Best offer on record: Gradient Free plan — free GPU notebook (M4000) for any new user. 4 verified findings, checked 2026-10-22.
Offers
Gradient Free plan — free GPU notebook (M4000) for any new user high confidence
Open free tier on Paperspace Gradient: $0/month, includes 'Basic' free instances — Free GPU (M4000, 8 GB VRAM, 8 vCPU, 30 GB RAM, Maxwell/2015, $0.45/hr if billed) and Free CPU (C4). Docs (verified 13 Jul 2026): free machines can only be used for Notebooks in private workspaces; Free plan includes 5 GB persistent storage. Free-tier auto-shutdown max is 6 hours per the official docs (the pricing page shows 'Auto-shutdown (12 hour limit)'); only 1 free machine runs at a time; free capacity is a shared, non-guaranteed pool (free notebooks can sit Pending in queue). Public projects/notebooks only — no private projects on the Free plan. Upgrade path: Pro $8/mo individual (adds Free P4000/P5000/RTX4000/RTX5000/A4000, 15 GB storage) and Growth $39/mo (adds Free A5000/A6000/A100-80G, 50 GB storage).
Eligibility
Open to all new users; no .edu email, student status, or startup criteria; no credit card required for the Free plan (official sign-up says 'Create a free account'; card only needed for paid instance usage or paid plans). Not student/startup-specific — a general consumer free tier.
How to claim
Sign up free at paperspace.com ('Sign up free', or via the Notebooks page 'Sign up with Google/GitHub'), open a private workspace (individual plan), create a Gradient Notebook, choose a pre-built runtime template, select the Free GPU (M4000) machine type, and launch. No payment step.
Expiry
No expiry or renewal — the Free plan is permanent at $0 while account is active. Overage model, not a trial: storage over $5 GB is billed $0.29/GB/month; running paid instance types bills hourly. Free-plan cap applies; upgrade to Pro/Growth to unlock more free GPU SKUs.
Gotchas
M4000 is a 2015 Maxwell card — slow for serious training; 8 GB VRAM. Free notebooks are public only (no private projects), 1 running free notebook at a time, capacity is best-effort (queue/Pending possible), session auto-shutdown max 6h per docs (pricing page says 12h — treat as ~half-day sessions). 'Free' is free-tier, not trial-with-expires: paid instances and storage overage are real charges, and the platform has no refunds. No capacity guarantee and free-tier storage is exclusive per region. Free-machine use is limited to Notebooks, not raw Machines/Deployments.
Gradient T0 Team plan — $0 team notebook workspace (10 notebooks) medium confidence
Free team-tier plan: $0 base + utilization on paid instance types. 10 total notebooks, max 1 running at a time, 'Low' instance types only, public notebooks only, 10 GB persistent storage included ($0.29/GB/month overage), 12-hour auto-shutdown limit. Private workspace and team(s) are billed separately.
Eligibility
Any small team; no education/startup restrictions noted on the pricing page. Free sign-up; card needed only for paid utilization.
How to claim
Create a free Gradient account, start on the $0 team T0 plan via the pricing page ('Start Now'), invite collaborators to the team to use the 10-notebook allowance.
Expiry
No expiry/renewal; ongoing $0 base with pay-per-use overage. Cancellable any time from console settings.
Gotchas
No free GPU entitlement is documented for T0 — the listed 'Low' instance types map to the paid 'Low' tier (C5/C7 CPU, P4000/RTX4000/A4000 GPU), which is card-on-file territory, so T0 mostly gives free CPU/low-tier access; the free M4000 GPU is tied to individual Free/Pro/Growth G-plan workspaces. Overage storage at $0.29/GB adds up; public notebooks only; no refunds on the platform.
DigitalOcean Startups ('Hatch') program — cloud credits, but Paperspace GPUs excluded high confidence
Startups receive DigitalOcean cloud credits for a 12-month period; the amount varies by partner/tier, with a $10,000 monthly credit-usage cap (overage billed), plus 15 months of free Standard support. Credits flow through an approved partner (accelerator/incubator/VC on their partner list) or a direct application via their TypeForm with 'Other' organization. Partner perks add up (e.g. Stripe Atlas 20% off, QuickNode up to $5k, Cloud66 $500). Program now prioritizes AI-native startups; unused credits are forfeited, no extensions.
Eligibility
Early-stage company, $10M or less raised total; must have a company website, a matching corporate email, and a registered DigitalOcean team account with a valid credit card. Service-based startups (agencies, consultancies) excluded. Not aimed at students; no .edu requirement.
How to claim
Apply through an affiliated accelerator/incubator/VC if listed in their partner program, otherwise complete the application on the DigitalOcean Startups page (TypeForm, select 'Other' as affiliated org); on acceptance a 'Welcome Kit' delivers the credits.
Expiry
Credits usable for 12 months from grant; $10k/month cap; unused credits forfeit at end of period. No renewals.
Gotchas
Critical for this task: the program FAQ explicitly EXCLUDES Paperspace Machines (and GPU Droplets, H100 GPU Kubernetes, bare-metal GPUs, inference, third-party frontier models) from 'Qualifying Program Services' — GPU credits are a separate, non-guaranteed benefit. So Hatch does NOT reliably buy free Paperspace compute; it credits DigitalOcean core services (Droplets, Spaces, etc.). Card required on the DO team account; no crypto mining; no transfer of credits.
Education license / student program at Paperspace — none found medium confidence
paperspace.com/education returns 404 and the pricing/docs make no mention of any student discount, classroom license, or .edu program as of 2026-10-22. Historically Paperspace's education story was fast.ai course runtimes inside free-tier notebooks; that is a feature, not a funded license.
Eligibility
n/a — no program exists to claim. Students get the same open Free plan as any user (free M4000 GPU notebook, no card, no .edu verification).
How to claim
n/a
Expiry
n/a
Gotchas
Do not treat the general Free plan as an 'education license' — it has the same non-guaranteed free capacity and public-only notebooks for everyone. If an edu program existed it would be a distinct finding; it does not appear to currently.
2025-2026 changes: (1) No Paperspace-specific 2025/2026 program changes found — the public changelog (updates.paperspace.com) shows no 2025-2026 entries on the landing page (last visible 2023-12) and the docs are current as of 2026-07-13 with the Free-tier M4000/GPU+ offering still listed, so the Gradient Free plan appears still live. (2) DigitalOcean no longer markets a standalone 'free trial' page at www.digitalocean.com/free, /trial, or /free-trial (all 404 as of today; homepage has no trial-credits banner), so the classic DO new-account trial credit could not be verified on any official page today — if it still exists it is only discoverable at signup, and I do not list it as a finding. (3) DigitalOcean's Startups/Hatch program has repositioned to prioritize AI-native startups but continues to EXCLUDE Paperspace Machines from qualifying services — so even though the task frames 'startup program' for Paperspace free compute, the only startup-credit vehicle is generic DO credits that do not cover GPU/Paperspace usage. (4) The old Paperspace referral program (free GPU hours for friend referrals, linked in older page footers) has no live page — paperspace.com/referral is 404; treat as sunset. (5) Auto-shutdown for free machines is documented as a 6-hour max in the current DO docs, tighter than the 12-hour figure on the pricing page; treat 6h as the safe operational limit. Nothing on the free M4000 plan was formally sunsetting in the pages read today; it remains the entry free GPU offer. WebSearch budget was exhausted mid-task, so verification relied on direct WebFetch of official pages; unverified-by-search claims are marked medium confidence.