Independent research · snapshot as of 2026‑10‑22
Free credits, offers and bonuses for students and startups
An independent, checked index of free tiers, trial credits, startup programs and student offers across LLM and AI APIs, cloud, databases, hosting, VPS and servers, dev tools, GPU and ML, observability, auth, email, payments and self-hosted open source.
227 providers
236providers
1,474verified findings
15service fronts
45headline offers re-checked live
Snapshot as of 2026-10-22. Terms change often. Read each provider’s current page before you sign up or claim an offer. Not affiliated with any provider.
Browse by service front
LLM & AI model APIs, inference and agent platformsStartup cloud-credit programs (VC / accelerator funded)Managed databases & data platformsFrontend hosting, PaaS & app deploymentVPS, bare-metal & dedicated serversDev tools, IDEs, Git & CI/CDGPU, ML training & notebooksObservability, monitoring, uptime & CDNAuth, security, product analytics & feature flagsEmail, SMS, push & chat APIsAPI marketplaces, free public APIs, search & CMSPayments & fintech dev toolsUniversity & education-only programs (.edu / student email)Self-hosted open-source alternatives that replace paid SaaSExtras: gap-fill finds and providers outside the 14 fronts
Confirmed headline offers
Confirmed against the provider’s official page. Partly confirmed and ended offers are on the live checks page.
| Offer | Provider | Verified terms | Official page |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cloudflare for Startups: up to $350,000 in credits (3 tiers: $10k / $100k / $350k) | Cloudflare | Cloudflare for Startups confirms "up to $350,000 in credits for a year" across exactly three tiers: $10k (Tier 3, bootstrapped/self-funded with under $1M raised), $100k… | cloudflare.com |
| Google for Startups Cloud Program (up to $350,000 GCP credits over 2 years + 12 months Google… | Google Cloud | Google's official program pages (cloud.google.com/startup and startup.google.com/cloud/) state the Google for Startups Cloud Program gives "up to $350,000 in Cloud… | cloud.google.com |
| AWS Activate / AWS for Startups — up to $200,000 in credits + partner offers | AWS (Amazon Web Services) | AWS Activate (AWS for Startups) still advertises "up to $200,000 USD in Activate Credits," but that ceiling is only the Activate Portfolio tier, which requires an Org… | aws.amazon.com |
| Microsoft for Startups — single-path program, $200 immediate credits, up to $150,000 via… | Microsoft | Microsoft for Startups is confirmed as a single-path program ("Every startup enters Microsoft for Startups the same way"), open to new applicants via… | learn.microsoft.com |
| Microsoft for Startups program: milestone credits up to $150,000 (2026 structure) | Microsoft Azure | Confirmed. Microsoft for Startups (the 2026 restructure, which replaced the separate Founders Hub tracks with a single entry path) offers milestone-based Startup… | learn.microsoft.com |
| Airwallex for Startups (US) — startup program with fee credits | Airwallex | Airwallex for Startups (US) is live and offers $150,000 in fee credits usable across FX, payments, payouts and platform fees for 12 months, plus no FX fees on the first… | airwallex.com |
| Aiven Startup Program (startup-credits) | Aiven Startup Program | Aiven for Startups (formerly the Cluster startup program) offers "from $12,000 up to $100,000 in Aiven credits" valid for 12 months, with the exact tier set by startup… | aiven.io |
| Grafana Labs Startup Program (up to $100,000 in Grafana Cloud credits) | Grafana Labs | Grafana Labs' official announcement page confirms the Startup Program offers up to $100,000 in Grafana Cloud credits, usable on any Grafana Cloud service for 12 months… | grafana.com |
Provider directory
Browse all 227 providers
Every provider with a page. Filter with the search box at the top.
- 500 Global
500 Global FounderHub — bundled partner cloud/tech credits (the actual 'Startup Cloud-Credit Program') - a16z
AWS Activate Portfolio Credits via a16z Org ID (up to $200K) - Ably
Free package (permanent free tier, no time limit) - Adobe Creative Cloud for Students
Adobe Express Free Plan - Adyen
Free test/sandbox environment & test-mode API access (no credit card, no real money) - Airplane
Free plan ('Start using Airplane for free') - Airtable
Airtable Free plan (permanent, no card) - Airwallex
Explore plan — free tier (US) - Aiven Free Plan
Aiven Free Tier (always-free managed PostgreSQL, MySQL, Kafka, OpenSearch, Valkey) - Aiven Startup Program
Aiven Free Tier ($0/month, perpetual) - Akamai Linode
US$100 promotional credit trial (the successor to the "Linode $100 free trial") - Algolia Free Plan
Algolia Free Plan (free tier) - Amplitude Free Plan
Amplitude Free Plan (permanent free tier, not a trial) - Anthropic
Claude Startups program (free Claude Team year + $1,000 API credit, Oct 2026 expansion) - AppFlowy
Personal plan: free cloud tier at $0/month - Appsmith
Cloud Free plan (permanent $0 tier) - Auth0 Free Plan
Auth0 Free Plan (always-free tier) - Autodesk Education
Autodesk Education Plan — free 1-year professional licenses for students - AWS (Amazon Web Services)
AWS Free plan (new-account credits: $100 base + up to $100 earned, 6-month window) - Axiom Free Plan
Personal free plan (permanent free tier) - Baseten
Starter credit for every new Baseten workspace (~$30, no application needed) - Baseten Startup Program
Baseten AI Startup Program ("Baseten for Startups") — up to $25,000 credits (Dedicated Inference/Training) +… - Better Stack Free Plan
Better Stack Free Plan ("Free for personal projects") - Blender
Blender 3D suite — 100% free, no license, all uses (students, universities, startups included) - BookStack
MIT-licensed BookStack software is free to self-host (no trial, no expiry) - Brevo
Brevo Free plan (free forever): 300 emails/day + up to 100,000 contacts, no credit card, no time limit - Caddy
Open-source Caddy server: free, no paywalled features - Cal.com
Free plan ('Free forever') - Camber
Camber Student plan via GitHub Student Developer Pack (monthly free compute) - Canva Pro for Students
Canva Free (free tier, open to all students) - Cerebras Inference Free Trial
Free Trial: one-time $5 credit for new accounts - Chargebee
Startup Program — $1M free Billing - Checkly Hobby Plan
Hobby free plan (free forever, no credit card) - Chroma Cloud Starter
Starter free tier ($0/mo + metered usage) - CircleCI
Free plan (Cloud) - Clerk Hobby Plan
Hobby Free Plan (free tier) - ClickHouse Cloud trial
ClickHouse Cloud free trial: $300 credits over 30 days (no credit card) - Cloudflare
Workers AI free tier: 10,000 free Neurons/day (no signup offer needed) - CockroachDB Cloud trial
30-day free trial with $400 in credits (new Cloud orgs, incl. Continuum) - Cohere Trial API key
Cohere Trial API key (free tier, self-serve) - Contentful Free Plan
Contentful Free plan ("Start for free" / Starter Space) - Countly
Countly Lite (Community Edition) — free self-hosted - Coursera
Course Preview (the 2025 replacement of 'audit mode') — free first module of most courses - Cronitor
Cronitor Hacker plan (free forever, open to everyone; not a student or startup program) - Cursor
Free plan ($0/mo) — standing free tier, no trial - Data.gov
Data.gov open data catalog — free, no key, no card, no account - data.gov.uk
ODI / data.gov.uk directory API (CKAN) — free, no key, no account - Databricks Lakebase
Databricks Free Edition (perpetual, no-credit-card, student/hobbyist tier) - Datadog
Datadog Free Plan (Infrastructure monitoring) - Datadog Free Plan
Infrastructure Free Plan (permanent free tier, Monitoring front) - Decap CMS
Decap CMS core — free open source (MIT), forever - Deno Deploy
Deno Deploy Free plan (new platform, $0/mo) - DigitalOcean
DigitalOcean Startups program (formerly Hatch) — up to $100,000 in compute credits over 12 months + 15… - Directus
Free self-hosting under open-source license (now MSCL-1.0-GPL, not Apache 2.0) - Discord Nitro
UNiDAYS x Discord Nitro — 1 month of full Nitro free for verified students - Docker
Docker Personal plan — $0 free tier for individual developers (incl. students) - Documenso
Hosted Free plan (5 documents per month) - DocuSeal
Basic (Cloud) free plan - edX
Google Cloud Free Trial: $300 credit for 90 days (new customers) - Elastic Observability
Elastic Cloud 14-day free trial (Observability incl. logs, APM, metrics, traces, RUM, synthetics/uptime) - ElevenLabs
ElevenLabs Startup Grants Program: 12 months free, 33M characters - Figma Education
Figma Starter plan (free tier, open to everyone incl. students and startups) - Figma for Education
Figma Starter plan (free-for-all individual plan) - Firebase Authentication
Firebase Spark plan — free, no credit card - Firebase Cloud Messaging
FCM No-Cost Free Tier (Spark & Blaze plans) - Firebase Spark
Firebase Spark free tier (free-forever managed DB + data platform) - Flagsmith Free Plan
Free Cloud Plan (permanently free tier) - Flutterwave
Free developer account + free sandbox/test environment - Fly.io
Fly.io Free Trial (2 VM hours / 7 days) - Formbricks
Hobby plan (Formbricks Cloud free tier) - free-for.dev
Azure for Students - freellmcredits.com
freellmcredits.com directory status - Gemini API Free Tier
Gemini API Free tier (Google AI Studio): free-of-charge models - Ghost
Self-hosted Ghost — free open source (MIT) - Gitea
Self-hosted open-source Gitea (free tier) - GitHub
GitHub Copilot Free (perpetual free tier, no credit card) - GitLab
GitLab.com Free plan (permanent free tier) - Google Cloud
Google Cloud Free Trial — $300 welcome credit (90 days) - Google Colab Free Tier
Colab Free Tier (Notebooks) — free CPU/GPU/TPU runtimes - Google Gemini API
Gemini API Free Tier (Google AI Studio) - Google Maps Platform
Google Maps Platform free usage tier (per-SKU monthly caps) - Google TPU Research Cloud
TRC free Cloud TPU quota for accepted researchers - GPUStack
Free open-source self-hosted runtime (the only real free offer; available to students and startups alike) - Grafana Labs
Grafana Cloud Free tier (free forever, no credit card) - GroqCloud Free Plan
GroqCloud Free Plan (ongoing free tier) - Healthchecks.io Free Plan
Hosted Hobbyist Free Plan (permanent free tier) - Honeycomb Free Plan
Honeycomb Free plan (free forever) - Hugging Face
Inference Providers free account: NO monthly credits (as of Oct 2026) - IBM Startup with IBM
Startup with IBM credit program (Builder/Premium, up to $120K) - InfluxData InfluxDB Cloud
InfluxDB Cloud Serverless Free Plan (permanent, quota-limited) - Instatus
1 year free Instatus Pro for verified startups (via StartGround) - IONOS Free Trial
IONOS VPS '30-day free trial' (30-day money-back guarantee) - JetBrains Student Pack
JetBrains Student Pack - free full IDE licenses for students - Kaggle Notebooks
Kaggle Notebooks free GPU weekly quota (30 h/week, P100 or T4) - Kamatera Free Trial
30-day $100 Free Trial (VPS) - Keycloak
Self-hosted Keycloak Community (free tier equivalent) - Keystone
Free self-hosted open-source use (Keystone 6, MIT license) — the only free offer; no cloud tier, trial… - Kit
Kit Free plan (standing free tier, Email) - Koyeb
Koyeb Startup Program — up to $30,000 in free compute credits - Lambda Research Grant
Lambda Research Grant (up to $5,000 GPU cloud credits for researchers) - LaunchDarkly Developer Plan
Developer plan (free tier, renamed from 'Personal Use') - Lemon Squeezy
Standard free tier: $0/mo base, pay-per-transaction pricing (perpetual, no card) - Lightning AI Studios
Free plan: 1 free CPU Studio + up to 30 one-time free credits (~80 GPU hours on interruptible machines) - Linear
Free plan (always-free tier) - llama.cpp
llama.cpp itself — free open-source local engine (no hosted offer) - LM Studio
Free desktop app (LM Studio + Bionic) — unlimited local inference at $0 - LogRocket
14-day free trial of all LogRocket features, no credit card - Loops
Loops Free plan - permanent free tier ($0; called "Early Stage" in some third-party/marketing copy) - Mailchimp
Free email plan ("free forever" tier, not a trial) - MailerLite
Free Plan (standing, no credit card required) - Mailgun
Mailgun Free plan (Email) - Mailjet
Free plan (permanent free tier, Email) - MathWorks MATLAB
Campus-Wide Access to MATLAB and Simulink (school-provided, free for students) - Meilisearch
Self-hosted Meilisearch (open source, MIT) - Meilisearch Cloud trial
Meilisearch Cloud 14-day free trial - Metabase
Open Source edition (self-hosted, AGPL): free forever - Metabase Community Edition
Metabase Open Source / Community Edition — free, unlimited, self-hosted - Microsoft
Azure for Students: $100 credit + 12-month free services + always-free services (no credit card) - Microsoft Azure
Azure Free Account — $200 credit + 12 months of free services - Mistral AI Studio
Free mode API (default, no card required) - Mixpanel Free Plan
Mixpanel Free Plan (free-forever tier) - Modal
Modal Starter Plan — $30/month free compute credits (free tier) - Mollie
Free Mollie account / pay-as-you-go free tier (no monthly fees, free test API keys) - MongoDB Atlas Free Tier
Atlas Free tier ("Free cluster", formerly M0) - Moov
Free test mode / sandbox (fake money) - n8n
Self-hosted Community Edition (free, unlimited executions) - Neon Free Plan
Neon Free plan (permanent free tier) - Netlify
Netlify Free plan (credit-based, current default) - New Relic Free Tier
Perpetual Free Tier (all accounts; no .edu or startup requirement) - Nginx
NGINX Open Source - free forever (2-clause BSD) - Nominatim
Free public Nominatim API (the only offer; there is no student/startup tier, trial credit, or education… - Northflank
Developer Sandbox — always-free plan (2 services + 2 cron jobs + 1 database) - Notion for Education
Notion Free Plan (individual) - NVIDIA
Free rate-limited NIM hosted inference (NVIDIA Developer Program) - Ollama
Ollama local inference runtime (free, open source) - OneSignal
Free (Starter) plan — $0/mo perpetual tier - OpenAI
No free API tier / no signup credits (API is pay-as-you-go) - OpenObserve
Self-Hosted Open Source Edition (free forever) - OpenReplay
Open-Source self-hosted edition (free forever, no caps) - OpenRouter Free Models
Free tier: ':free' model variants and openrouter/free Free Models Router - Oracle Cloud Always Free
OCI Always Free tier (VPS: 2 AMD micro VMs + 2 OCPU/12 GB ARM Ampere A1 pool + storage/DB/networking) - Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Always Free
OCI Always Free services (Free Tier — no expiry) - Oracle Startup Growth Engine
Oracle Startup Growth Engine — OCI credits (LatAm startup program) - Outline
Cloud 30-day free trial (no free cloud tier) - OVHcloud Free Trial
Public Cloud Free Trial (global, www.ovhcloud.com) — US$200 / 1 month - Paddle
No fixed costs: pay-as-you-go only (no monthly, setup, or migration fees) - Paperspace
Gradient Free plan — free GPU notebook (M4000) for any new user - Payload
Self-hosted open-source (MIT) — free forever, no usage limits - Paystack
Free to integrate — no setup, monthly, or minimum fees (pay-per-transaction only) - Pinecone
Pinecone for Startups - Plaid
Free Sandbox (mock data, unlimited test Items) - Plausible
30-Day Free Trial (no credit card) - PostHog
PostHog Cloud free tier (monthly allowance on every product) - PostHog Free Plan
PostHog Free Plan (universal monthly free tier) — Observability & Product Analytics - PostHog Free Tier
PostHog Free Tier — monthly free allowances on every product - Postman
Postman Free plan (free tier) - Postmark
Free Developer plan (permanent free tier, auto-assigned on signup) - Prometheus
Prometheus self-hosted (open source) - Pusher
Pusher Channels — Sandbox free tier - Puter
Free plan ($0/month consumer tier) - Qdrant Cloud Free Tier
Qdrant Cloud Free Forever tier - Railway
Free plan ($0/mo, $1/mo usage credit, permanent) - RapidAPI
Free API plans (no credit card): 1,000 req/hour, 500,000 req/month hard caps - Razorpay
Free PG Welcome Offer (India): zero fee on up to Rs 5,000/month of transactions - Redis Cloud Free tier
Free Redis Cloud Essentials (always-free 30 MB tier) - Render
Free web services (Free tier) - Replicate 'Try for Free' collection
Replicate 'Try for Free' free runs (no-credit-card free tier) - Replit
Starter free plan (current as of 2026-10-22) - Replit for Students
Free Starter tier (no subscription, no claim needed) - Resend
Free (forever) plan — transactional + marketing email - Retool
Retool Free plan (cloud) - RunPod Startup Program
Startup Program — Starter Tier: $1,000 free credits for pre-Series A startups - Scaleway Startup
New-account free trial: €100 credit (Business/Professional account) - ScyllaDB Cloud trials
30-day Developer Free Trial (ScyllaDB Cloud) - Sendbird
Free Developer plan (forever-free chat tier) - SendPulse
Email Marketing Free Plan (free-forever) - Sentry Developer Plan
Sentry Developer Plan (Free) — perpetual free tier - SGLang
SGLang open-source inference engine (Apache-2.0) — permanently free - SigNoz
SigNoz Cloud 30-day free trial (no credit card) - Simple Analytics Free Plan
Free plan (hobby tier), free forever - Snowflake
Snowflake free trial (general sign-up, not student- or startup-specific) - Square
Square Sandbox (free test environment) - Startup Grad
Microsoft for Startups — self-serve offer (no investor code) - Statsig Developer Tier
Statsig free tier ("Developer" / free self-service tier) - Statuspage Free Plan
Statuspage Free Plan (free forever public status page) - Storyblok
Storyblok Starter free plan (permanent free tier) - Strapi
Community Edition — free self-hosted open source (the only standing free offer) - Stream Chat
Free 'Build' tier for Chat (always-free developer tier) - Streamlit Community Cloud
Community Cloud free hosting (general free tier, open to all users including students and startups) - Stripe
Free sandbox & test mode (no credit card) - Stripe Atlas
Stripe Atlas startup program: Delaware C-Corp/LLC + perks bundle - Stripe Startups
Stripe Startups program — fee credits + exclusive Invoicing cap - Supabase Auth
Supabase Free Plan (free tier) — Auth, Postgres, Storage, Edge Functions, Realtime - Supabase Free Plan
Supabase Free Plan (free tier) — the only direct, self-serve free offer - Tailscale
Personal plan (free forever) - Tally
Tally Free plan (unlimited forms & submissions) - Tawk.to
Free-forever core plan (live chat, email ticketing, knowledge base, CRM, mobile-app push) - Techstars
Techstars accelerator investment: $220K day-one (APAC: $120K) - Thunder Compute
Student Credits — $20 free credit (A6000/L40 only) - Tink
Free Tink Console account + sandbox with Demo Bank (free developer tier) - Together AI
Together AI Startup Accelerator (Build / Scale / Grow tiers) - ToolJet
Cloud Free plan (perpetual) - Turso Free Plan
Turso Free Plan (permanent free tier) - Twilio
Twilio free trial account — product-specific free units, 30-day expiry, no credit card - Twilio SendGrid
Twilio SendGrid free trial (Email API + Marketing Campaigns) - Typesense
Self-hosted open-source Typesense engine (free, no account) - Unity Personal
Unity Personal (free tier) - Unleash
Unleash Open Source — free self-hosted server - UpCloud Free Trial
Standard 7-day free trial (quota-limited, no dollar credit) - Upstash
Upstash Free Tier (all products: Redis, QStash, Workflow, Vector, Box, Blob) — the de facto free offer for… - Uptime Kuma
Uptime Kuma software itself: free MIT license, unlimited monitors & status pages (self-hosted) - UptimeRobot Free Plan
Free Plan (50 monitors, forever free) - Val Town
Val Town Free plan — unlimited public vals at $0/mo - Vaultwarden
Vaultwarden software license: free and open source (AGPL-3.0-only), no paid tier - Vercel
Hobby plan (permanently free, no card) - Vonage
Vonage "Try it free" developer trial (free credit, no credit card required) — covers SMS, Voice, Verify,… - Vultr Free Trial
New-account trial credits (up to 30 days, amount promo-tied) - Weaviate Cloud Free Tier
Free Plan ("Always free" managed Weaviate cluster) - Windmill
Free and Open-source (self-hosted Community Edition) tier - Windsurf
Devin Free plan ($0, perpetual) - Wise API
Free tier: Wise API sandbox with pre-funded £1,000,000 test credit - WorkOS AuthKit
User Management / AuthKit free tier: first 1,000,000 MAU free - xAI Grok API
xAI API: no free tier, no trial credits (confirmed non-existent) - Xata
Xata Open Source (self-hosted, free forever) - Y Combinator
YC AI Stack (a.k.a. YC AI Student Starter Pack) — student program - Zoho Catalyst & Zoho Classes
Catalyst Student Program: $250 usage / 6 months, no credit card, non-commercial only - Zoho CRM Free Edition
Zoho CRM Free Edition (free forever, 3 users)
Frequently asked questions
Are these offers free?
Most are free tiers, trial credits, startup programs or student offers. Each has its own limits, duration and eligibility, listed on the provider page here.
Do I need a credit card?
Some offers say no card is required. Read the eligibility line for each one, because some ask for a card at a later step.
Who can use startup programs?
Usually companies that meet criteria such as incorporation, funding stage or an accelerator invitation. Check each program’s eligibility text.
How were the offers checked?
Research agents read provider pages during the sweep and rated each finding high, medium or low confidence. 45 headline offers were re-checked against official pages; the verdicts are on the live checks page.
How often is this updated?
This is a snapshot as of 2026-10-22. It is not updated automatically, and offers change, so check the provider before you claim.
Is this affiliated with the providers?
No. This is independent research. Provider names are used only to identify the services.
Downloads and data
Spotted an outdated offer?
Open an issue on GitHub with the provider name and the current terms.
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