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1. What the Free Tier Includes
No credit card. No trial period that expires. Just sign up and get API access.
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<th class="text-left py-2 pr-4 text-text-muted font-600 text-xs uppercase tracking-wider">Model</th>
<th class="text-left py-2 pr-4 text-text-muted font-600 text-xs uppercase tracking-wider">Requests/min</th>
<th class="text-left py-2 pr-4 text-text-muted font-600 text-xs uppercase tracking-wider">Tokens/min</th>
<th class="text-left py-2 text-text-muted font-600 text-xs uppercase tracking-wider">Best for</th>
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<tbody class="divide-y divide-border-color/50">
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<td class="py-3 pr-4 font-600 text-text-main"><code class="text-xs bg-surface-strong px-1.5 py-0.5 rounded">llama-3.1-8b-instant</code></td>
<td class="py-3 pr-4 text-text-muted">30 RPM</td>
<td class="py-3 pr-4 text-text-muted">~131K TPM</td>
<td class="py-3 text-copper font-600">Fast prototyping</td>
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<td class="py-3 pr-4 font-600 text-text-main"><code class="text-xs bg-surface-strong px-1.5 py-0.5 rounded">llama-3.3-70b-versatile</code></td>
<td class="py-3 pr-4 text-text-muted">30 RPM</td>
<td class="py-3 pr-4 text-text-muted">~12K TPM</td>
<td class="py-3 text-copper font-600">Quality outputs</td>
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<td class="py-3 pr-4 font-600 text-text-main"><code class="text-xs bg-surface-strong px-1.5 py-0.5 rounded">mixtral-8x7b-32768</code></td>
<td class="py-3 pr-4 text-text-muted">30 RPM</td>
<td class="py-3 pr-4 text-text-muted">~5K TPM</td>
<td class="py-3 text-copper font-600">Long context tasks</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
Rate limits are per-model, at the organisation level, and reset every minute. For the masterclass session, 30 RPM is more than enough.
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2. Step-by-Step: Get Your API Key
1
Go to the Groq Console
Open console.groq.com in your browser.
2
Sign up — no credit card needed
Click “Sign Up”. You can register with your Google account (fastest) or any email address. If using email, you’ll receive a verification link — click it to confirm.
3
Navigate to API Keys
Once logged in, look at the left sidebar and click “API Keys”. (On some versions of the console it appears in the top navigation bar.)
4
Create a new API key
Click “Create API Key”. Give it a descriptive name — something like datakern-masterclass. Click “Submit”.
5
⚠️ Copy it immediately
Your API key is shown only once. It looks like: gsk_xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx. Copy it to a safe location right now. If you close the dialog without copying, you’ll need to delete this key and create a new one.
6
Store it as an environment variable
Create a .env file in your project folder and add:
GROQ_API_KEY=gsk_your_key_here The instructor will show how to load this during the masterclass. Never paste the key directly into your code.
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3. Best Practices & Common Issues
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4. Summary
Getting a Groq API key is the easiest prerequisite for the AI Engineering Masterclass — it takes under 3 minutes, requires no payment, and gives you access to state-of-the-art open-source models running on the fastest inference hardware available today.
We chose Groq specifically so participants don’t face any billing friction during the session. You’ll focus entirely on building, not on managing API quotas or surprise charges.
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