Best offer on record: Free Developer plan (forever-free chat tier). 4 verified findings, checked 2026-10-22.
Offers
Free Developer plan (forever-free chat tier) high confidence
Official chat pricing page read 2026-10-22. MAU 'Up to 1,000'; peak concurrent connections 'Up to 20'; messages/month 'Unlimited'; message storage 'Unlimited'; retention '6 months' (longer retention is an Enterprise add-on); feature set 'All Pro features'; support 'Community support'; 'No overages allowed'; 'No credit card required'. Soft caps on MAU and PCC. Cap was raised 10x from 100 MAU in Jan 2026, so the prior '10K MAU' claim does NOT match the current published 1,000 MAU.
Eligibility
Open to anyone (individuals and students included). No credit card required, no company incorporation required, no .edu required. No region limit stated on the page.
How to claim
Sign up at sendbird.com/signup; in the subscription management page select the free Developer plan (you can switch to it at any point during the trial). Stays free and active as long as the account owner logs into the Sendbird dashboard at least once a year.
Expiry
Indefinite / free forever. Account is kept active by logging into the dashboard once a year; otherwise it can be deactivated.
Gotchas
'No overages allowed': exceeding the soft MAU/PCC cap blocks new chat until quotas reset at the start of the next calendar month. 6-month message retention only. Community support only. The '2 apps' figure from prior notes is not explicitly published for this tier (page says 'multiple apps under one organization' but gives no numeric cap). 10K MAU in prior notes is stale; current cap is 1,000 MAU.
30-day free trial (Pro feature set) medium confidence
Time-boxed 30-day trial granting the paid/Pro chat feature set. After the trial you either convert to a paid plan (Starter ~$349/mo billed annually / $399 monthly) or switch to the free Developer plan. During the trial the MAU/PCC figures match the free tier (1,000 MAU / 20 PCC). No credit card required to start.
Eligibility
Open to anyone; no company or .edu requirement; no region limit stated. Create a free account.
How to claim
Create a free account via the free-trial form (sendbird.com/form/free-trial). You get ~30 days of Pro features; to stay free, select the free Developer plan from the subscription management page at any point during the trial instead of a paid plan.
Expiry
30 days, then must choose paid or the free Developer plan.
Gotchas
Trial-vs-free distinction: the 30-day window is time-boxed and is the on-ramp; the Developer plan is the separate, unlimited-time free option. The exact 30-day duration and trial PCC/MAU were not printed on the trial form itself; they come from the Sendbird blog and a third-party tracker (frontdeskreview 2026-09-27).
Sendbird for Startups — $5,000 API credit medium confidence
$5,000 in API/credit, valid 12 months. Stage: early (pre-seed/seed). Solo founder eligible; a company is required. Approval timeline ~1 week; difficulty 'medium' (reviewers favor high-growth potential and a clear monetization path). No funding cap or company-age cap is stated. Sources are two independent aggregators both marked 'Verified 2026'; the official program page could not be located (sendbird.com/startups and /for/startups returned 404 this session).
Eligibility
Early-stage startups (pre-seed/seed), global, company incorporation required, solo founders eligible, no referral needed, subject to Sendbird's discretionary approval. No .edu path; it is a startup (not student) offer.
How to claim
Apply through Sendbird's startup-program application (no referral). Confirm current details with Sendbird directly, since the official public program page was not found during this check.
Expiry
Credits valid 12 months from issuance.
Gotchas
This is a credit grant, not a perpetual free tier; approval is discretionary. The $5,000 amount and eligibility are corroborated by aggregators (driftingdesk, startupflowai) but were not re-confirmed on an official Sendbird page this session (official page 404; search budget exhausted).
Education / student offer (absence finding) medium confidence
No dedicated education license, .edu discount, or student grant is publicly documented. Sendbird has an 'Education technology' solutions/marketing page targeting EdTech companies (classrooms, live lectures, 1:1 tutoring), but no free student license or .edu credential. Students access Sendbird only through the general free Developer plan and 30-day trial (no .edu required).
Eligibility
N/A — no .edu-based or student-specific offer found.
How to claim
N/A — nothing to claim; students simply use the general free Developer plan / trial.
Expiry
N/A
Gotchas
Absence finding: a student/education license is not publicly documented on Sendbird's site as of this check. If one is expected, it is not currently published.
2025–2026 changes: (1) Jan 2026 — Sendbird raised the free Developer plan's MAU cap 10x, from 100 to 1,000 (PCC now 20). Prior notes claiming "10K MAU" do not match the current published cap of 1,000 MAU. (2) Jan 2026 — Sendbird repositioned its main pricing page around an "AI Agent" flagship and a consumption/AI-chatbot pricing model, and added a promotional bundle to Starter/Pro/Enterprise (30K in-app messages + 1K AI chatbot credits). A pricing tracker flagged the "Developer plan (Free, 100 MAU)" as "removed" during a page restructure between AI-chatbot and Chat products, but the Chat free Developer plan (now 1,000 MAU) remains available on sendbird.com/pricing/chat. (3) No public education license found; if one existed it is no longer publicly documented. Research caveat: the WebSearch budget was exhausted mid-task, so the $5,000 startup credit rests on third-party aggregators (official page 404'd) and the trial duration/MAU figures rely on the Sendbird blog + a third-party tracker; the free Developer plan numbers were read directly from the official pricing/chat page today.