Best offer on record: Twilio SendGrid free trial (Email API + Marketing Campaigns). 5 verified findings, checked 2026-10-22.
Offers
Twilio SendGrid free trial (Email API + Marketing Campaigns) high confidence
60-day trial at $0/mo starting from signup. Email API: up to 100 emails/day. Marketing Campaigns: up to 100 marketing emails/day and up to 100 contacts. No credit card required to start ('Your card won't be charged at this time'). Trial is one-time only; upgrading immediately terminates it and it cannot be restarted. After expiry you must upgrade to keep sending or use the Marketing tab. New accounts must, before upgrading: enable 2FA, complete domain authentication (or 'Send to a Coworker'), and add a payment method. Paid: Email API Essentials from $19.95/mo, Pro from $89.95/mo, Premier custom; Marketing Basic from $15/mo, Advanced from $60/mo, Custom via sales. Overage charges may apply on paid plans.
Eligibility
Open to anyone creating a SendGrid account; no .edu or startup requirement stated; no region limit stated on the trial itself.
How to claim
Sign up at https://signup.sendgrid.com/; trial begins at sign-up (60 days, 100 emails/day). Upgrade via Settings -> Account Details -> Your Products -> Change Plan.
Expiry
60 days from sign-up; one-time; unused capacity is lost at expiry.
Gotchas
Trial vs free: the Email API has NO persistent free plan after the 60 days — you must pay ($19.95+/mo) or stop sending; 100 emails/day on trial, not 100/month; the old 'free 100/day forever' framing is gone. For accounts that want marketing, see the separate persistent free Marketing tier below. New-account upgrade prerequisites (2FA + domain auth + payment) are often missed. Docs page last modified 2025-09-25.
SendGrid Marketing Campaigns permanent free tier medium confidence
Twilio's Marketing Campaigns pricing page (fetched 2026-10-22) states 'We also offer a Free Marketing Campaigns Plan' distinct from the 60-day trial: store up to 2,000 contacts and send 6,000 free emails/month, plus A/B testing, sign-up forms, automation, and email-testing credits; and a free SMTP layer of 100 emails/day. Paid starts at Basic $15/mo (Basic 5K: 5,000 contacts / 15,000 emails, overage $0.0040/email) or Advanced $60/mo. No credit card required to start the free trial.
Eligibility
Any SendGrid account; no .edu/startup requirement stated. (Page does not explicitly state the free tier survives after the 60-day trial lapses, but it is presented as a separate named plan.)
How to claim
Sign up free at SendGrid; Marketing free plan is available in-product under Marketing Campaigns; upgrade is optional.
Expiry
Ongoing (no stated end date).
Gotchas
Free marketing tier (100 contacts/100 emails/day during the 60-day trial) is tighter than the free plan (2,000 contacts/6,000 emails/mo); overage pricing applies beyond plan limits; 'free trial' marketing copy on landing pages can obscure which offering you are in.
Twilio platform free trial (SMS/Push/Chat fronts): per-product free units, 30 days high confidence
New Twilio accounts get a 30-day free trial with no credit card: product-specific free units instead of a dollar balance — 100 SMS messages, 100 WhatsApp messages, 3,000 emails, 75 voice minutes (monitored via the Console's 'Free units tracker'). Trial ends 30 days after sign-up. Restrictions: you can call/message only verified recipients (up to 5 per account; sign-up number auto-verified), SMS/voice limited to your sign-up country, email limited to your sign-up address, Twilio-provided templates only (no custom message/email/WhatsApp content), and trial numbers are assigned, not chosen. After upgrading (add payment details + address + starting balance) you get 'post-upgrade free units' for eligible products. Per the Twilio pricing page (current as of Aug 2026): Flex/Video start with 5,000 hours free; TaskRouter first 100 tasks/mo free; Functions 10,000 free invocations; Serverless Assets free tools access; Connections 14-day free trial; Twilio for Salesforce 30-day trial then $15/seat/mo. Pay-as-you-go rates: SMS/RCS from $0.0083/message, WhatsApp from $0.005/message, Twilio Email from $0.0013/email, voice from $0.0085/min inbound.
Eligibility
Anyone; requires verifying a personal phone number at sign-up. Push service and Conversations (Chat) have NO trial 'Try-out' flows listed — trial try-outs cover SMS, Voice, Email, WhatsApp only; Push/Chat are pay-as-you-go after upgrade.
How to claim
Sign up at twilio.com/try-twilio (verify email, verify personal phone, describe project); free units are deducted before any charges; upgrade via the Trial banner in Console.
Expiry
Trial expires 30 days after sign-up; upgrade required to continue; disposition of unused units after expiry is not documented on the page.
Gotchas
No credit card, but real pay-per-use starts after the 30 days or after free units are consumed post-upgrade — SMS at $0.0083/message adds up; recipient (5 max), country, and template restrictions make trial useless for production A2P or custom content; Push/Chat users get no trial units.
Twilio Startup program ('Grow with Twilio') high confidence
Active program for early-stage companies: free educational resources (developer hub tutorials, docs, videos) and the standard account trial credit ('a small trial credit when you sign up for your Twilio account'). Twilio explicitly states: 'We do not offer additional credits to startups at this time.' After trial it is pay-as-you-go; support plans are month-to-month. Contact path: 'Complete the form below to get in touch with the Twilio Startups team.' No company-age cap, funding cap, or revenue ceiling is published on the page.
Eligibility
Early-stage companies per Twilio's own wording; no explicit funding/age limits; no .edu requirement.
How to claim
Sign up for a free Twilio account (standard trial), then use the form at twilio.com/en-us/solutions/startups to reach the Startups team.
Expiry
No fixed program window; ongoing.
Gotchas
No substantive startup-exclusive free credits exist — the only 'trial credit' is the standard 30-day, unit-based trial that everyone gets. Treat startup marketing claims as resource/support only.
No Twilio or SendGrid education license, student discount, .edu-verified free access, or academic credit program was found. The education solutions page (twilio.com/en-us/solutions/education) contains only the generic 'Sign up for a free trial - no credit card required' CTA plus a 'Contact sales' path; no .edu gate, no dollar figure, no enrollment process. Twilio's education materials aim at institutions (student lifecycle support), not at student free tiers.
Eligibility
n/a — no education-specific offer exists; general trials (above) are available to students with no .edu requirement.
How to claim
Nothing to claim; students use the same 60-day SendGrid trial and 30-day Twilio trial as anyone else.
Expiry
n/a.
Gotchas
If a source advertises a 'Twilio for students' free tier, it is not on Twilio's official pages as of 2026-10-22.
Material 2025-2026 changes observed: (1) The Twilio trial was restructured from a shared dollar-credit model (historically the widely documented $10 trial balance) to per-product FREE UNITS (100 SMS / 100 WhatsApp / 3,000 emails / 75 voice minutes) — the current docs state units are given 'instead of a shared dollar balance' — and now has a hard 30-day expiry ('Trial accounts expire after 30 days'), replacing the previously open-ended trial-until-upgrade model. (2) SendGrid is rebranded under Twilio: sendgrid.com 301-redirects to twilio.com/en-us/sendgrid, and the master pricing page lists 'Twilio Email starts at $0.0013/email' (page marked current as of Aug 2026); SendGrid's 60-day trial and persistent free Marketing tier (2,000 contacts / 6,000 emails/mo) remain. (3) The Twilio startup program no longer grants startup-specific credits: official page states 'We do not offer additional credits to startups at this time' — the old standalone startup-credit program, if it ever stood as such, is materially reduced to resources + standard trial. (4) No education license found; if one existed previously, no trace on official pages. Note on method: WebSearch budget was exhausted for this session, so all facts above come from official Twilio/SendGrid pages fetched on 2026-10-22 (high-confidence items) rather than searches; exact sunset dates for the trial revamp are not published on the pages I could reach.