Best offer on record: Free (forever) plan — transactional + marketing email. 3 verified findings, checked 2026-10-22.
Offers
Free (forever) plan — transactional + marketing email high confidence
3,000 transactional emails/month with a hard cap of 100 emails/day (UTC calendar day, resets midnight UTC). Includes 3 verified domains, 3 inboxes, 10,000 automation runs/mo, 5 AI credits/mo, 1 webhook endpoint, 30-day data retention, ticket support, open/click tracking. Marketing (Broadcasts): unlimited sends to up to 1,000 contacts/mo, 3 segments. Overage billing not available on Free — sending pauses at the quota. No credit card required to sign up; paid plans accept major credit cards only.
Eligibility
Open to everyone (students, startups, anyone). No .edu email, funding cap, or startup age requirement. No credit card required on Free. No region limits found. Free-forever, not a trial.
How to claim
1) Sign up at resend.com (no CC needed). 2) Add a custom domain and paste the generated DKIM/SPF/DMARC DNS records for verification. 3) Generate an API key / use SMTP relay and start sending immediately. Free marketing contacts are managed via the Broadcasts feature in the same dashboard.
Expiry
No expiry — recurring free plan, limits renew monthly. No renewal steps.
Gotchas
Inbound (received) emails count against the 3,000/mo and 100/day quota — spam hitting free inboxes consumes it. The daily cap is not bankable (each UTC day is independent). Hitting quota pauses sending until the next billing cycle; paid tiers instead bill overage ($0.90/1,000, capped at 5x quota). Extra domains ($20/mo add-on) and extra inboxes ($1/mo) require a paid plan. API rate limit is 10 req/s on all plans. No annual billing option.
YC deal — startup credits for Y Combinator companies high confidence
$25,000 in credits for the current YC batch, valid for 12 months; $15,000 for YC alumni. Perks beyond credits: dedicated Slack channel with Resend founders and engineers, optional company feature as a use case on Resend's website, direct access to the CEO's phone (WhatsApp/text). Signing up before Demo Day also earns an exclusive gift from the Resend team.
Eligibility
Y Combinator companies only: current-batch founders get the $25k tier, YC alumni the $15k tier. Verified through the official YC verification link (ycombinator.com/verify). Not open to non-YC startups; no .edu or funding-cap criteria — batch/alumni status is the gate.
How to claim
1) Sign up at resend.com before your batch's Demo Day. 2) From resend.com/yc, use 'Get your YC verification link' (ycombinator.com/verify) to authenticate your YC status. 3) 'Claim deal' on the YC page; credits and perks attach to your verified account. No credit card is required to receive credits.
Expiry
Credits valid for 12 months (stated for current batch; alumni window not explicitly stated, assumed same). Offer is per YC batch cycle — claim before Demo Day for the bonus. No renewal/extension policy published.
Gotchas
This is the ONLY remaining Resend startup offer: the open startup program page (resend.com/startups) returns 404 as of 2026-10-22. No per-sender caps or volume limits are published on the page. Third-party directories (techscoop, creditforstartups) add unverified exclusions (e.g., 'not for Series C+'); the official page states only the batch/alumni tiers.
Resend Insiders — ambassador program with free Pro subscription high confidence
Select insiders receive a free Resend Pro subscription ($20/mo value = 50,000 transactional emails/mo tier, no daily limit) plus early access to new features, limited-edition swag, featuring on Resend's official channels, direct access to founders/DX/engineering teams, and a private builders community.
Eligibility
Application-based, 'Resend's most invested users': content creators (blogs/videos), power users who improve docs, open-source contributors. No .edu, funding, or age requirements. No credit card required. First cohort is described as a small, selective group — acceptance is not guaranteed.
How to claim
1) Open resend.com/insiders. 2) Fill out the application form (name, email, city/country, languages, motivation, technical skills; GitHub and X/Twitter optional). 3) If selected for the cohort, the Pro subscription and perks are granted.
Expiry
No stated term, renewal, or end date. Perks appear to last while the person remains an Insider; no public re-application cycle.
Gotchas
Selective — most applicants will not be accepted. Perks are individual (not company/team-wide volume entitlements like the YC deal). No credit amounts, usage caps, or sunset date are published. Do not confuse with the discontinued open startup program.
No education/student offer: Resend's pricing FAQ explicitly states 'We do not offer education pricing' — no .edu-based license or student discount exists (as of 2026-10-22). No free trial either: the FAQ answers 'No, but we provide a free-forever plan.' Open startup program sunset: resend.com/startups returns 404 as of 2026-10-22; the only remaining startup offer is the YC deal at resend.com/yc (independently confirmed checked Oct 2026 by third-party directories). 2025-2026 structural changes: pricing was restructured around two tracks — transactional (3,000/mo Free) and marketing Broadcasts (free tier now includes 1,000 marketing contacts, unlimited sends to them); inboxes were added (3 free inboxes; extra inboxes $1/mo on paid plans). An earlier 2024 'New Free Tier' change had cut free domains to 1 and moved multi-region sending to Pro; the current Free plan lists 3 domains. Core limits (3,000/mo, 100/day; Pro $20/50k) were confirmed unchanged by May 28, 2025 price snapshots and today's page. No annual billing or annual discount exists for self-serve plans; a 50% nonprofit discount exists but is not a free offer and outside the students/startups scope. Third-party 'student discount' and 30% promo-code listings (hotdeals.com, paradox.engineer, costbench.com) are unverified and contradict the official FAQ — treat as noise. Fronts note: Resend is email-only (API, SMTP, SDKs, Broadcasts); it has no SMS, push-notification, or chat API, so the SMS/Push/Chat fronts of this task have no Resend offers.