Best offer on record: Free Plan ("Always free" managed Weaviate cluster). 4 verified findings, checked 2026-10-22.
Offers
Free Plan ("Always free" managed Weaviate cluster) high confidence
Forever $0/mo. Limits verified on the live pricing page 2026-10-22: 1 cluster per user (shared cluster on AWS, 2 regions), 100,000 objects, 1 GB memory, 10 GB disk, 1 collection (up to 3 tenants). Includes hybrid search, vector compression, multi-tenancy, RBAC. Excludes HA/replication, flexible index types, SSO/SAML, backup retention, PrivateLink, encrypted volumes, metrics. Uptime SLA: best effort (no %). Support: basic/email only. Upgrade to paid anytime (Flex from $45/mo, Premium shared from ~$400/mo, dedicated contract) with no migration.
Eligibility
Open to anyone; NO credit card required (page states "No credit card required"); no .edu email or startup requirement; 1 cluster per user; deployment limited to 2 regions (shared AWS cluster)
How to claim
Click "Start free" at weaviate.io/pricing -> sign up at console.weaviate.cloud (routed via /go/console); quickstart at docs.weaviate.io/cloud/quickstart; no card or approval needed
Expiry
None - "Forever $0/mo", "no credit card or time expiration" (per the 2026-06-17 launch post); persists indefinitely as long as the cluster is in use; can upgrade to paid at any time
Gotchas
Data transfer is free only for a "promotional period" - footnote says Weaviate may introduce egress charges in the future with advance notice; page defines no hard stop/overage mechanism for the Free plan (implicit path is upgrading to Flex/Premium); shared cluster means no uptime SLA; not suitable for production HA
Free AI services on the Free plan: Weaviate Embeddings 2,000 req/day; Query Agent 1,000 req/mo; Engram "Always free" high confidence
Free plan AI-service allowances: Weaviate Embeddings 2,000 requests/day; Query Agent 1,000 requests/month (paid plans: "Free to try" 1,000 req/mo, then $30/organization per month with 4,000 req included, then usage-based); Engram (managed agent-memory layer) labeled "Always free" with no itemized quota on the pricing page. Part of the 2026-06-17 rollout making the entire suite free to start. Embedding models otherwise billed by usage at $0.025 / $0.040 / $0.065 per 1M tokens across three model tiers.
Eligibility
Same as Free plan: anyone, no credit card, 1 cluster per user; Query Agent/Engram are cloud-only services (not runnable via local Docker)
How to claim
Same account as Free plan; enable services in the Weaviate Cloud console - no separate enrollment
Expiry
Indefinite while on the Free plan; overages on paid plans are usage-based
Gotchas
Engram free-tier quota is not specified anywhere on the page; exceeding embedding/Query Agent caps leads to usage-based billing or upgrade on paid plans; "Free to try" on Query Agent for paid tiers is a standing allowance, not a time-boxed trial
No trial-credit program (time-limited sandbox sunset, replaced by permanent free tier) medium confidence
No trial credits, 14/30-day trial, or credit packs exist on the official site as of 2026-10-22. The 2026-06-17 launch post states managed Weaviate Cloud previously offered only "a time-limited sandbox," which was replaced by the permanent free tier ("free as long as it's useful to you" vs "free until the clock runs out").
Eligibility
n/a - absence of offer
How to claim
n/a
Expiry
Time-limited sandbox model retired effective 2026-06-17, replaced by the permanent Free plan
Gotchas
Absence verified by direct page inspection only (pricing, homepage, blog index pages 1-2, 404 on /startup-program); the shared session web-search budget was exhausted, so third-party/press confirmation of older trial programs was not possible
No startup program and no education/student license found medium confidence
weaviate.io/startup-program returns HTTP 404; homepage, pricing, and blog index (2025-2026 entries visible) contain no startup program, startup credits/grants, or education/academic pricing tier. Closest items: Weaviate Hero Program (weaviate.io/community) - community contribution program rewarding active community members with "Cool Merch, Books & Credits" plus workshops and event access; credits have no stated dollar value, cap, or deadline, and it is contribution-based, not status-based (not aimed at students or startups). Weaviate Academy (academy.weaviate.io) is free learning content (courses/resources), not a license. The Weaviate database is open source and free to self-host on your own infrastructure - the only genuinely unrestricted "education-grade" free path.
Eligibility
No .edu requirement or startup age/funding cap exists because no such program exists; Hero Program is open to any community contributor via a Google Form application
How to claim
No claim path for startup/education offers; Hero Program: apply via "Become a Hero" form (forms.gle/FHwhfPYwCVKkzw5h6)
Expiry
n/a
Gotchas
Hero Program "credits" are unquantified - do not treat as a free-credit offer; absence findings are limited to the official site (search engine verification unavailable this session); check Weaviate's social channels/blog for any program launched after the visible blog index
2025-2026 changes: (1) 2026-06-17: Weaviate sunsetted its time-limited sandbox model for managed Weaviate Cloud and launched the permanent free tier spanning the whole product suite (managed Database + Query Agent + Engram), free without credit card or time expiration (blog: "Weaviate Cloud is now free to start"). (2) Price-book revision effective 1 September 2026 (noted on the pricing page): RQ-4 compression added as its own rate tier between RQ-1 and RQ-8, and backup rates restructured to a common base with regional adjustments - affects paid Flex/Premium plans only, Free plan unchanged. (3) Data transfer is free on all plans only for a "promotional period"; Weaviate reserves the right to charge for egress in the future with advance notice. No evidence was found of any sunset of a startup program or education license (none appear to exist; /startup-program is a 404). Caveat: verification was done by fetching official pages directly on 2026-10-22 (weaviate.io/pricing, /blog, /blog/page/2, /blog/weaviate-free-tier, /community, homepage; docs subpages now 404 - docs moved to docs.weaviate.io/cloud/quickstart); the session's web-search budget was exhausted, so third-party/press corroboration and deeper blog archive pages were not checked.