StartupFreebies // Directory of free money for builders
Startup credits & freebies, indexed & verified
Every program human-checked: exact value, eligibility rules, and the catches spelled out. Most programs stack.
The directory
Google for Startups Cloud Program
Start tier at $2,000 (unfunded startups qualify); Scale tier up to $200,000 over two years; AI-first companies up to $350,000; plus 12 months of Google Workspace Business Plus.
AWS Activate
Three credit tiers: Founders at $1,000 (self-serve application); Portfolio up to $100,000 (requires an Activate Provider referral); the Generative AI initiative up to $300,000.
Microsoft for Startups
Self-serve path without an investor: $1,000 (90 days) plus another $4,000 after business verification; investor-referred path: starting at $100,000 and up to $150,000 in Azure credits (up to $200,000 via the Investor Network).
Cloudflare for Startups
Three credit tiers: Tier 3 self-funded at $10,000; Tier 2 (partner-backed, under $5,000,000 raised) at $100,000; Tier 1 ($5,000,000+ raised) at $350,000.
DigitalOcean Hatch
Customized infrastructure credits (commonly starting at $1,000, higher through partner channels) plus Hatch startup community resources; AI/ML projects get priority.
Alibaba Cloud Startup Program
$1,000-$120,000 in cloud credits (tiered by stage), suited for products targeting Asian markets.
IBM Cloud for Startups
Up to $120,000 per year in IBM Cloud credits, suited for Watson AI workloads.
OVHcloud Startup Program
Start tier (Pre-seed/Seed) around €10,000; Scale tier (Series A+) up to €100,000-120,000 in cloud credits plus engineer support hours.
Oracle for Startups
$500 in OCI trial credits plus an ongoing 70% discount on cloud resources afterward.
Claude for Startups
One free year of Claude Team (up to 5 Premium seats) plus $1,000 in API credits and up to $45,000 in partner tooling (Claude Startup Stack); portfolio companies of partner VCs can apply for up to an additional $100,000 in API credits.
OpenAI for Startups
Up to $5,000 in OpenAI API credits (through the partner VC/accelerator network); the Ramp startup rewards path provides $2,500.
NVIDIA Inception
AI startup ecosystem program: free to join, unlocks partner perks (cloud/GPU credits, hardware discounts), technical support, and investor introductions; the program itself does not directly issue a fixed credit amount.
ElevenLabs Startup Grants
12 months free: 33,000,000 characters of voice generation credits (roughly 680+ hours of conversational AI audio, valued at $4,000-$5,500 or more).
Perplexity for Startups
$5,000 in Sonar API credits plus 6 months of Enterprise Pro (up to 50 seats).
ChatGPT for Small Business Program
A ChatGPT training and resources program for small businesses: online product training, in-person AI Academy events across the US, getting-started guides, and exclusive partner offers from Dropbox, Shopify, Intuit, Slack, and others.
Deepgram Startup Program
Speech-to-text API: $200 in credits on signup (no credit card required); the startup program offers up to $100,000 in credits over 12 months.
Together AI Startup Accelerator
Open-source model API credits tiered by funding raised: under $5,000,000 raised gets up to $15,000; $5,000,000-$10,000,000 gets $30,000; over $10,000,000 gets $50,000.
Mistralship
Roughly €30,000 in La Plateforme API credits plus 1:1 support from the Solutions & Science team and early access to new models.
Stripe Atlas
One-time $500 Delaware C-Corp/LLC incorporation (including state fees, EIN, and 83(b) election); companies incorporated after 2025-10-16 automatically get $2,500 in Stripe product credits plus a partner perks catalog officially valued above $50,000.
Brex for Startups
Corporate cards plus business accounts, bundled with an AI/SaaS perks catalog officially valued above $350,000 (AWS $5,000, OpenAI $2,500, GitHub Enterprise 20 seats for 1 year, Notion Business 6 months, Linear Business 6 months, and more).
GitHub for Startups
Up to 20 GitHub Enterprise seats free for 12 months (currently issued mostly as roughly $10,000 in equivalent credits usable toward Enterprise licenses, Copilot, and Advanced Security).
Vercel for Startups
Up to $30,000 in platform credits (Flexible Commitment form, covering seats, bandwidth, compute, AI Gateway, v0, and more); partner channels also offer roughly $2,400 in Pro credits.
Sentry for Startups
$5,000 in Sentry credits (error monitoring, performance tracing, Session Replay) plus priority support.
Datadog for Startups
Observability (monitoring/APM/logs/security) credits and discounts, with large packages common through partner channels; amounts vary by batch.
Intercom Early Stage / Fin Startup Pack
93% off in year one (100% free via partner channels) plus the Fin AI Agent free for 1 year (300 resolutions per month); 50% in year two and 25% in year three; total value over three years up to about $21,000.
Zendesk for Startups
Zendesk Suite free for up to 2 years via the partner referral channel (6 months via the self-serve channel), for up to 50 agents.
Notion for Startups
The Business plan (including Notion AI) free for 3-6 months: 6 months with a partner affiliation and 3 months for regular new users, worth up to about $12,000 (100 people).
Slack Startup Offer
Slack no longer runs an official direct startup program; discounts such as 25% off the first year of Pro or Business+ are now mainly offered through perk platforms and partners.
Airtable for Startups
$1,000-$2,000 in Airtable usage credits (tier depends on the channel; some channels list them as valid long term).
Miro Startup Program
$1,000 in credits for partner-affiliated startups; $500 for independent applications (verifiable funding required); venture-backed companies can also get 25% off the Enterprise plan plus 1 month free.
Neon Startup Program
Up to $100,000 in Serverless Postgres credits (12 months).
MongoDB for Startups
$500-$5,000 in Atlas credits (tiered by stage); AI-focused startups can get an additional $5,000 plus Voyage AI tokens through the AI Innovators track.
Supabase for Startups
$300-$2,500 in credits through partner channels (YC, Techstars, AWS Activate, etc.); the free tier itself includes a 500MB database and 50K MAU.
Segment for Startups
Up to $50,000 in Segment CDP credits (for up to 2 years) plus office hours with the Segment team.
Databricks for Startups
Up to $50,000 in Lakehouse credits at the standard tier; the invite-only AI Accelerator goes up to $250,000 (including investment and professional services).
FAQ
Can a bootstrapped startup get these credits?
Many programs don't require VC backing. AWS Activate Founders, Google Cloud Start tier, Claude for Startups, Notion, Sentry, ElevenLabs and Deepgram all accept bootstrapped teams. Every card in the directory shows a "Bootstrapped OK" sticker when this applies.
Can you stack multiple programs?
Generally yes: most programs are independent. A typical AI startup can hold cloud credits (AWS / Google / Microsoft), model API credits (Anthropic / OpenAI), database credits (Neon / MongoDB) and SaaS discounts (Notion / Figma / HubSpot) at the same time. Each program page lists the catches that limit stacking.
How current is this data?
Every program page shows its own "last verified" date, driven by a monthly re-verification sweep. Programs whose public application pages went dark are flagged "Verify First" instead of being silently listed.