Best offer on record: Free plan: 1 free CPU Studio + up to 30 one-time free credits (~80 GPU hours on interruptible machines). 3 verified findings, checked 2026-10-22.
Offers
Free plan: 1 free CPU Studio + up to 30 one-time free credits (~80 GPU hours on interruptible machines) high confidence
$0/mo tier aimed at "students, researchers, hobbyists." Included: 1 free active CPU Studio (up to 32 cores; runs 24/7 but requires a restart every 4 hours), 32-core CPU Studios, single-GPU Studios (L40S, A100, H100, H200, T4, L4, RTX PRO 6000), up to 2 concurrent GPUs, 80% discount on interruptible (spot) instances, unlimited inactive Studios, unlimited background execution, connect any local IDE or SSH, multiplayer live collaboration, secrets management + E2E encryption, 15 req/min and 120,000 tok/min to Lightning model APIs. Credits: "You get 5 free Lightning credits upon registration. Add a card for 25 more" (1 credit = $1 USD) = up to 30 free credits, which the pricing page says "gets you ~80 GPU hours on interruptible machines." Per-GPU free-hours table on pricing page: T4 75, L4 31, A100 40GB 10, A100 80GB 5, L40S 5, RTX PRO 6000 2; H100/H200 show no free hours. Persistent storage: official pricing table lists a 200 GB limit for Free (third-party checks still say 50 GB — see gotchas). All GPUs across AWS/GCP/Lightning/Nebius/Lambda/NScale.
Eligibility
Open to anyone. No credit card required for the base tier, but 25 of the up-to-30 credits are only unlocked by adding a card. A phone number is required at signup ("to prevent abuse of the platform"). Region: official docs state "Lightning AI is not available in every country"; no published country list.
How to claim
1) Create an account at lightning.ai (email, Google, GitHub, or SSO) — no card needed. 2) Verify your phone number; this is what unlocks the free credits/GPU hours (docs: "Verify your phone number to receive up to 80 free GPU hours to start"). 3) Start a Studio — it boots on a free CPU instance by default; install deps there, switch to GPU only when needed. 4) Optional: add a payment card to receive the extra 25 credits (up to 30 total).
Expiry
The credit grant is a one-time registration grant (5 on sign-up, 25 after adding a card); unused credits expire 12 months from issuance (purchased credits also expire 12 months from purchase). The free CPU Studio's 4-hour restart cycle repeats indefinitely — no end date published.
Gotchas
"Known so far" said "30 free credits/month" — the official page today does NOT say monthly; it is up to 30 one-time credits (5 + 25-with-card). Some third-party sources (codeables.dev 2026-03, a GitHub doc) still claim 15 credits topped up monthly on the free plan; the billing FAQ now describes free credits only as "promotional, non-transferable, and do not accumulate," with no quantified monthly amount. Beyond the credits everything is pay-as-you-go (GPUs billed per second, storage per day). Free GPUs are interruptible/preemptible. Free-tier API caps: 15 req/min, 120k tok/min. Session caps: A100/H100/H200 sessions limited to 4h; T4/L4/L40S unlimited. Storage limit inconsistent between sources (official table: 200 GB; aifree.dev person-verified 2026-10-12 and AILookup: 50 GB) — verify in-dashboard. Free credits are "promotional" and Lightning "may change or limit free credit grants, eligibility, usage rules, or expiration terms at any time." No multi-node training, no multi-GPU per Studio, no SAML/SSO, no uptime SLA on Free.
Academic tier (education license): 80% off list price for first 48 months, requires academic email high confidence
Lightning AI offers a discounted academic Pro tier: "80% off the list price for your first 48 months, billed annually." Standard Pro is $50/month; academic pricing shows ~$9.99–$10/month billed annually, with 100 annual credits, 30 req/min and 150,000 tok/min model-API limits, unlimited background execution, multi-node training and up to 4 concurrent GPUs (per third-party listings). Students ALSO keep the full free tier: "All verified users get free credits for GPU workloads plus a free CPU studio." If your class/lab's institution already pays for Lightning AI, the org admin can assign you one of its academic seats instead of buying your own.
Eligibility
Requires an academic email address on your account (e.g., .edu or institutional email). No funding/age constraints — it is an education license, not a startup program. No credit card needed to use the free tier, but the academic Pro tier itself is a paid plan (billed annually).
How to claim
1) Sign up / sign in to lightning.ai with your academic email (faster verification per docs). 2) On the pricing page, toggle 'Academic pricing' to see the discounted tier, or contact support to apply. 3) Alternatively, ask your instructor to create a Lightning organization for the class and add seats/credits there — "most universities have cloud credits and budgets they can use for classes through Lightning AI."
Expiry
Discount lasts the first 48 months, billed annually; the docs do not state whether the same rate renews after 48 months. Credits attached to plans (incl. the 100 annual academic credits) expire after 12 months. The 4-hour free CPU-Studio restart mechanism has no stated cap.
Gotchas
This is a DISCOUNT, not a free offer — Academic Pro still costs ~$10/mo billed annually. The dedicated marketing page lightning.ai/academia currently returns HTTP 404; the offer lives in the docs (docs/platform/overview/setups/academia and .../students) and the pricing page's 'Academic pricing' toggle. Exact monthly price varies slightly across sources ($9.99 vs $10/mo). A 2023 forum thread shows free credits were sometimes not auto-deposited for .edu accounts (had to be manually sorted by support) — if the 5 signup credits don't appear, contact support@lightning.ai.
Official startup docs: creating a Lightning organization costs nothing ("There is no cost to create a new organization"), pay-as-you-go from the first second, each member gets a free CPU Studio and a free teamspace, and orgs can connect their own AWS/GCP accounts to run on their own startup cloud credits (free BYO-credits path). The pricing page states "Startup and academic pricing available" (by contact; no published startup-credit amount). Y Combinator partner page: YC program members get 3 Enterprise-tier seats (stated $30K value), $5,000 in Lightning AI compute credits ($5K value), and $5,000 of platform onboarding/support ($5K value) — BUT this "requires $20K annual contract," so it is a discounted paid deal, not a free grant. NVIDIA Inception partnership (announced by co-founder William Falcon, 2025-03-25): 80% discount on the Enterprise tier for NVIDIA Inception member startups (example given: $50K subscription for $10K) plus expert access.
Eligibility
Official startup docs state NO published requirements — no funding cap, no company-age limit, no VC-backing requirement; any startup can create a free org and pay as it goes. Third-party directories (startupperks.co, aifree.dev) additionally claim startups must "verify company details (age, funding, or website)" — this is NOT stated on the official startups docs page, so treat it as unverified. YC offer: must be a Y Combinator program member; NVIDIA offer: must be an NVIDIA Inception member.
How to claim
Free path: 1) Create a Lightning AI organization (org title in top-left sidebar > 'New Organization' — takes under 10 minutes, free). 2) Invite team members; each gets a teamspace. 3) Optionally add a private AWS/GCP cloud account to consume your own startup cloud credits (AWS Activate / GCP for Startups credits). 4) For extra startup pricing/credits, contact Lightning AI via the pricing page's 'Startup and academic pricing available' link. YC offer: apply through YC partner channel and 'log in to claim'; NVIDIA Inception: claim via the Inception program portal.
Expiry
Ongoing; no sunset date published for the free-to-start org model or the partner offers. YC and NVIDIA Inception deals are subject to each program's own renewal terms (not published on Lightning's pages).
Gotchas
The headline YC '$5K in compute credits' is conditional on a $20K annual contract — effectively a 20%-of-cost rebate, not free. No public, no-string-attached dollar-amount free-credit grant for startups exists on official pages (unlike free-tier users' 5/30 credits). "Startup pricing" means discounted paid plans by inquiry, not published free credits. Free-tier caveats still apply to any startup account (4h Studio restarts, interruptible GPUs, pay-as-you-go beyond credits).
1) The \"Known so far\" figure of \"up to 30 free credits/MONTH\" is no longer what the official pricing page says (checked 2026-10-22): credits are a one-time grant of 5 at registration + 25 after adding a card (up to 30 total), expiring in 12 months. The older \"15 monthly Lightning credits included\" free-plan model (visible in the Sept-2024 SaaSworthy snapshot and 2023 forum threads) was a monthly allowance; the billing FAQ now describes free credits only as \"promotional, non-transferable, and do not accumulate\" without a monthly amount, and some 2026 third-party write-ups (codeables.dev, a GitHub repo doc) still claim 15/month — that monthly figure is unconfirmed on any official page read today. 2) Storage: \"50 GB persistent storage\" (known-so-far and still the figure on aifree.dev, person-verified 2026-10-12, and AILookup) conflicts with today's official pricing table, which lists a 200 GB persistent-storage limit for the Free plan — possibly a 2025-2026 change or a limit-vs-included distinction; verify in-dashboard. 3) The dedicated education marketing page lightning.ai/academia now 404s; the academic offer was consolidated into the docs tree (lightning.ai/docs/platform/overview/setups/academia[/students]). 4) No region limits are published beyond \"Lightning AI is not available in every country\". 5) lightning.ai was showing a global-outage banner (status.lightning.ai) at read time; all pages above still returned content. No startup free-credit grant was found to have been sunset — Lightning has no public fixed-amount startup credit program to begin with; the closest offers (YC $5K + $30K seats contingent on a $20K contract; NVIDIA Inception 80% Enterprise discount) are partner deals, not free programs.