AI Tools

Google for Startups Cloud Program: up to $350,000 in Cloud credits

Funded startups can apply for Google Cloud credits over two years: up to $200,000, or up to $350,000 for AI startups. There is also a $2k Start tier for earlier-stage startups.

• Limited regions
• Approval needed

GitHub Copilot Student: free Copilot plan for verified students

Students verified through GitHub Education can activate Copilot Student, a free Copilot plan that includes an allowance of GitHub AI Credits and most agent features.

• Student verification

Alibaba Cloud AI Catalyst Program: up to $120k in credits for AI startups

AI-first companies founded within the last 10 years can apply for up to $120k in Alibaba Cloud credits and up to 2B free Model Studio tokens. The promotion runs until 31 March 2027.

• Approval needed

Pinecone for Startups: free Standard tier and Pro Support, plus usage credits

Startups with fewer than 100 employees at Series A or earlier can apply for free access to Pinecone's Standard tier and Pro Support, plus usage credits and discounts.

• Approval needed

Pinecone Standard trial: $300 in credits for 21 days

Pinecone organizations can start a 21-day Standard plan trial with $300 in credits and no up-front payment. Each organization gets one trial.

• No credit card

Claude Pro billed annually: $17 a month ($200 up front) instead of $20 monthly

Paying for Claude Pro yearly costs $200 up front, which Anthropic lists as $17 per month, compared with $20 when billed monthly.

Claude for Nonprofits: Team plan at $8 per user a month, or $3 in low- and middle-income countries

Registered nonprofits, K-12 schools and some mission-based healthcare providers can get Claude's Team plan, including Claude Code, at $8 per user per month, or $3 for nonprofits in low- and middle-income countries.

• Available worldwide
• Approval needed

Claude for Open Source: 6 months of Claude Ultra free for eligible maintainers and contributors

Open-source maintainers and contributors who meet one of Anthropic's criteria can apply for six months of Claude Ultra, the $200-a-month plan, at no cost.

Claude Team plan for scientists: free standard seats for 12 months for academic and nonprofit labs

Principal investigators at universities and nonprofit research institutes can set up a Claude Team plan where standard seats are free and premium seats cost $15 a month for the first 12 months.

• Available worldwide
• Approval needed

Anthropic AI for Science: free Claude API credits for research projects

Researchers at academic and nonprofit institutions can apply for free Claude API credits for high-impact scientific projects; Anthropic reviews applications monthly.

• Approval needed

Modal Starter plan: $30 of free compute every month

Modal's Starter plan has no base fee and includes $30 of free compute each month for GPUs and CPUs, with usage above that billed pay-as-you-go.

Modal for Startups: free compute credits for VC-backed startups

Early-stage startups new to Modal that have raised from Modal's partner VCs, or more than $1M from any fund, can apply for a one-time grant of free compute credits.

• Approval needed

GroqCloud Free plan: try the Groq API at $0 within free-tier rate limits

GroqCloud's Free plan lets anyone build and test with the Groq API at no cost, with usage capped by organization-level rate limits.

Pinecone Starter: free serverless vector database with 2 GB storage

Pinecone's Starter plan is free and includes up to 2 GB of serverless storage, 2M write units and 1M read units per month.

Qdrant Cloud free tier: a 1 GB vector search cluster, free forever, no credit card

Qdrant Cloud's free tier gives you a single-node cluster with 1 GB RAM, 0.5 vCPU and 4 GB disk, with no credit card needed.

• No credit card

Cloudflare Workers AI: 10,000 Neurons a day free

Workers AI includes 10,000 Neurons per day at no charge on both the Workers Free and Workers Paid plans; usage above that costs $0.011 per 1,000 Neurons.

Vercel AI Gateway: $5 of free model credits every 30 days

Vercel accounts get $5 of AI Gateway credits every 30 days to try models from the gateway's catalog; the free credit stops once you buy AI Gateway credits.

Runway Free plan: 125 one-time credits for AI video and images

Runway's Free plan includes a one-time grant of 125 credits that doesn't expire, for trying a limited set of its generative tools.

Suno Free plan: 50 credits a day, about 10 songs

Suno's free plan refreshes up to 50 credits every day, which Suno says is enough for about 10 songs, for personal, non-commercial use.

ElevenLabs Free plan: 10,000 credits a month

ElevenLabs' Free plan includes 10,000 credits a month for its voice AI tools, for non-commercial use with attribution.

Codex for Open Source: six months of ChatGPT Pro with Codex for open-source maintainers

OpenAI's Codex for Open Source program offers core maintainers of widely used open-source projects six months of ChatGPT Pro with Codex, with Codex Security access and API credits as optional extras.

• Approval needed

Deepgram: $200 of free API credit, no credit card

New Deepgram accounts get $200 in free credit for its speech-to-text, text-to-speech and voice agent APIs, with no credit card required and no expiry.

• No credit card

AssemblyAI: $50 in free speech-to-text credits that don't expire

New AssemblyAI accounts get $50 in credits for pre-recorded and real-time speech-to-text, Speech Understanding and Guardrails; the credits don't expire.

LangSmith Developer plan: free for one seat with 5,000 traces a month

LangSmith's Developer plan is $0 for one seat and includes up to 5,000 base traces a month for tracing and evaluating LLM apps.