Best offer on record: Neon Free plan (permanent free tier). 5 verified findings, checked 2026-10-22.
Offers
Neon Free plan (permanent free tier) high confidence
Verified on neon.com/pricing + FAQ today. $0/month, permanent (explicitly 'not a trial'). 100 projects/org; 10 branches/project (extra branches not available on Free); 100 CU-hours compute per project/month; autoscaling capped at 2 CU (8 GB RAM); auto-pause/scale-to-zero after 5 min inactivity (cannot be disabled on Free; suspended compute = $0); 1 GB Postgres storage per project with a 20 GB account-wide cap; 5 GB public egress per project; 6-hour instant-restore history capped at 1 GB of changes; 1 manual snapshot/project; Managed Better Auth up to 60k MAU/project; Object Storage 5 GB/project (free in beta); Functions 10 active + 400 waiting capacity-hours and 1M invocations per project; monitoring retention 1 day; unlimited org members; community support only. CU-hours and egress reset monthly; storage/branch/project counts are continuous. Hitting limits suspends compute or blocks writes — data is never deleted and there is no overage billing on Free. Suspended computes still count against storage.
Eligibility
Anyone, no credit card required (official pricing docs: 'The Free plan is permanent (not a trial); no credit card required'), no .edu email or company status needed. No region limits stated on the page.
How to claim
Sign up at console.neon.tech (neon.com signup); Free plan is default — no activation steps. Included backend primitives (auth, object storage, functions) also come automatically with each project.
Expiry
No expiry or renewal needed; it is a permanent free tier. Invoices under $0.50 are not collected (paid side).
Gotchas
Do not confuse with paid plans: Launch starts at $0.106/CU-hour, Scale at $0.222/CU-hour, storage $0.35/GB-month on paid. Hitting the 100 CU-hour or 5 GB egress cap suspends that project's compute for the month. The stale pricing.md mirror still says 0.5 GB/project — current limit is 1 GB/project since Oct 2, 2026. No instant-restore, no scheduled snapshots, no IP allow rules, no HIPAA/SOC2/SLA on Free.
$20 trial credits (paid-features trial) medium confidence
The official pricing page offers 'Claim $20 in free credits to try paid features' via a console promo link. $20 of prepaid value usable against paid-plan usage (Launch/Scale rates). Exact terms (credit-card requirement, credit expiry, one-time vs repeatable) are not documented on the pages fetched today.
Eligibility
Not stated on official pages; presented as a general trial-credits claim (console promo code 'beepboop'). No edu/startup requirement indicated.
How to claim
1) Go to https://console.neon.tech/app/?promo=beepboop (linked from neon.com/pricing). 2) Sign in / create account. 3) $20 credits applied to try paid features.
Expiry
Not stated on official pages today.
Gotchas
Trial credits are NOT the permanent free tier — once the $20 is exhausted, standard usage-based billing applies to whatever plan is selected. Confirm CC requirements and credit expiry before claiming; unverified as of today's fetch.
Verified on neon.com/startups today. Two tracks: Self-funded — up to $1,000 in Neon credits; Venture-backed — up to $200K in combined Neon + Databricks credits (hero banner says 'up to $200K in credits'). Credits valid 12 months from date of acceptance. Note a marketing discrepancy: the pricing page's 'Special programs' section still says 'up to $100k in credits', while the dedicated startup page details $1K / $200K. Application is now routed through a Databricks form (Neon is 'part of the Databricks Platform').
Eligibility
Early-stage startups. Self-funded track: less than $1M in funding, early-stage product/MVP, no investors required. Venture-backed track: VC-backed with at least $1M in funding, or participation in a recognized accelerator (Y Combinator cited). No stated caps on company age beyond 'early-stage', revenue, headcount, or geographic region.
How to claim
1) Submit the application at neon.com/startups (Databricks application form, 'Apply Now'). 2) Reviews take a few business days. 3) If qualified, credits are applied directly to your account. Alternative: 'apply or ask your investor' / name an accelerator (e.g. YC) in the investor field.
Expiry
Credits valid 12 months from acceptance; no renewal mechanism described. After credits lapse or are exhausted, normal plan billing applies.
Gotchas
Not automatic — application-based with review. Billing is set up so usage beyond the credits is billed normally (a payment method will likely be needed once credits run out, though the page does not state a CC requirement up front). The '$100k' figure on the pricing page is stale marketing copy versus the page's own $1K/$200K structure. Databricks credits in the VC track may be constrained by Databricks' own program terms.
Claimable Neon (agent-provisioned no-signup projects) high confidence
Verified on neon.com/claimable-neon today. A coding agent can spin up a real Neon project before a human signs up: 'No account or payment details required.' Includes a temporary Lakebase Postgres database; optional Data API and Managed Better Auth (both stay enabled after claim). Unclaimed projects are capped at 100 MB storage and 1 GB transfer and expire in 72 hours. Provision via scoped agent credentials (auth.md/WorkOS flow, CLI, neon.ts), then a short-lived claim link (claimable.neon.tech/claim?user_code=...) transfers the project into the human's Neon org, establishing ownership with team access.
Eligibility
Anyone — no account, no credit card, no sign-up required for the agent-provisioned phase; to claim into an account you need (or create) a Neon org, where the Free plan applies.
How to claim
1) Provision: agent creates project + scoped credentials via GET https://neon.com/auth.md then POST to claimable.neon.tech. 2) Build: agent works against the live DB. 3) Claim: use the claim link to transfer the project into your org.
Expiry
Unclaimed projects expire after 72 hours (100 MB/1 GB caps until claimed). After claiming, the project lives under your normal plan (Free tier limits if on Free) with no expiry.
Gotchas
The 72-hour 100 MB cap makes it unsuitable for any sustained workload — it is an on-ramp, not a free tier. After claiming, Free-plan quotas (1 GB storage/project, 100 CU-hrs, 5 GB egress) govern. Data built in the 72h window survives claim; an abandoned project is deleted at expiry.
No student/education-specific program found medium confidence
No Neon student or education license offer exists on the official site as of today: neon.com/education resolves to the generic product page (no program), the pricing page lists only Agent Plan, Startup Program and Open Source Program among special programs, and no .edu-email-verified offer or education pricing appears in the FAQ or 2025-2026 changelog entries. Students get the same permanent Free plan as anyone else (no CC, no limits on who signs up). (Out of scope but adjacent: an Open Source sponsorship program exists at neon.com/programs/open-source.md for maintainers, and an 'Agent Plan' for app-generation platforms.)
Eligibility
N/A — no distinct student offer; standard Free plan eligibility (anyone).
How to claim
Students: sign up for the Free plan normally; no .edu email required or requested by Neon's published materials.
Expiry
N/A.
Gotchas
Do not confuse with generic Databricks-for-education programs (e.g. Databricks education/community tiers), which are not surfaced on Neon's site. Search budget for further confirmation was exhausted this session; if an education program exists, it is not referenced from Neon's pricing/startup/claimable pages.
2025-2026 changes (all from official changelogs/blogs): (1) Aug 15, 2025 — major pricing overhaul to usage-based paid plans with a then-$5/month minimum; Free plan storage moved from 0.5 GB total to 0.5 GB PER project; the $5 minimum was later removed (Dec 12, 2025, 'purely usage-based'). (2) Nov 7, 2025 — Free plan projects raised 20 -> 30; compute prices cut (Launch $0.14->$0.106/CU-hr, Scale $0.26->$0.222). (3) Nov 21, 2025 — Free plan projects 30 -> 50. (4) Dec 12, 2025 — Free plan projects raised to 70/80; branchable Neon Auth (Better Auth) added to all plans including Free. (5) Mar 6, 2026 — unlimited org members on Free plan. (6) Oct 2, 2026 — Free plan storage doubled 0.5 GB -> 1 GB per project (now 20 GB account-wide cap) and project count -> 100. (7) Neon is now a Databricks company: pages read 'part of the Databricks Platform / Built around Lakebase Postgres, by Databricks'; the startup program is applied for via a Databricks form and its VC track pays combined Neon + Databricks credits. Nothing was sunset: no free offer was closed in 2025-2026, only expanded. Watch item: the marketing 'up to $100k in credits' on the pricing page no longer matches the startup page's $1K self-funded / $200K VC-backed structure — likely stale copy.