Cerebras Inference Free Trial: free credits and offers

Free Trial: one-time $5 credit for new accounts high confidence

New accounts receive a one-time $5 promotional credit, usable across all public models (currently gpt-oss-120b and qwen-3.8-27b). Free Trial rate limits per model: 5 RPM, 30K uncached TPM, 90K total TPM, 1M tokens/hour, 1M tokens/day; qwen-3.8-27b vision capped at 2 images per request / 10 MiB payload. Free context is truncated vs paid: gpt-oss-120b 65k vs 131k, qwen-3.8-27b 64k vs 128k. Official changelog entry 2026-07-16 ('Free Trial credits for new accounts') introduced it; it replaces the prior always-free tier.

Eligibility

Any new account — no .edu email, no startup status, no funding cap. A verified payment method (credit/debit card) IS required before Playground/API activate; you are not charged unless you buy PayGo credits. No region limits stated on official pages (one third-party tracker notes access is intended outside mainland China, unverified).

How to claim

Sign up for Cerebras Inference → add a valid payment method (activates Playground + API and grants the $5 credit) → build within Free Trial limits; a first PayGo credit purchase upgrades the account to Developer tier (much higher limits, e.g. gpt-oss-120b 1K RPM / 1M uncached TPM; no hourly/daily caps).

Expiry

Credit expires 30 days after it is granted; no renewal. When the credit is exhausted or expires, API and Playground access pause (keys/projects/settings stay intact); you must purchase PayGo credits to resume.

Gotchas

Card required despite being a 'free' trial (unlike most free tiers); credits are non-transferable, no cash value, and may be withheld/revoked for fraud, abuse, or duplicate accounts; 5 RPM breaks any agent that fires parallel tool calls (instant 429s); limits are per organization and per model; 'free' context windows are shorter than paid; model menu keeps shrinking (GLM-4.7 and Gemma 4 31B no longer on public endpoints as of Aug/Sep 2026); many guides still quote the old '1M free tokens/day' tier which no longer exists.

Source

cerebras.ai

YC Startup Deal: up to $22,500 in Cerebras Cloud inference credits high confidence

YC startups from any batch receive up to $22.5K worth of inference on Cerebras Cloud, plus priority support and co-marketing opportunities. Official page states 'No setup fees, no strings.' No published credit expiration, deadline, or per-startup amount caps.

Eligibility

YC (Y Combinator) startups from any batch — the current offer is YC-only on the official page. No funding/age caps stated. Non-YC startups are instead routed through Cerebras channel partners.

How to claim

Apply via the 'Apply Now' button on https://www.cerebras.ai/yc-startup-deal (links to a HubSpot application form); an RSVP button on the same page points to the same form.

Expiry

No end date or credit-expiry stated on the official page; 'up to $22.5K' is discretionary and no separate terms page is on record.

Gotchas

Eligibility is YC-batch-only (the earlier open 'Cerebras for Startups' program is marked no longer available on third-party trackers); the exact credit amount you receive is not published — 'up to $22,500'; co-marketing commitment is mentioned but undefined.

Source

cerebras.ai

No student/education program exists (negative finding) medium confidence

As of 2026-10-22 there is no .edu/student or academic licensing offer from Cerebras. Neither the pricing page, the inference docs, nor searches of 2025-2026 coverage surface a student discount, education license, or academic credit program. The only education-adjacent item is a free DeepLearning.AI short course 'Fast LLM Inference with Cerebras' (built with Cerebras, launched ~July 2026) — instructional content, no API credits.

Eligibility

N/A — nothing to claim for students specifically; students use the standard $5 trial (card required) or Cerebras models hosted on partner platforms (OpenRouter, HuggingFace, AWS Marketplace), where the partner's own free allowances may apply.

How to claim

None on Cerebras itself; students may take the free DeepLearning.AI course (enroll at deeplearning.ai, free) for hands-on Cerebras inference learning.

Expiry

N/A

Gotchas

No .edu verification anywhere in Cerebras's onboarding; if a tool offers 'Cerebras student credits', it is not an official Cerebras program. Partner front-ends (OpenRouter free models, HuggingFace free tier) are how cardless users actually reach Cerebras-hosted models for free.

Source

community.deeplearning.ai

Referral token-bonus program (third-party reported, unverified) low confidence

A third-party tracker (Model Speed Arena) describes a Cerebras referral program: +200K Qwen3-Coder tokens/day for both referrer and referee, capped at +1M extra tokens/day, with personal referral links generated from an in-product signup flow. This does not appear on any Cerebras official page I could find.

Eligibility

Unknown — described as an in-product signup/referral flow; likely open to existing users.

How to claim

Per the third-party description: generate a personal referral link from the Cerebras console's signup flow and share it; both parties gain daily token bonuses.

Expiry

Unknown; no stated deadline in the third-party source.

Gotchas

Treat as unverified/stale: the model it references (Qwen3-Coder) is not in the current public model catalog (only gpt-oss-120b and qwen-3.8-27b as of Oct 2026), and Cerebras official pages make no mention of a referral program. Confirm in-console before relying on it.

Source

oldmsa.millaguie.net

Low confidence: verify before claiming.