Which free startup credits are worth it in 2026?
Checked against each company's own page on 22 October 2026. Terms change often, so open the link before you apply.
On 6 October, Anthropic announced that qualifying startups could get a free year of Claude Team for up to five people, plus $1,000 in API credit. By 13 October the same announcement carried a new line: the current cohort is full, and applications are closed.
That's seven days between the offer and the closed door. We wanted to know what else is buried in the terms of the other big programs, so we opened the official page of 20 of them, one at a time, and wrote down what each offers, who can join, and what happens when the free part ends.
Every figure below comes from the company's own page, and where a page said nothing we've said so. Two things stood out. The largest offers are unlocked by investors, not founders. And four of the 20 pages contradict themselves somewhere.
The best deals go through your investor
Many of these programs open fully only if someone vouches for you. OpenAI is the clearest case: its startup credits need a referral code from a VC in its partner network, and its page names Thrive Capital, Sequoia, a16z, Kleiner Perkins and Conviction Partners as examples. GitHub, Linear and Zoho work the same way. HubSpot's deepest discount and AWS's $200,000 tier depend on a partner or verified funding.
The code changes the numbers. Notion gives six months of its Business plan with Notion AI if you have a partner code and three months if you don't. Cloudflare's $10,000 tier needs no partner. Its $100,000 tier does.
No investor yet? Notion's three months, Mixpanel, PostHog, Sentry, Intercom, ElevenLabs, the AWS Activate Founders tier and Cloudflare's $10,000 tier all take direct applications.
If you're the investor, this part is for you. OpenAI, GitHub, Linear, the upper Cloudflare tiers, AWS Portfolio and Anthropic's extra API credits of up to $100,000 all run through an investor or accelerator, and several let a fund sign up as a partner. Linear has a form for investors, MongoDB takes partner applications by email, GitHub has a partner application page, and AWS works through Activate Providers. Check which of these your fund is already on. Every company you've backed benefits.
Read the dates before you apply
Most programs run 12 months. Google spreads its credits over two years. Zoho's last 360 days and can't be extended, and Cloudflare and DigitalOcean both say they don't extend either. Sentry's credits expire 12 months after you receive them. MongoDB gives you 12 months to activate your code and 12 more to use it. Mixpanel is the strictest: if you haven't sent data within 90 days of acceptance, you're removed.
The clock usually starts at approval, so apply when you can use the product that week.
What happens afterwards varies. GitHub moves you to paid billing on the card on file, and if you downgrade early you forfeit what's left. Linear renews at its standard rate unless you switch plans or cancel first. Intercom steps its discount down from 93% to 50% to 25% over three years. HubSpot wants an annual commitment. PostHog puts you on a paid plan from the start and charges only for usage. On the day you're approved, put two dates in your calendar: when the credits expire, and when your card starts being charged.
What the credits don't pay for
In March, Richard Speed of The Register reported on founders who found this out from their bills. Bogdan Sevriukov, a CTO, opened an Azure account in September 2025 for startup credits worth up to $150,000. When Microsoft announced its Anthropic partnership in November, he assumed the credits covered Claude. They didn't. Microsoft billed him nearly a thousand euros, and when he asked for help, Microsoft and Anthropic each pointed to the other. Riyaj Shaikh was billed several thousand dollars the same way. Microsoft told The Register it is "continuously working to provide clear guidance in our product documentation."
The 20 pages we read describe the same gap in smaller print. At least four exclude or limit AI usage. DigitalOcean's core credits don't cover third-party AI models, including Anthropic's and OpenAI's. Google's don't cover third-party models in Model Garden. Anthropic's API credits work only on its own API, not through AWS, Google Cloud or Azure. PostHog's stopped covering its AI tools on 14 September 2026.
There are other limits. Cloudflare caps R2 at $10,000 and Workers AI by tier. Intercom charges extra Fin usage, and phone, SMS and WhatsApp, at list price. Google's credits exclude Workspace, Maps and Ads. Microsoft's program page doesn't say how its credits are released at all.
Before you apply to anything
Ask your investors or accelerator for partner codes first. Don't pay for a tool you want to try beforehand, because Notion, Sentry and Mixpanel only accept people who have never paid. And set up a company-domain email and a live website: several programs require the email, and Google says it may reject AI-generated or placeholder sites.
