk, and neither legacy
    Jina terms nor linked Elastic terms publish a Search Foundation
    request-content retention duration.
agreements:
  terms_and_conditions: https://jina.ai/legal/
  privacy_policy: https://www.elastic.co/legal/privacy-statement
  data_processing_agreement: https://www.elastic.co/legal/customer-dpa
```

## Eligibility

```yaml
account_required: true
payment_method_required: false
signup_token_use: noncommercial_only
signup_token_license: CC-BY-NC
```

## API compatibility and modalities

- **Compatibility:** OpenAI Embeddings And Jina Rest
- **Modalities:** Embeddings, Multimodal Embeddings, Reranking, Classification, Vision Language, Grounded Research


## Before you build with Jina Search Foundation API

### Read the classification narrowly

This record describes the bounded offer supported by evidence on 2026-09-19; it does not guarantee permanence, production suitability, uptime, latency, model quality, or access from every account and region. “One-time trial” should be interpreted together with the Current directory placement, High confidence, No payment-card status, and the plan-specific sources below.

### Resolve the live model route

No stable model ID is recorded. Resolve the current machine-readable ID, endpoint, authentication method, and request shape from the provider's live documentation before writing fixed production configuration.

### Match the quota to the workload shape

Translate the allowance into peak requests per minute, input and output tokens, concurrency, retries, and every daily or monthly ceiling that applies to the intended account. The first limit reached by the workload is the practical ceiling. A large token pool can still fail interactive bursts, and a high request limit can still fail long-context work. Include tool calls and retry traffic, test the largest realistic payload, and treat research, experimental, and community access as conditional on their eligibility and fair-use terms.

### Preserve billing and privacy boundaries

The recorded payment-card requirement is No, and account access is required. Confirm both in the live signup flow, set provider-side budgets when charges are possible, and observe the balance or usage fields after a complete request. The prompt-handling classification is **Partially private** because Jina excludes model training on request content, but retention and broader support or improvement handling remain imprecise. Re-read the terms for the exact route and plan before sending sensitive, regulated, or proprietary content.

### Follow the evidence, then re-check it

This record links 8 first-party sources covering the offer, catalog, limits, pricing, terms, privacy, or adoption evidence available to the audit. Prefer the newest and most specific governing document or live catalog when sources disagree. A dated finding can become stale even when the page remains online, so retain the source and snapshot that supported the decision and submit a correction when a provider changes a material term.

### Plan fallback without policy drift

A fallback should preserve modality, context length, streaming, structured output, tools, safety controls, and data terms, not only API syntax. Decide which errors may retry, cap retry storms, and prevent an exhausted free route from silently switching to a billable model. Rotating aliases and free pools can change behavior without changing the endpoint, so retain the response model field and test at least one substitute route before the primary offer becomes unavailable.

### Monitor the offer as a dependency

Capture the model ID, response model, rate-limit headers, usage fields, latency, HTTP status, and provider request identifier. Watch authorization failure, quota exhaustion, catalog removal, policy revision, and balance movement as separate failure modes. Re-check the live catalog and governing sources on a schedule proportionate to the workload's importance, and keep an owner and exit path for any production dependency on volatile free capacity.

### Test one complete request before scaling

Start with the smallest permitted request using the exact credential, model ID, endpoint, region, and account type intended for deployment. Record the status, headers, usage fields, response model, latency, and dashboard balance movement. Then exercise an invalid model, quota exhaustion, or rate limit so failure is explicit and cannot silently switch to a paid route. Validate streaming, structured output, and tool calls separately because a free model can expose fewer features than its paid counterpart. Keep a budget ceiling outside the application whenever billing is possible, and do not send sensitive data until the observed route matches the reviewed agreement.

## Primary sources

- [Jina Search Foundation API](https://api.jina.ai/docs): Official API Reference
- [Reader and Search API limits](https://jina.ai/reader/): Official Product
- [Jina AI Legal Information](https://jina.ai/legal/): Official Terms
- [Elastic Privacy Statement](https://www.elastic.co/legal/privacy-statement): Official Privacy
- [Elastic Customer Data Processing Addendum](https://www.elastic.co/legal/customer-dpa): Official Dpa
- [Jina model catalog and prices](https://api.jina.ai/v1/models): Live Catalog
- [Jina AI organization on Hugging Face (embedding and reranker model families)](https://huggingface.co/jinaai): Official Repository
- [Elasticsearch Open Inference API adds support for Jina AI embeddings and rerank models (2025-02-20)](https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20250220781575/en/Elasticsearch-Open-Inference-API-now-Supports-Jina-AI-Embeddings-and-Rerank-Model): Partner Page

## Sitemap

See the full [semantic sitemap](/sitemap.md) for every page and markdown mirror.