Best offer on record: Upstash Free Tier (all products: Redis, QStash, Workflow, Vector, Box, Blob) — the de facto free offer for students and startups. 5 verified findings, checked 2026-10-22.
Offers
Upstash Free Tier (all products: Redis, QStash, Workflow, Vector, Box, Blob) — the de facto free offer for students and startups high confidence
Permanent $0 plans, open to everyone (no .edu email, no startup age/funding cap). Redis: $0/mo, 500K commands/mo, 250 MB data, 10 GB bandwidth, up to 10 free databases (1 DB per plan row in comparison table; FAQ says up to 10 free DBs, $0.50/DB after, max 100), 10K cmd/s, 1 index (10K docs/index), 10 MB request / 100 MB record size; no Multi-Zone HA, no uptime SLA, no IP allowlists, no encryption at rest, no SOC-2/HIPAA, no Prod Pack, regions on AWS/GCP/Vercel (no FLY). QStash: 1,000 messages/day, 50 GB bandwidth, 1 MB message, 1 URL group (100 endpoints), 10 queues, 10 schedules, 7-day max delay, DLQ+log retention 3 days. Workflow: 1,000 steps/day (soft limit), 10 concurrent steps, 1 MB message. Vector: 200M vectors x dims, 1536 max dims, 10K queries/day, 1 GB data+metadata, 10 indexes free, top-k default 1000; regions LIMITED to N. Virginia (AWS), Ireland (AWS), Iowa (GCP). Box (serverless compute): 10 concurrent boxes, 5 CPU hours/mo, $1 LLM token budget/mo (400 after cap; BYOK allowed), AWS us-east-1 only. Blob (S3-compatible object storage): 1 GB storage, 10K simple ops/mo, 2K advanced ops/mo, 10 GB egress/mo, global CDN (no region choice), 'free plan is never charged'; overage = requests stop until 30-day window rolls (hard cap, no bill). No credit card required on any: adding a card upgrades the resource to pay-as-you-go.
Eligibility
Anyone: sign up free at console.upstash.com (GitHub/Google/email). No student verification, no startup criteria, no credit card. Region limits apply per product (Vector 3 regions; Box us-east-1 only).
How to claim
1) Create free account at console.upstash.com (no card). 2) Create a database/queue/index/box/bucket — it lands on the Free plan automatically. 3) Use it; each product's free allowance renews monthly/daily forever.
Expiry
No expiry: free plans renew indefinitely (daily allowances for QStash/Workflow/Vector reset daily; monthly for Redis/Blob/Box).
Gotchas
Redis 'retry' semantics: QStash FAQ says 'each delivery attempt counts as one message', so failed-retried deliveries eat the 1,000/day; Workflow retries and parallel/context calls consume extra billed steps (context.call/invoke = 2 steps each). Blob stops serving (not billed) when caps hit. Adding a credit card silently moves you to paid PAYG ($0.20/100K Redis commands, $0.25/GB storage, 200 GB/mo bandwidth free on PAYG). Free tier lacks HA/SLA/SOC2/encryption-at-rest — fine for student projects, not production compliance. Up also offers ad-hoc free trials/PoC on request via support@upstash.com.
start-redis instant trial database (free trial credit, no signup) high confidence
POST https://upstash.com/start-redis returns a ready, free Redis database with credentials, quickstart and a console claim-link — no signup, no credit card, no API key. Unclaimed databases are deleted after 3 days; an agent is expected to send a User-Agent identifying itself (optional Idempotency-Key makes retries return the same DB).
Eligibility
Anyone, including AI agents; no account or card needed.
How to claim
curl -X POST https://upstash.com/start-redis (send a User-Agent header); open the console URL in the response to claim it into an account before the 3-day deletion.
Expiry
Trial DB expires/deleted after 3 days if not claimed; once claimed it lives on the normal Free plan.
Gotchas
It is a trial, not the free tier: data is lost at 3 days unless claimed. Claiming drops it into the standard Redis free limits above.
Upstash Open Source Program — up to $1,000/month credits for OSS projects (CLOSED to new applications) high confidence
$1,000/month credit: 'We cover all Upstash-related costs up to $1,000 per month. Build on any Upstash product(s) without worrying about billing.' Perks: direct technical support, priority support 'just like our Pro customers', co-marketing/technical articles. Credit renews monthly with no fixed end date. Eligibility is 'open-source projects building on Upstash' — no star count or license criteria published. As of the page read on 2026-10-22: 'The open-source program is currently closed and not accepting new applications.' Questions go to program lead @joshtriedcoding.
Eligibility
Open-source project maintainers/builders (individual devs qualify, not just startups); program currently closed, so no one can claim new applications right now.
How to claim
No application URL while closed: follow Upstash / email program lead (@joshtriedcoding) to hear about reopening.
Expiry
Credits are monthly while in the program; program intake currently closed.
Gotchas
Third-party lists still advertise it as open ($1,000/mo grant) — the official page says closed today; verify before relying on it. No student-specific program exists; students get the general free tier instead.
Upstash Postgres / Kafka free metered tiers (previously 'free to start') — NO LONGER LISTED AS PRODUCTS high confidence
The task's premise includes Postgres and Kafka metered free tiers, but as of 2026-10-22 neither appears anywhere on upstash.com: the pricing page lists only Redis, QStash, Workflow, Box, Blob; /pricing/postgres, /pricing/kafka, /postgres, /kafka all 404; docs only mention Kafka as the open-source broker (QStash comparison page); docs search confirms no Postgres or Kafka product exists. Kafka survives only in blog content (including 'kafka-connectors-deprecation'), and QStash/Workflow now serve the messaging use case. No Postgres/Kafka free-tier limits can be quoted from official sources today.
Eligibility
n/a — offers not present on the official site.
How to claim
n/a — nothing to claim.
Expiry
Sunset from the product lineup by 2026-10-22 (messaging replaced by QStash/Workflow).
Gotchas
Treat any current listing of Upstash Postgres or Upstash Kafka free tiers as stale. If you need Kafka-like streaming on free, use Upstash QStash (1,000 msgs/day free) or Workflow.
Reported 'Upstash $500 startup credits' — UNVERIFIED, no official page found low confidence
Third-party deal site SaaSOffers lists '$500 in credits' for startups using serverless Redis/Kafka ('Verified October 2026'). No official Upstash page substantiates it: no /startups or startup-program page exists (404s), the homepage nav and pricing pages contain no startup program link, and the Redis free-tier FAQ has no startup section.
Eligibility
Allegedly early-stage startups on a new account; criteria unknown.
How to claim
Unknown — no official application path found; would require contacting sales@upstash.com.
Expiry
Unknown.
Gotchas
Third-party aggregator claim only; possibly an old promo, possibly a confused entry (Upstash also historically ran startup perks via partner programs). Low confidence — do not plan on it without written confirmation from Upstash sales.
Material 2025-2026 changes: (1) Upstash Postgres and Upstash Kafka (both previously free-to-start metered products) no longer exist on upstash.com — pricing, product pages, sitemap and docs all omit them as of 2026-10-22; messaging is now QStash/Workflow (docs only reference Kafka as the open-source broker). (2) The Upstash Open Source Program ($1,000/mo credits) is currently closed to new applications per the official page. (3) No official education/student program exists: /education 404s, the Redis FAQ has no education entry; third-party 'student deal' pages (Modelverse, ToolBridge) merely describe the general free tier and cite outdated figures (10,000 commands/day, 256 MB) vs today's official 500K commands/month, 250 MB. (4) A widely circulated 'Upstash $500 startup credits' claim (SaaSOffers) has no corresponding official page — no /startups, no startup section in pricing or FAQs. (5) Free Redis numbers changed from the old 10K/day+256MB form to 500K/month+250MB with 10 free databases; Vector is region-capped (N. Virginia, Ireland, Iowa) and Box runs only in AWS us-east-1.