Free credits for makers and side projects
Building something of your own, but not a company yet? These programs are open to individuals, side projects, indie hackers and open-source maintainers. Most only need an account; some ask for a card to verify you.
Largest: BIRAC BIG Grant (Up to ₹50 lakh), Up to $10,000 in free compute resources (Up to $10,000 in credits), Solana Startup Program compute credits (Up to $10,000 in credits for 90 days). Some are open worldwide; others in India.
- Use the free trials in orderCloud trials run 30 to 90 days. Start one when you are ready to build, not before, so the credit does not expire unused.
- Open source countsMany developer tools give free plans to public open-source projects. Keep your repo public and the licence clear.
- Set a budget alertTrials that need a card can bill you after the credit runs out. Set a spending cap on day one.
- Incorporate laterWhen the project turns into a business, the startup programs open up with much larger credits.
BIRAC BIG Grant
Biotechnology Ignition Grant for biotech and medtech proof of concept.
Up to $10,000 in free compute resources
Up to $10,000 in free compute resources for developers and researchers working on open-source AI projects.
Solana Startup Program compute credits
Approved Solana teams can receive up to USD 10,000 in non-cash compute credits on a GetBlock account, valid for a 90-day grant period after activation.
Upstash Open Source Program
$1,000 monthly credit grant, direct technical support, priority team access, and co-marketing opportunities for open-source projects building on Upstash.
$500 in free GPU credits
Qualifying pre-Series A startups, academic researchers, open-source projects, and bootcamps or programs can apply for $500 in Zylora GPU credits.
NEWGoogle Cloud Free Trial
$300 Welcome credit for any Google Cloud product, plus 20+ products with a monthly free tier that continues after the trial. No company needed: good for side…
NEWOracle Cloud Free Tier
US$300 of credit for all eligible Oracle Cloud Infrastructure services for 30 days, alongside Always Free compute, Autonomous Database and storage that stay…
NEW
AWS Free Tier credits
New AWS accounts get $100 in credits at sign-up and can earn up to $100 more by completing activities such as launching an EC2 instance or setting a budget.
NEWAzure free account
$200 to spend on most Azure services in your first 30 days, plus limited free amounts of popular services for 12 months and always-free services after that.
NEWDigitalOcean free trial
$200 of free credit to use on DigitalOcean droplets, databases, storage and app hosting in your first 60 days.
NEWIBM Cloud trial credit
$200 to use on IBM Cloud in your first 30 days, plus more than 40 always-free products with no time limit.
$100 in EmberCloud API credits
Approved startups and indie projects receive $100 in API credits after adding $5 to verify the company and activate the offer.
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Akamai Cloud (Linode) free credit
$100 of credit for Akamai Cloud (formerly Linode) compute, object storage, block storage and NodeBalancers during a 60-day trial.
Free RPC Credits and Tiered Sui Builder Support
Accepted Sui builders receive a vendor-determined amount of free service credits and stage-appropriate RPC infrastructure, technical support, analytics…
SimpleLocalize Developer Plan free for the first year
Approved startups that contribute to the community, for example with a blog post or social media mention, get the SimpleLocalize Developer Plan free for the…
Free Growing Plan for Open Source Software
Free Growing plan available for open source software projects.
Mirava First-Year Plan Discount
Eligible apps receive 50% off Mirava's yearly plan for their first year, reducing the published price from $499 to $249.50 per app with full premium-feature…