Best offer on record: Starter free tier ($0/mo + metered usage). 3 verified findings, checked 2026-10-22.
Live check of “Starter free tier ($0/mo + metered usage)”:Partly confirmed
Chroma Cloud's Starter plan is $0/month plus metered usage and includes $5 in one-time free credits for new accounts — the recorded $2.50 is actually the $2.50/GiB write rate, not a free-credit amount. It covers 10 databases and 10 team members, requires a credit card, credits generally do not expire, and the tier is open to new sign-ups as of 2026-10-22.
Starter free tier ($0/mo + metered usage) high confidence
Starter plan: $0/month base + usage; 10 databases and 10 team members included. Metered rates: writes $2.50/GiB (logical, uncompressed, billed once per write — no background-index charges), storage $0.33/GiB/month prorated hourly, queries $0.0075/TiB queried (each metadata/full-text predicate counts as extra queries), network $0.09/GiB returned, forking $0.03/fork, Sync $0.04/GiB processed + $0.01/page extracted/scraped. Self-hosted open-source ChromaDB (Apache 2.0) is also $0 with no limits.
Eligibility
Anyone creating a new Chroma Cloud account. No .edu email, no startup age/funding cap, no credit card required at sign-up (auth via Google, GitHub, SSO, or email). No regional restrictions published; service endpoints are aws-us-east-1 (US) and gcp-europe-west1 (EU); BYOC single-tenant only on Enterprise.
How to claim
Sign up at trychroma.com/signup (Google/GitHub/SSO/email) and select the Starter plan at trychroma.com/pricing — $0 base, no application. Exceeding 10 databases or 10 team members requires the Team plan ($250/month + usage).
Expiry
No duration limit: it is a permanent $0 plan, not a trial; no commitment. Plan changes pro-rate to the calendar month. Unused usage credits 'do not expire' in most cases (per pricing FAQ).
Gotchas
Exceeding either customer-set or Chroma-set usage limits pauses the service until a limit is changed — set a billing limit after the $5 credits run out. After credits are used, a credit card must be added to keep using the service (per Chroma's Oct 2025 '5 Things to Know' video). Egress/network ($0.09/GiB returned) and hourly storage billing apply; filter-heavy queries cost more than query count suggests (each predicate adds query units). Team plan floor is $250/month; Enterprise adds single-tenant/BYOC/SLAs.
One-time $5 in usage credits granted to new Chroma Cloud accounts (docs FAQ: 'We offer $5 in credits to new users'). Chroma's own video estimates $5 covers ~100K document inserts and ~100K queries. Billing is account-level, aggregated across all collections/tenants in the account.
Eligibility
Any new Chroma Cloud account (new users only; not per team member). No verification, no .edu requirement, no credit card required to receive the credits.
How to claim
Automatic at sign-up via trychroma.com/signup — no application, no code, no separate claim step.
Expiry
Credits do not expire in most cases (pricing FAQ: 'in most cases your credits do not expire'; the $100 Team-plan inclusion does not rollover — not relevant to Starter). No renewal cycle; new credits are not re-granted.
Gotchas
Small grant: $5 buys roughly 2 GiB of writes at $2.50/GiB. After the credits are exhausted, a credit card is required to continue (trial-vs-free: the $0 plan is permanent, but the trial credits are one-time — ongoing usage is metered). Hitting usage limits pauses the service until limits are adjusted.
Partner startup perk: $5,000 Chroma credits via PostHog for Startups low confidence
Listed on third-party directory creditbase.in (database category): accepted PostHog for Startups participants can receive $5,000 in Chroma credits as a partner perk (Chroma-issued, global). No Chroma-owned startup program, age cap, or funding cap is documented on Chroma's own pricing or docs pages.
Eligibility
Startups accepted into PostHog for Startups (i.e., PostHog's program rules apply, typically early-stage companies); no .edu requirement from Chroma.
How to claim
Via the PostHog for Startups partner perks, not through any Chroma page or form found as of 2026-10-22.
Expiry
Not stated in the listing; treat as current-until-confirmed (directory is a third-party aggregator).
Gotchas
Could not verify this offer on any official Chroma page today (not on pricing, docs, or changelog); amount, availability, and whether it still applies are unconfirmed — confirm with Chroma/PostHog before relying on it.
No official Chroma education/student licensing or Chroma-owned startup program exists on trychroma.com or docs.trychroma.com as of 2026-10-22 — no education or startup pages, and no such offers are mentioned on the pricing page, docs, or changelog. The free offer set is: (1) the $0/mo Starter plan with 10 databases / 10 team members, (2) one-time $5 new-user credits, (3) self-hosted open-source ChromaDB (Apache 2.0, fully free, unlimited), plus one unverified third-party-listed startup perk ($5,000 credits via PostHog for Startups). History/sunset: Chroma Cloud launched 2025-08-18 (changelog 'Introducing Chroma Cloud'), superseding the earlier Chroma Cloud trial; third-party tracker AgentDeals records a pricing-model change (discovered 2026-09-07, effective date unknown) from a legacy free tier (reported ~1M embeddings, 1 collection, 10K queries/day — unverified) to the current $0 Starter + $5 credits + metered pricing; the current metered terms were confirmed on the official pricing page today, so no free offer was sunsetting recently. Beware name confusion: 'Chroma Awards' (chromaawards.com), a film/music/games competition that recruited universities and students in 2025 with 'starter packs', internships and a $3M+ credit pool, is a separate organization, not the ChromaDB vendor. Course-sponsored credits (e.g., $250 Chroma Cloud credits for students of Hugo Bowne-Anderson's 'Building AI Applications' masterclass, Nov 2025 and Mar 2026 cohorts) are time-limited, sponsor-funded, cohort-specific — not a Chroma program.