Best offer on record: Fly.io Free Trial (2 VM hours / 7 days). 4 verified findings, checked 2026-10-22.
Offers
Fly.io Free Trial (2 VM hours / 7 days) high confidence
Every new account gets a trial grant of 2 total VM hours of machine runtime OR 7 days of access, whichever comes first. Trial limits: up to 10 machines, 20GB of volume storage, machines up to 2 vCPU / 4GB RAM. Trial machines auto-stop after 5 minutes of runtime (relevant when no billing is on file). NOT included: dedicated IPv4 addresses and performance-optimized vCPUs. Metering: machine runtime (incl. memory) per second; volume storage and machine count per hour. Visible under 'Trial Status' in the dashboard. After the trial: apps halt; you cannot launch new machines, attach volumes, or deploy changes until a payment method is set up. Adding a credit card from the dashboard ends the trial early and billing starts immediately. Pay-as-you-go then runs from ~$2.19/mo for the smallest always-on app (shared-cpu-1x, 256MB), plus dedicated IPv4 $2.00/mo and egress $0.02/GB (NA/EU).
Eligibility
Any new user who creates a Fly.io account — no credit card required to start, no .edu email, no student/startup restriction, no funding cap, no stated region limit. Open to the general public, not a student or startup program.
How to claim
Sign up at fly.io/app/sign-up/ — the trial is attached automatically at account creation, no separate activation step. Monitor remaining time/hours under 'Trial Status' in the dashboard. To continue past the trial, add a payment method (Stripe) in Billing.
Expiry
Expires at 2 total VM hours or 7 days, whichever comes first; earlier if you add a card (trial ends, billing begins). Not renewable; no stated extension path.
Gotchas
Trial vs. free: this is a metered trial, not an ongoing free tier — when it ends without billing, all apps stop and deploys are blocked. With no card on file, trial machines auto-stop after just 5 minutes of uptime. The 2 VM hours are shared across all machines and include memory; a single 256MB shared-CPU machine running 24/7 already burns ~half the grant in 3 days. After trial, stopped-but-kept machines still accrue storage ($0.15/GB-mo on rootfs), and same-region transfer is free but internet egress is $0.02/GB. Pre-auth holds are usually under $10 and can show for up to 10 business days.
Always-free allowances on paid plans (no free compute tier) high confidence
After the trial, there is no free compute tier: no free VM hours, memory, or machine minutes. What is free for any account: first 10GB of volume snapshots per month; a shared IPv4 and unlimited Anycast IPv6 for every app; same-region data transfer; and community support. Cheapest running states: shared-cpu-1x 256MB preset $2.19/mo; stopped machines bill $0.15/GB-mo of rootfs; volumes $0.15/GB-mo; Managed Postgres Basic $38/mo; dedicated IPv4 $2.00/mo; egress $0.02/GB (NA/EU); support from $29/mo.
Eligibility
Any Fly.io account. Note a credit card is required by most accounts to deploy multiple apps or public images (abuse prevention); alternative if you can't add a card: purchase account credits, minimum $25 (prepaid cards can fund credit purchases but not serve as the saved method). No student/startup-specific terms on this page.
How to claim
Automatic for every account on sign-up; snapshot allowance and network allowances apply without opt-in. Credits purchased in the dashboard Billing section.
Expiry
Ongoing, not time-limited. The 10GB snapshot allowance resets monthly; free allowances do not expire and do not renew/stack beyond that.
Gotchas
'Free' here means snapshots/IP/networking/community support only — compute, storage of running or stopped volumes, Postgres, and internet egress all bill. Volumes in pending_destroy state do not accrue charges. Free Postgres from the old shared-CPU days is gone: managed Postgres now starts at $38/mo.
Fly.io Startup Program (up to $15,000 in credits) high confidence
fly.io/startups offers up to $15,000 in credits for eligible early-stage startups. Credits apply across Machines, Sprites, Managed Postgres, volumes, and bandwidth, but exclude support plans, compliance packages, and Machine reservations. Credits expire 1 year after they are added to the organization. Applicants are invited to a Slack channel with the Fly team. After credits are exhausted, apps keep running at standard pay-as-you-go (billed by the second). Application takes ~2 minutes; a human reviews it and replies by email within about a week. Fly may verify funding via a quick email intro to the investor or accelerator.
Eligibility
Seed- or Series-A-stage startups backed by a venture firm or an accelerator. Must NOT have received Fly.io startup credits before (one-time). No startup-age cap, revenue cap, team-size cap, .edu requirement, or stated region restriction — funding-stage/VC-backing is the gate, not time since founding.
How to claim
Fill out the application at fly.io/startups/ (fields: name, work email, company, website, funding stage, lead investor/accelerator, Fly.io org name, description of what you're building). A human reads it; response by email within ~1 week.
Expiry
Credits expire 1 year after being added to the organization. The program itself has no listed deadline. No renewal: startups that already received Fly startup credits are ineligible, so this is a one-time grant per startup.
Gotchas
'Up to $15,000' — the page does not publish a fixed grant amount or tiering. Credit card requirement is not stated on the page. Credits do not cover support, compliance, or reserved machines. If funding cannot be verified, the application may be rejected.
Education / student program: none exists (former free tier with student eligibility is gone) medium confidence
As of 2026-10-22 there is no Fly.io education license, student program, .edu email offer, or free academic compute tier. fly.io/education returns HTTP 404; docs.fly.io/about/education returns HTTP 404; the docs home, learn hub (40 technical explainers), and pricing page contain no education/student/academic offer. The legacy free plan — which historically offered free shared-CPU machines to students, educators, researchers, and artists — has been removed: the old reference page fly.io/docs/reference/free-faq now redirects to docs.fly.io/reference/free-faq, which returns HTTP 404 (page deleted). The only free entry point is the general 2-hour/7-day trial, open to everyone without card.
Eligibility
n/a — no current education offer exists. Historically the retired free tier targeted students/educators/researchers/artists with no stated .edu verification on the surviving pages.
How to claim
Nothing to claim. Students get exactly the same 2 VM-hour / 7-day trial as any other user; there is no separate application, license, or student pricing to request.
Expiry
n/a (no offer). The old free tier's successor (the trial) has its own 7-day/2-hour expiry as documented in finding 1.
Gotchas
Do not assume the old student-friendly free shared-CPU tier still exists — the reference docs are deleted and the pricing page lists no free compute. Anyone citing 'free Fly machines for students' is using pre-sunset information.
Legacy free tier (free shared-CPU machines, historically eligible for students/educators/researchers/artists) has been sunset: the old FAQ at fly.io/docs/reference/free-faq now 404s at docs.fly.io/reference/free-faq, fly.io/education and docs.fly.io/about/education 404, and today's pricing page shows no free compute tier — replaced by the 2-VM-hour / 7-day no-card trial plus pay-as-you-go from ~$2.19/mo. Free Postgres on the old free plan is also gone (Managed Postgres Basic starts at $38/mo). Web search was unavailable in this session (budget exhausted), so I could not pin the exact sunset date of the old free tier (my prior knowledge suggests the free tier was retired in 2024 and replaced by the trial); that date should be confirmed separately. The $15,000 startup-credit figure and the 1-year credit expiry come from the live fly.io/startups page (copyrighted 2026), so the program is current as of 2026-10-22; no material 2025-2026 change was visible on the official pages themselves. No evidence today of any current education license or student program.
Critic corrections
Fly.io (Free trial): Price is stale. The trial is 2 VM hours or 7 days, whichever comes first, and new organizations have no free tier. Pay-as-you-go has no platform fee, and the smallest always-on Machine (shared-cpu-1x, 256 MB) costs $2.19/month on the official pricing page, not from $1.