Best offer on record: Firebase Spark plan — free, no credit card. 8 verified findings, checked 2026-10-22.
Offers
Firebase Spark plan — free, no credit card high confidence
The free 'No-cost (Spark plan)': Authentication no-cost up to 50,000 MAUs with standard methods (email/password, social, magic link, email link, etc.), and no-cost up to 50 MAUs for SAML/OIDC. Also no-cost on Spark: Analytics, App Check (App Security; quotas/limits vary by attestation provider), A/B Testing, App Distribution, Cloud Messaging, Crashlytics, In-App Messaging, Performance Monitoring, and no-cost usage quotas for paid products (e.g. Firestore 50K reads/20K writes per day, Cloud Functions 2M invocations/mo, Hosting 10GB, RTDB). No stated expiry — free forever. Confirmed on the live pricing page today (2026-10-22).
Eligibility
Any new Firebase user. No credit card / payment method required. No .edu email, no region limit stated. Feature Flags is NOT listed as a product on the pricing page (docs URLs 404 — see sunset_notes).
How to claim
1) Go to console.firebase.google.com and start onboarding with the Spark option (link purchaseBillingPlan=no-cost), or in an existing project: Project settings → Billing tab → select 'No-cost (Spark plan)'. No payment info entered.
Expiry
No expiry (permanent no-cost plan).
Gotchas
Exceeding a no-cost allocation shuts that product OFF for the rest of the month across all apps in the project (hard cap, no silent overage billing on Spark). Phone Auth is not part of the free offering on Spark (N/A). SAML/OIDC is only 50 MAUs free — enterprise IdP sign-in quickly costs. No-cost amounts can differ between Spark and Blaze per product.
Firebase Blaze plan no-cost tier (pay-as-you-go with free daily quotas) high confidence
Blaze shows the same no-cost lines: Authentication 'no-cost up to 50K MAUs' (standard) and 'no-cost up to 50 MAUs' (SAML/OIDC), calculated daily; beyond no-cost, pay-as-you-go. Also adds: Firestore no-cost daily quotas, Cloud Functions no-cost tier, access to paid GCP products (Cloud Run, Pub/Sub, BigQuery streaming), and 'If eligible, get $300 in free credit' via the GCP trial sign-up path.
Eligibility
Requires a linked Google Cloud billing account with a payment method (major credit cards or other accepted methods). Not a no-CC offering.
How to claim
Sign up for Blaze in the Firebase console (link purchaseBillingPlan=metered); create/link a GCP billing account (this auto-upgrades the project to Blaze).
Expiry
No expiry for the plan; no-cost usage recalculated daily; pay-as-you-go beyond quotas indefinitely.
Gotchas
Credit card required — real billing risk once no-cost usage is exceeded; Phone Auth on Blaze is billed per SMS sent (no longer free). Set GCP budgets/alerts before relying on Blaze.
Google Cloud $300 free trial (90 days) high confidence
New GCP sign-ups get a $300 welcome credit usable for 90 days, plus access to 20+ always-free products. A valid credit/debit card is required at signup (small temporary authorization hold, not an actual charge). Credits cannot fund Gemini API in AI Studio costs or managed generative-AI partner models; GPUs/TPUs, Cloud Marketplace, Windows Server VMs and VMware Engine are excluded.
Eligibility
New customers only: never signed up for the GCP Free Trial and never a paying user of Google Cloud, Google Maps Platform, or Firebase. No .edu requirement; effectively one trial per person/payment identity.
How to claim
1) Go to cloud.google.com/free → create account → add credit/debit card (hold ~$0.00-1.00). 2) $300 credit auto-applies; use 90 days. 3) Before trial ends, upgrade to paid to keep resources; otherwise trial account auto-closes, then a 30-day grace period, after which resources are permanently deleted.
Expiry
Credits valid 90 days from signup (kept if you upgrade to paid). Without upgrade: account auto-closes, 30-day grace, then resources permanently deleted.
Gotchas
Trial is NOT free-tier: after 90 days (or credit exhaustion on paid resources), standard billing applies — delete unused resources and set budget alerts. Trial credit explicitly excludes Gemini API costs. Docs page last updated 2026-10-20.
Google for Startups Cloud Program — up to $350,000 GCP credits high confidence
Live program (as of the page fetched 2026-10-22): 'Start' tier = $2,000; 'Scale' = 100% up to $250,000 credits in Year 1 + 20% up to an additional $100,000 in Year 2 (up to $350,000 over two years); 'Scale AI' = 100% up to $100,000 in Year 1 + 20% up to $100,000 in Year 2. Includes credits for frontier models (Gemini, Gemma; third-party models billed separately), monthly Google Maps Platform credits, 12 months of Google Workspace Business Plus at no extra cost, Startup Success Managers and Customer Engineering support.
Eligibility
Scale tiers: verifiable Pre-Seed to Series A funding from a known investor; company founded within the last 3-5 years (tier-dependent). Start tier: founded within the past 2 years, working MVP, clear business model, plans to seek venture funding. Non-VC money (private equity, bank loans, grants, crowdfunding, friends & family) does not qualify for Scale. Excluded: IPO'd/acquired companies, educational institutions, government entities, nonprofits, personal blogs, dev shops/consultancies/agencies, crypto mining. Must be in a region where GCP is GA and self-serve purchasable; AUP must be met.
How to claim
Apply self-service at cloud.google.com/startups ('Apply now' → 'Apply to the program'): have your 18-character GCP billing account ID ready (credits are issued directly to it); company email domain must match the website domain; active non-AI-generated website required; stealth companies can be referred by their VC/accelerator; Workspace Business Plus is a separate application (domain must not have been on paid Google Workspace within 31 days of applying).
Expiry
Credits issued/usable over two years (Year 2 at 20% rate). Program eligibility changes annually; previous participation does not guarantee re-enrollment — re-applications are possible if still eligible. Credits non-transferable, no sharing/reselling.
Gotchas
Credits only apply to eligible GCP pay-as-you-go products (not subscription products, not Marketplace/third-party, not Google Workspace/Ads). Acceptance at Google Cloud's sole discretion; rejection is common without VC funding. Do not confuse with the defunct launchcloud.withgoogle.com portal (404).
Google for Education — research credits (up to $5,000) medium confidence
GCP credits grant for research at accredited higher-education / eligible nonprofit research institutions in approved countries: 'Apply for up to $5,000 in Google Cloud credits' (stated on cloud.google.com/edu). Credits must be activated within 60 days of the stated project start date, then expire 365 days from coupon redemption or full use, whichever first; non-transferable; may not be used for commercial purposes. No credit card required — but a Google Cloud Billing Account ID must be provided on the application.
Eligibility
Faculty, PhD students, and postdoctoral researchers only (job titles on the form). Institutional account email preferred; .edu/.ac domain in practice; limited to the listed approved countries (other countries can only 'express interest'). PhD students qualify on this track; undergrads/taught students do not.
How to claim
1) Fill the research-credits form at edu.google.com/programs/credits/research: personal/org details, project proposal (up to 250 words), field of research, expected costs (estimate via the GCP pricing calculator), billing account ID, and a plan for funding after the credits run out. 2) If approved, activate the credit within 60 days of project start.
Gotchas
Exact award per application is set at review (cap $5,000); unused credits after 365 days are lost; not available in all countries; 'Institution account preferred' may steer awards to a campus billing account rather than your personal one.
Google for Education — teaching credits medium confidence
GCP credits for faculty teaching with GCP; apply for up to 3 courses per submission; expected course start no later than 1 year from today's date; credits redeemable from approval until 16 weeks after course start and good for up to 1 year after course start; non-transferable and tied to the applicant's email. No dollar amount is published on the page. No credit card requirement stated — it is a grants-style application.
Eligibility
Faculty only — students cannot apply directly. Requires an official school email with a valid edu domain. Program limited to a listed set of countries (70+); unlisted countries can only express interest. Only the most recent submission is reviewed.
How to claim
Fill the teaching-credits form at edu.google.com/programs/credits/teaching: personal details, institution, up to 3 courses, school email domains, and a faculty-directory profile link; submit and await approval.
Expiry
Credits good up to 1 year after course start; must be redeemed by 16 weeks after course start.
Gotchas
Per-course dollar amount is not disclosed publicly — check the award email when approved. Faculty-only means it does not help students directly (students can only use the free trial/free tiers or faculty-provisioned classroom projects).
Google Cloud always-free tier (20+ products) medium confidence
Independent of the $300 trial: a set of always-free monthly quotas across 20+ GCP services (the page markets it as 'Google Cloud free tier — explore products with free monthly usage', and 'Google Cloud Free Program — $300 in free credits and 20+ free products'). Typical always-free SKUs include e2-micro compute, Cloud Run requests, Cloud Storage, BigQuery processed/storage allowances, and Cloud SQL free instance. Works alongside Firebase Spark no-cost quotas for Firestore/Hosting/Functions.
Eligibility
Any GCP account; no credit card needed for the always-free usage itself. No .edu requirement.
How to claim
Create a GCP account; always-free quotas apply automatically to eligible SKUs — no enrollment step.
Expiry
Permanent (recurring monthly quotas).
Gotchas
Exact per-product quota figures were not verified on the live page today; quotas differ by SKU/region and Google has periodically restructured free-tier SKUs. Free SKUs do not cover everything (e.g., most GPU/TPU shapes are paid).
Firebase App Check (App Security) — no-cost on both plans high confidence
App Check (bot/attestation protection for Security Rules and API requests) is listed as a no-cost product on both the Spark and Blaze plans: 'No-cost, subject to quotas and limits that vary based on attestation provider'. No credit card needed on Spark. This is the free 'Security' front: security rules + App Check are free; there is no paid security product in Firebase pricing.
Eligibility
Any Firebase project; no CC required on Spark; on Blaze a GCP billing account exists but App Check usage itself is no-cost within quotas.
How to claim
1) In Firebase console, App Check → register your apps (Android Play Integrity, iOS, Web reCAPTCHA, or DeviceConfig providers). 2) Add corresponding Security Rules enforcement. No separate enrollment or payment step.
Expiry
No expiry (permanent no-cost offering).
Gotchas
Quotas/limits vary by attestation provider (e.g., reCAPTCHA Enterprise quotas); exceeding them can break app attestation — check per-provider quota limits in the App Check docs.
2025-2026 changes: (1) The free auth allocation is now 50,000 MAUs (standard methods) and 50 MAUs (SAML/OIDC) on BOTH Spark and Blaze, replacing the older Blaze free tier of 10,000 free auth MAUs that applied for years; the Spark no-payment-method plan is the new default sign-up. (2) Phone Auth was removed from the free offerings: the current pricing page shows 'billed per SMS sent' on Blaze and 'N/A' on Spark, vs. the previously free ~10K phone sign-ins — a real cost trap for SMS-based apps. (3) Feature Flags: no live free offering found. All Firebase Feature Flags URLs checked today 404 (firebase.google.com/docs/feature-flags, /docs/feature-flags/overview, /docs/feature-flags/pricing, /product/feature-flags, /pricing/feature-flags) and 'Feature Flags' has no line on the official pricing page — the product/doc set appears to have been restructured or sunset out of developer preview; treat as not-free-until-verified. (4) The old startups portal launchcloud.withgoogle.com is gone (404); the program now runs at cloud.google.com/startups as 'Google for Startups Cloud Program' with the $2K Start / up-to-$350K Scale / Scale AI tiers described above — a materially different structure from the older $125K-$250K cohort-style GCP Startups program. (5) GCP free trial terms are stable ($300/90 days, CC required, last-updated 2026-10-20) but now explicitly exclude Gemini API (AI Studio) costs from trial credit. (6) No .edu-gated student offer exists for Firebase itself: the only education-licensed credits are GCP grants for faculty (teaching) and faculty/PhD/postdoc researchers (research, up to $5K); students have no dedicated free GCP/Firebase program beyond the general trial (CC required) and the no-CC Spark plan.</sunset_notes>