Cloud Credits
Cloud startup credits — up to $350K free
For startups that need compute, storage, and bandwidth. 12 programs compared: AWS, Google Cloud, Azure, Oracle, Cloudflare, IBM, DigitalOcean, OVHcloud, Vultr, Akamai, Datadog, and NVIDIA. Amounts, eligibility, and how to apply.
Includes programs accessible without a VC or accelerator — and those that require one. Updated May 2026.
Cloud startup credits compared
| Provider | Max credits | Access type | Validity |
|---|---|---|---|
| Google Cloud | Up to $350K | ✓ Direct apply Direct or partner | 12 months |
| Cloudflare | Up to $250K | ⚡ Instant Direct (code BOOTSTRAPPED) | 12 months |
| Microsoft Azure | Up to $150K | ✓ Direct apply Direct (Product tier) | 12 months |
| IBM Cloud | Up to $120K | ✓ Direct apply Direct (MVP required) | 12 months |
| Akamai RISE | Up to $120K/yr | ⚠ Partner needed Partner required | Annual renewal |
| AWS Activate | Up to $100K | ⚡ Instant Direct ($1K instant) | 24 months |
| Oracle Cloud | Up to $100K | ✓ Direct apply Direct | 12 months |
| DigitalOcean | Up to $100K | ⚠ Partner needed Partner preferred | 12 months |
| Vultr | Up to $100K | ✓ Direct apply Direct | 12 months |
| OVHcloud | Up to €100K | ✓ Direct apply Direct | 12 months |
| Datadog | Up to $100K | ⚠ Partner needed Partner required | 12 months |
| NVIDIA Inception | 30% off DGX Cloud | ⚡ Instant Direct (free) | Ongoing |
All cloud startup credit programs
Render for Startups
Render for Startups hands early-stage teams managed cloud credits so infra stops eating the runway.
PlanetScale for Startups
Serverless MySQL credits for early-stage startups — Vitess-powered scaling without the DBA bill
Timescale for Startups
Managed TimescaleDB + PostgreSQL cloud credits built for time-series, observability, and real-time analytics startups
Vast.ai Startup Program
GPU compute credits on Vast.ai's marketplace for early-stage AI startups building training and inference workloads.
Cleura Startup Program
European open-source cloud credits for early-stage startups that need GDPR-native OpenStack infrastructure
ClickHouse Cloud Startup Program
Real-time analytics database credits for early-stage startups building data-heavy products
Runpod Startup Program
GPU cloud credits and discounted on-demand pricing for early-stage AI startups training and serving models.
Convex for Startups
Reactive backend-as-a-service credits for early-stage teams building full-stack apps on a TypeScript-first platform
Modal Startup Program
Up to $50K in serverless GPU/CPU credits for early-stage AI startups building on Modal's elastic compute platform.
CoreWeave Ventures / Startup Accelerator
GPU-first cloud credits built for AI startups that need real NVIDIA horsepower, not a generic $100K voucher.
Agora for Startups
Agora for Startups turns minutes of live video into product — without burning runway on real-time infrastructure
Cloudinary for Startups
Cloudinary's startup program turns image and video headaches into a free media-management runway for early-stage teams.
Vultr
Vultr is one of the largest independent IaaS providers — VPS, bare metal, NVIDIA H100 / A100 / GH200 GPU compute, Managed Kubernetes, and S3-compatible object storage across 32 global data centres. New accounts get $300 in cloud credits.
Airbyte Y Combinator Startup Program
Airbyte offers Y Combinator startups up to $75,000 in Airbyte Cloud credits along with free educational resources, workshops, swag, and priority support to acce
Aiven Cluster Startup Program
The Aiven Cluster Startup Program offers up to $100,000 in credits to help startups build scalable data infrastructure using Aiven's fully managed services, exp
Akamai $100 Free Trial & Business Credits
Sign up for a new Akamai Connected Cloud account and receive $100 in free credits. A valid payment method is required to verify your identity, but you won't be
Alibaba Cloud Startup Catalyst Program
The Alibaba Cloud Startup Catalyst Program provides comprehensive support for startups to build and scale their cloud infrastructure, offering up to $120,000 in
Appwrite Startups Program
The Appwrite Startups Program supports early-stage startups with a complete backend solution, offering $20,000 in cloud credits for Appwrite Scale for 12 months
AWS Rapid Ramp Credits
Small businesses can apply for $300 in AWS credits to quickly test and validate their cloud workloads.
Azure $200 Trial
Azure's free account offers new users $200 in credits to explore and build on the platform within 30 days, plus 12 months of free use of 20+ popular services.
Browserless Free Tier
Get 1,000 free monthly requests for headless browser automation including web scraping, PDF generation, and screenshot capture with zero infrastructure setup
Civo Free Trial $250
Get $250 free Civo credit for 1 month to explore managed Kubernetes, cloud services, and more. Enjoy blazing fast cluster deployment, expert mentorship, and fre
Cloudflare R2 Storage Free Tier
Cloudflare R2 Storage offers a permanently free allowance of S3-compatible object storage, operations, and zero-egress data transfer so teams can test and launc
Cloudways Startup Program
Empowering startups with managed hosting discounts, exclusive growth tools, and personalized mentorship for sustained business success.
Sunrise Startup Program
Cloudzy's Sunrise startup program empowers early-stage startups with up to $8,000 in cloud VPS credits in the first year, a 30% rebate on VPS purchases in the s
CockroachDB Cloud Free Trial
New organizations receive $400 in free credits to trial CockroachDB Cloud, available across all cluster plans.
Datadog for Startups Program
Real-time performance monitoring at startup-friendly cost. Datadog offers a comprehensive Startup Program with dedicated support, technical training, and access
DigitalOcean $200 Free Trial
Start your free trial with a $200 credit for 60 days. A valid credit card is required, but you won't be charged unless you exceed the free credit or continue af
DigitalOcean Open Source Credits
DigitalOcean offers grants of credits to open source projects to help with their development, infrastructure, and testing needs.
Estuary Flow Startup Program
Get $2,000 in free credits for Estuary Flow's Cloud plan over 12 months, plus complimentary email and Slack-based technical support and access to step-by-step t
Framer Startup Offer
Empowering early-stage startups with a $2000 credit package: $1,000 for hiring a vetted Framer Expert via Contra and $1,000 for Framer hosting and maintenance,
Google for Startups Cloud Program
Accelerate your startup journey with flexible tiers that match your company's growth stage—providing up to $200,000 USD in Google Cloud credits, technical resou
Google Cloud $300 Trial
New GCP customers can receive $300 in credit to explore and deploy a range of Google Cloud products, plus additional perks for verified business accounts.
Grafana Labs Startup Program
Get up to $100,000 in Grafana Cloud credits for 12 months with enterprise plugins and 24/7 support
Gumlet Startup Credits Program
Gumlet's SCP enables startups to deliver optimized video and image content across platforms at half the cost.
Heroku Open Source Software Credit Program
Receive monthly platform credits for 12 months designed to support open source software projects hosted on Heroku.
IBM for Startups
Partner with IBM for Startups to accelerate innovation with IBM AI, scale globally, and present your solution to enterprises and investors—no cost, no equity re
InfluxDB $250 Trial
Enjoy a $250 credit for 30 days to explore InfluxDB Cloud Serverless, a fully-managed, elastic, and pay-as-you-go time-series database optimized for smaller wor
Meteor Cloud Galaxy Professional Plan
Get $600 in credits for 1 year on Galaxy, the only cloud platform built specifically for Meteor.js applications with auto-scaling and professional DevOps featur
Mux for Startups
Get a minimum of $500 in Mux video credits, free video analytics, and expert onboarding support to build and scale live and on-demand streaming.
Namecheap Education Program
University students get a free .ME domain for one year plus GitHub Pages hosting and professional tools to kickstart their online presence
Neo4j AuraDB Free Plan
Free forever graph database with 50,000 nodes, 175,000 relationships, and Neo4j Bloom included - no credit card required
Neo4j Startup Program
The Neo4j Startup Program supports innovative startups by providing access to the world's leading graph database and advanced graph technology tools, enabling s
Neon $100 Credits
Get $100 in Neon credits to try out their serverless Postgres database platform for free.
Neon YC Startup Deal
Y Combinator startups can claim $100k worth of Neon credits for their first year with a competitor match guarantee.
Oracle Cloud Free Tier
Oracle Cloud Free Tier enables users to build, test, and deploy applications on Oracle Cloud for free, starting with a US$300 free trial and continuing with a s
Open Telekom Cloud TechBoost Program
Accelerate your cloud-based startup with Deutsche Telekom's TechBoost program, offering up to €100,000 in Open Telekom Cloud credits, access to a vast B2B netwo
OVHcloud Startup Program
Accelerate development with up to €100,000 free cloud credits
Pulumi for Startups
Pulumi for Startups offers up to $10,000 in Pulumi Credits and exclusive technical support to help pre-Series A companies scale their cloud infrastructure effic
ScaleGrid Startup Program
Get started with the ScaleGrid Startup Program and enjoy a 50% discount on fully managed, BYOC hosting plans for PostgreSQL, MySQL, Redis, and MongoDB for 12 mo
Scaleway Startup Program for NVIDIA Inception Members
Exclusive partnership offering up to €42,000 in cloud credits with NVIDIA-optimized infrastructure
Scaleway Startup Program
Get up to €36,000 cost-coverage for cloud services with free consulting support from solution architects and access to a 800+ startup community
Scalingo Startup Program
Eligible startups receive up to €1,800 in hosting credits (up to €200/month for 9 months), priority developer support, and GitOps-powered continuous deployment
Synadia Free Trial
The Synadia Evaluation Agreement provides a 60-day trial of the Synadia Platform for internal evaluation purposes.
Tencent Cloud Startup Program
Empower startups to build and grow with the full force of Tencent Cloud. The program offers comprehensive support including financial vouchers, service discount
TiDB Cloud Serverless Credits for Open-Source Heroes
Receive up to $2,000 in free TiDB Cloud Serverless credits for open-source contributors to build scalable, innovative applications.
Twentysix Cloud Acceleratooor Web3 Startup Program
Develop your project, launch it on aleph.im, and benefit from community recognition. Access up to $1M ALEPH credits for 1 year to deploy decentralized VMs, stor
Unity Multiplay Game Server Hosting Sign-up Credit
Get an $800 sign-up credit for Unity Multiplay Game Server Hosting to offset hosting costs for new Unity Gaming Services organizations.
VIP Digital Startup Program
Receive up to $100,000 in free credits for your Vultr migration and enjoy up to 35% long-term discounts on cloud services, complemented by exclusive executive s
Datadog for Startups
Up to $100K or 1 year free Datadog Pro — observability and monitoring stack for Series A and earlier engineering teams
IBM Cloud for Startups
$120K in IBM Cloud credits — enterprise-grade infrastructure, AI, and data services at zero cost for early-stage teams
NVIDIA Inception
NVIDIA Inception is a free AI startup program — 30% off DGX Cloud supercomputing, preferred hardware pricing, co-marketing opportunities and access to the world's leading GPU ecosystem.
Akamai RISE
Akamai Cloud RISE Program (formerly Linode) gives qualifying startups up to $120K/year in cloud credits — compute, GPU, object storage and CDN via the infrastructure Akamai acquired from Linode.
Vultr Startup Program
Vultr Startup Program provides up to $100K in cloud credits for Series A and earlier startups — high-performance NVMe compute and bare metal across 32 global locations.
OVHcloud Start
OVHcloud Start 'n' Scale gives EU startups up to €100K in cloud credits — strong GDPR-native infrastructure with data centres in France, Germany, the UK and beyond.
DigitalOcean Hatch
DigitalOcean Hatch offers up to $100K in cloud credits for startups under $5M ARR — Droplets, Managed Databases, Spaces and App Platform covered by simple, developer-friendly infrastructure.
Cloudflare for Startups
Cloudflare for Startups offers up to $250K in Workers, R2, D1, KV and Stream credits — including a BOOTSTRAPPED equity-free track for startups with no investor requirement.
Google Cloud for Startups
Google for Startups Cloud Program offers AI-focused startups up to $350K in GCP credits over two years — plus Workspace, Firebase, Maps and access to Google's AI and ML services.
AWS Activate
AWS Activate gives startups up to $100K+ in AWS credits via accelerator and VC partners — the Founders self-serve track offers up to $5K with no sponsor required.
Microsoft for Startups Founders Hub
Microsoft for Startups Founders Hub gives early-stage companies up to $150K in Azure credits over 5 years — plus GitHub Enterprise and Microsoft 365, with no investor requirement.
How to maximise your cloud credits
- 01
Apply to AWS Activate Founders first — it is instant
The AWS Activate Founders $1K tier approves same-day with no partner required. Apply at aws.amazon.com/activate before doing anything else. Then pursue Portfolio credits via your accelerator for the $5K–$100K tier. - 02
Stack GCP + AWS + Azure + IBM — they are not exclusive
There is no rule preventing you from holding credits from multiple cloud providers simultaneously. Most funded startups run all three major clouds. Apply to AWS, GCP, Microsoft Founders Hub, and IBM Cloud for Startups in parallel — the applications take under two hours total. - 03
GCP AI-track if your product uses Vertex AI or Gemini
Google Cloud for Startups has a dedicated AI track at $350K over two years for startups using Vertex AI, Gemini API, or TPU workloads. The standard track is $200K year 1. If AI is your primary use case, make sure you apply to the AI track. - 04
Cloudflare BOOTSTRAPPED for zero-VC access
Enter code BOOTSTRAPPED in the Cloudflare for Startups application to route to the bootstrapped-friendly track. One of the few explicit programs for equity-free founders. R2 object storage zero-egress pricing alone justifies applying. - 05
AWS has 24-month validity — safe to activate early
AWS Activate credits are valid 24 months, the longest of any major program. GCP, Oracle, and IBM credits are 12 months. Activate AWS credits first, and delay GCP, IBM, and Oracle activation until your infrastructure usage is real. - 06
IBM Cloud for enterprise and regulated-industry startups
IBM Cloud for Startups provides $120K in credits including Red Hat OpenShift and Watson AI — more than AWS Activate. If your target customers are in banking, government, or healthcare and require IBM or Red Hat infrastructure, apply to IBM Cloud alongside your other cloud programs.
Frequently asked questions
How much can a startup get in free cloud credits? +
A startup that qualifies for all 12 programs in this guide can access over $1.2M in cloud credits. Realistically, most startups qualify for $200K–$500K across AWS, GCP, Azure, Cloudflare, and Oracle. The exact amount depends on your funding status, accelerator affiliation, and whether you apply to partner-gated tiers.
Do I need a VC or accelerator to get cloud startup credits? +
No — several programs accept direct applications with no investor affiliation: AWS Activate Founders ($1K, same-day), Oracle for Startups ($10K), Cloudflare for Startups (use code BOOTSTRAPPED), Vultr Startup ($100K), OVHcloud Start (€10K–€100K), and IBM Cloud for Startups ($120K). You can access $230K+ in cloud credits without a VC.
Can I use credits from multiple cloud providers at the same time? +
Yes. There is no exclusivity clause between cloud provider programs. Most VC-backed startups hold AWS Activate, Google Cloud for Startups, and Microsoft Founders Hub credits simultaneously. Apply to all programs you qualify for and use each provider for what it does best.
Which cloud startup credit program is easiest to get? +
AWS Activate Founders is the easiest — it approves automatically the same day with no partner or VC required. The $1K credit is small but the 24-month validity is the longest available. Oracle for Startups and IBM Cloud for Startups also accept direct applications and offer significantly larger amounts ($10K and $120K respectively).
How long do cloud startup credits last? +
AWS Activate credits are valid 24 months — the longest of any major program. Google Cloud, Oracle, IBM, and most other providers give 12-month validity. Akamai RISE renews annually. Plan your infrastructure usage accordingly: activate short-validity credits when your production usage is real, not at founding.