Every big cloud gives new accounts free credit, but it runs out in weeks or months: Google Cloud gives $300 for 90 days, Azure $200 for 30 days, Oracle $300 for 30 days in select countries, and AWS $100 at sign-up plus up to $100 more for set activities. For anything longer, use an always-free tier (a small monthly allowance with no end date) or apply for a startup program.
Credits are a prepaid balance the provider draws down as you use its services. They are not cash, they expire, and most trials ask for a card. Below we compare what each provider gives a new account, what stays free afterwards and what happens when the trial ends. We checked each program’s official page on 12 and 13 October 2026.
Google Cloud
$300
For 90 days, plus an Always Free tier.
Azure
$200
For 30 days, then 12 months of free services.
AWS
$100
At sign-up, up to $100 more; Free plan up to 6 months.
Free cloud credits compared: AWS, Google Cloud, Azure, Oracle and IBM
This is what a brand-new account gets. “Free after the trial” is the allowance that keeps running at no cost once the credit is gone.
| Provider | Sign-up credit | How long | Free after the trial | Card |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AWS (medium confidence) | $100 at sign-up, up to $100 more for set activities | Free plan: up to 6 months. Credit expiry: 6 or 12 months (AWS pages disagree) | 30+ Always Free services; after 6 months, only on the Paid plan | Depends on the sign-up flow: the classic flow asks for one, a new flow in limited rollout skips it for most |
| Google Cloud | $300 | 90 days | One e2-micro virtual machine (VM), 2M Cloud Run requests, 5 GB Cloud Storage and 1 TiB of BigQuery queries a month, once you upgrade | Yes |
| Azure | $200 | 30 days | 20+ services free for 12 months and 65+ always free, once you move to pay-as-you-go | Yes, not prepaid |
| Oracle Cloud (medium confidence) | $300, select countries only | 30 days | An Arm VM with 2 OCPUs (Oracle’s unit of CPU capacity) and 12 GB of memory, two AMD micro VMs, 200 GB block storage, two Autonomous Databases, 10 TB of outbound data (egress) a month | Yes; no prepaid, virtual or single-use cards |
| IBM Cloud | $200 | First 30 days | 40+ Lite products with monthly quotas | Yes |
| Akamai Cloud (Linode) (medium confidence) | $100 | Not stated on the offer page | None stated | Yes, or PayPal or Google Pay |
| DigitalOcean (medium confidence) | $5 | 90 days | 3 static sites, a monthly Functions allowance and 1 Container Registry repo | Yes, or PayPal, Google Pay or Apple Pay |
Medium confidence means we could not confirm some details on an official page; each section below says which. Note the pattern in the fourth column: on AWS, Google Cloud and Azure, the always-free allowance continues after the trial only inside an upgraded account that can bill your card. Oracle is the exception, as its Always Free resources carry on without an upgrade.
Students: Azure for Students gives $100 to use within 12 months, with no card. Our free credits for students page covers the other student cloud offers.
Trial credit, always free or startup program: which kind of free?
“Free cloud” means three different things. They differ in how long they last, who can get them and, above all, in what happens at the end.
| Kind | How long | Who gets it | Card | Risk when it ends |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Trial credit | Weeks: 30 days (Azure, Oracle, IBM) to 90 days (Google Cloud). AWS’s Free plan runs up to 6 months | New accounts, usually once per person or customer | Usually yes | Services stop, the account is suspended or usage is billed, depending on the provider |
| Always free | No end date | Any account; on AWS, Google Cloud and Azure, an upgraded one after the trial | None for Cloudflare, Neon or Vercel Hobby; usually yes on the big clouds | Limits, idle pauses and reclaimed resources; usage above the allowance is billed when a card is on file |
| Startup program | Months to years, often 12 months | Startups that apply and qualify | Often required | Usage is billed to the card on file once the credits run out or expire |
Use a trial to learn a platform, then keep small projects on always-free tiers. Apply for a startup program when you have a company, a product and a reason to commit to one provider; our startup programs page compares them.
Our picks for free cloud and hosting
Six free options we would start with, all high confidence on 12 and 13 October 2026.
Longest big-cloud trialGoogle Cloud Free Trial and Free Tier$300 for 90 days + Always Free tierThree times as long as Oracle’s $300 trial. The e2-micro stays free after the trial once you upgrade. Needs a card.Free services for 12 monthsAzure free accountMicrosoft Azure$200 for 30 days + 12 months of free servicesThe credit is short, but popular services stay free for a year if you move to pay-as-you-go in time.Serverless, no cardCloudflare Workers Free planFree tier: 100,000 Workers requests a dayNo card and no end date. Limits reset every day at 00:00 UTC.Postgres, no cardNeon Free planFree Postgres: 100 CU-hours and 1 GB per projectGood for side projects. Compute suspends after 5 minutes idle, so expect cold starts.App hosting, no cardRailway Free Trial and Free plan$5 trial credit for 30 days, then $1 a monthConnect GitHub to get the full trial. The Free plan then runs one small project.Cloud dev environmentGitHub Codespaces free monthly usage120 core-hours + 15 GB storage a monthHours count per core, so a 2-core machine gives about 60 real hours on GitHub Free.
AWS Free Tier in 2026: credits, not 12 months free
If you remember the AWS Free Tier as “12 months free”, that model is gone for new accounts. AWS replaced it with credits in an announcement dated 16 July 2025. On 12 October 2026 the AWS Free Tier gave a new account:
- $100 in credits at sign-up, on either the Free plan or the Paid plan.
- Up to $100 more for completing set activities with key services in the console, within 6 months.
- 30+ Always Free services.
Free plan or Paid plan. You choose at sign-up. The Free plan does not charge you, but it blocks services that would use up the credit quickly. It lasts up to 6 months or until the credits run out, and it cannot be extended. Then AWS suspends the account and keeps your data for 90 days. If you have not upgraded by then, it erases the account and its content. The Paid plan opens every service and bills what the credits do not cover.
Two rules that cost people credit. Free-plan accounts cannot receive AWS Activate credits, so upgrade to the Paid plan before you apply. And pending activity credits expire at once if you join an AWS Organization or set up an AWS Control Tower landing zone, so finish the activities first.
What we could not confirm: AWS pages give different expiry dates for the sign-up credit, 6 or 12 months after account creation, so check the Credits page in Billing and Cost Management for your own date. We also found no official page saying what accounts opened before July 2025 keep.
Card or no card. On 16 September 2026 AWS announced a new sign-up with no credit card for most new customers. On 12 October 2026 its docs said this had reached only a limited number of customers, and the classic registration flow still asked for a card.
India. Indian sign-ups are billed by AISPL (Amazon Internet Services Private Limited). AISPL charges INR 2 to verify a card and refunds it, and accepts Visa, Mastercard and American Express.
Google Cloud free trial: $300 for 90 days, plus Always Free
The Google Cloud free trial gives new customers a $300 Welcome credit for 90 days. You qualify only if you have never been a paying customer of Google Cloud, Google Maps Platform or Firebase, and have not used the trial before. So if you have ever paid for a Firebase project, the $300 is not for you.
The Always Free tier runs alongside the trial, with these monthly limits:
- One e2-micro VM in us-west1, us-central1 or us-east1, with 30 GB-months of standard disk.
- 2 million Cloud Run requests.
- 5 GB of Cloud Storage, in those three US regions only.
- 1 TiB of BigQuery queries.
Always Free has no end date, but Google says it needs a billing account. If you upgrade to a paid account, you keep it after the trial; if you do not, Google says you lose access to its products and services.
Card and hold. You need a card or another accepted payment method, and in some countries you must also verify a bank account. Google places a temporary $0 to $1 hold.
What happens at the end. There is no automatic upgrade. When the credit or the 90 days run out, billing is disabled and your resources stop. You then have 30 days to upgrade before trial resources are deleted. If you upgrade early, the trial ends but the unused credit stays usable until day 90.
What the $300 cannot pay for. During the trial you cannot add GPUs, create Windows Server VMs, use Marketplace or request quota increases. The credit cannot pay for the Gemini API in Google AI Studio either; for the Gemini API free tier and free GPU notebooks, see our free AI API credits page. Google AI Pro and Ultra subscribers get separate monthly Google Cloud credits, from $10 a month on AI Pro.
India. A Cloud Billing account with an Indian address must complete identity verification within 30 days, or it may be suspended. Individuals can use a passport, driving licence, PAN card or Election Commission ID with proof of address, or e-Aadhaar through DigiLocker. Google accepts UPI with INR billing, after a prepayment of typically INR 500 to 1,000.
Azure free account: $200 for 30 days, then free services
The Azure free account has three layers: a $200 credit to use within 30 days on any Azure service, 20+ popular services free for 12 months, and 65+ services with free monthly amounts that never expire. Those are the figures Microsoft advertises; the service cards on the same page show fewer.
What you need. A phone number, a non-prepaid credit or debit card (credit cards only in Hong Kong and Brazil) and a Microsoft or GitHub account. A temporary $1 hold may appear on your card. Microsoft allows one free account per customer.
What happens at the end. To keep the free services, move to pay-as-you-go within 30 days or when the credit runs out. If you do not, the account and its services are disabled. After 12 months, services still running are billed at standard rates, so set a reminder for month 11. The credit cannot pay for Marketplace offers or Spot VMs.
India. India is on Azure’s supported-country list. Microsoft says the 12-month free services are not available to customers in India or China who sign up directly for pay-as-you-go, so start with the free account and upgrade from there.
Oracle Cloud Free Tier: what Always Free still gives you
Oracle Cloud Free Tier has two parts. The first is a $300 credit for 30 days, offered only in select countries that Oracle does not name. The second is a set of Always Free resources with no end date:
- Arm (Ampere A1) compute: 2 OCPUs (Oracle’s unit of CPU capacity) and 12 GB of memory, counted as 1,500 OCPU hours and 9,000 GB hours a month.
- Two AMD micro VMs.
- 200 GB of block storage.
- Two Autonomous Databases.
- 10 TB of outbound data transfer (egress) a month.
The Arm allowance was halved. Many guides and videos still promise 4 OCPUs and 24 GB. On 13 October 2026 Oracle’s Always Free docs listed half that, with no date or change note, and Oracle had published no announcement. Third-party reports give 15 June or 18 August 2026 as the date; Oracle has confirmed neither.
The rules that catch people out:
- One free account per person. Oracle prohibits multiple free accounts, and we do not cover ways around that.
- Always Free compute and block volumes must be in the home region you pick at sign-up, so choose it carefully.
- Oracle may reclaim Always Free VMs that stay idle for 7 days (CPU, network and, for Arm, memory use all below 20%), and may suspend or close accounts left idle for 30 days or more.
- Free Tier is subject to capacity limits, so creating an Always Free VM can fail until capacity frees up.
- When the trial ends, Object Storage drops to 20 GB. If you hold more than 20 GB at that point, all objects are deleted.
- If you upgrade to Pay As You Go, anything beyond the Always Free amounts is billed.
India. Oracle India’s Free Tier page advertises the $300 credit, and Always Free works in the Mumbai and Hyderabad regions. The page keeps the “select countries” footnote, so treat the $300 as likely, not guaranteed.
IBM, Akamai (Linode), DigitalOcean and Vultr free credits
IBM Cloud
IBM Cloud gives new Pay-as-you-go accounts $200 for the first 30 days, and 40+ products have always-free Lite plans with monthly quotas. A card is required for identity checks.
- Lite instances are deleted after 30 days without development activity.
- Reaching a Lite quota suspends that service for the rest of the month.
- A separate TRYCOS promo code, shown on IBM’s free-tier page, gives up to $500 over the first 3 months. You enter it while provisioning.
- IBM lists 28 countries where it does not support personal (non-business) accounts, including the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Nigeria, although in Norway and Switzerland the local IBM company can still contract them. India is not on the list.
Akamai Cloud (formerly Linode)
Akamai offers $100 to new customers for most compute plans and storage. Medium confidence: the offer page does not say how long the credit lasts. Akamai’s referral docs give the same $100 a 60-day term, but the general offer may differ, so check the expiry date in your account. GPU plans are excluded, and usage above the credit is billed.
DigitalOcean
DigitalOcean‘s pricing FAQ describes a $5 free credit for new users, valid for 90 days. The “$200 for 60 days” offer still quoted by coupon and affiliate sites was not on any official DigitalOcean page on 12 October 2026, and the old free-trial links redirected to the homepage. Medium confidence: treat any $200 link with care until DigitalOcean shows the amount at sign-up.
Vultr
Vultr‘s docs say new accounts can get free credits for up to 30 days, but we could not confirm the amount: its promotion pages could not be loaded in our check, and coupon sites disagree. We give no figure. Check the credit and expiry shown when you sign up.
Free hosting and database plans for developers
These plans have no trial clock, but each has a catch: a pause, a sleep or a hard limit.
| Plan | Free allowance | The catch | Card |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cloudflare Free and Workers Free | A CDN (servers worldwide that cache your site), DNS, SSL certificates and DDoS protection (defence against floods of junk traffic), plus 100,000 Workers requests and 10,000 Workers AI Neurons (Cloudflare’s unit of AI usage) a day | Workers AI stops at the daily limit unless you move to Workers Paid ($5 a month minimum) | No |
| Vercel Hobby | 100 GB of fast data transfer and 1 million function invocations a month | Personal, non-commercial projects only; a business site needs Pro at $20 per developer seat a month | No |
| Netlify Free | 300 credits a month for accounts opened since 4 September 2025: about 15 GB of bandwidth or 20 production deploys, not both | A hard limit; projects can pause until the next cycle | Not stated |
| Render Free | 750 instance hours a month per workspace | Web services sleep after 15 minutes without traffic; free Postgres expires 30 days after creation and has no backups | No |
| Railway | A one-time $5 trial for up to 30 days, then $1 of usage a month | Trial volumes are deleted 30 days after the credit expires unless you upgrade; the Free plan allows one project | No |
| Supabase Free | Two projects with a 500 MB database each | Projects pause after one week of inactivity | Not stated |
| Neon Free | Serverless Postgres, up to 100 projects | Compute suspends after 5 minutes idle, so the first request after a pause is slow (a cold start) | No |
| MongoDB Atlas Free | One 512 MB cluster | Pauses after 30 days with no connections; no backups | Not stated |
| Firebase Spark | Firestore, Hosting and Authentication | Since 3 February 2026 Cloud Storage for Firebase needs the Blaze (pay-as-you-go) plan, Cloud Functions need Blaze too, and SMS sign-in is not on Spark | No |
| GitHub Codespaces | 120 core-hours a month on GitHub Free | Hours count per core, so a 2-core machine gives about 60 real hours | No |
| WorkOS | Sign-up and login for up to 1 million monthly active users | Enterprise SSO and directory connections are billed per connection | Not stated |
| is-a.dev | A free .is-a.dev address for a personal developer site, requested on GitHub | Volunteers review every request by hand; only is-a.dev, data.is-a.dev and docs.is-a.dev are the project’s official sites | No |
Startups can get Cloudflare credits on top of the free plan; see our Cloudflare for Startups guide.
Commercial use: Vercel Hobby is non-commercial only, and is-a.dev is meant for personal websites. The other plans above did not state a non-commercial rule on the pages we checked, but read the terms before you host a business on a free plan. Sleeping services and idle pauses are a poor fit for a site customers rely on.
Every free cloud tier and hosting plan we track
All 21 free cloud tiers, trials and hosting plans on this page, sorted by the credit a new account gets. Plans with a free allowance follow A to Z, and the one credit amount we could not confirm (Vultr) comes last. Each entry has the card rule, an India note and the official link, checked 12 and 13 October 2026. Use the No card needed filter, or the card line in each entry, to see what you can start without a card.
Show only
No programs match these filters.
Skip past this listGoogle Cloud Free Trial and Free Tier
Google CloudActiveNew customers; card required
Solo developersBootstrapped startupsStudentsAnyone
$300 for 90 days + Always Free tier
$300 Welcome credit for 90 days for new customers, plus an Always Free tier: one e2-micro VM in select US regions, 2M Cloud Run requests, 5 GB Cloud Storage and 1 TiB of BigQuery queries a month.
Eligibility, card, India and how to apply for Google Cloud Free Trial and Free Tier
- Who qualifies
- You must never have been a paying customer of Google Cloud, Google Maps Platform or Firebase.
- You must not have used the Free Trial before.
- A valid credit card or other accepted payment method is required. In some countries you must also verify a bank account.
- Free Tier e2-micro VM only in us-west1, us-central1 or us-east1, with 30 GB-months of standard disk. Free Cloud Storage applies only in those three US regions.
- How long
- $300 credit: 90 days from sign-up. Free Tier: ongoing monthly limits.
- Referral or funding needed
- No
- Card needed
- Yes
- Work or school email
- No
- Countries
- No country exclusion listed on the Free Trial page.
- India
- Yes. The trial page lists no excluded countries. A Cloud Billing account with an Indian address must complete identity verification within 30 days or may be suspended. Individuals need proof of identity (passport, driving licence, PAN card or Election Commission ID) and proof of address, or can use e-Aadhaar through DigiLocker. Google also accepts UPI in India after a prepayment, typically INR 500 to 1,000.
- How to apply
- Sign up at cloud.google.com/free with a Google account and add a payment method. The credit starts at once.
- Watch out for
- No automatic upgrade. When the credit or the 90 days run out, billing is disabled and resources stop. You then have 30 days to upgrade before trial resources are deleted.
- If you upgrade early, the trial ends but the remaining credit stays usable until day 90.
- The $300 credit cannot pay for the Gemini API in Google AI Studio or for generative AI partner models offered as a managed API.
- During the trial you cannot add GPUs, mine crypto, create Windows Server VMs, use Marketplace, create VMware Engine resources or request quota increases.
- Google places a temporary $0 to $1 authorization hold on your card.
- Status note
- No 2025-2026 change to the $300/90-day terms found. Docs page last updated 9 October 2026; on 12 October 2026 the documentation was on docs.cloud.google.com.
Official page for Google Cloud Free Trial and Free Tier (opens in a new tab)Checked 12 October 2026
Oracle Cloud Free Tier (Always Free + Free Trial)
Oracle Cloud InfrastructureArm allowance halved; no date givenOne account per person; card required
Solo developersStudentsAnyone
$300 for 30 days + Always Free Arm VM (2 OCPU)
$300 credit for 30 days on OCI services, plus Always Free resources with no end date: Arm A1 compute (2 OCPUs, 12 GB), two AMD micro VMs, 200 GB block storage, two Autonomous Databases, 10 TB egress a month.
Some details are uncertain or conflict between official pages. Check the official page before you apply.
Eligibility, card, India and how to apply for Oracle Cloud Free Tier (Always Free + Free Trial)
- Who qualifies
- One Free Trial or Always Free account per person; multiple free accounts are prohibited.
- Credit cards, or debit cards that work like credit cards. No PIN debit, virtual, single-use or prepaid cards.
- The $300 credit is only offered in select countries.
- Always Free compute and block volumes must be in your home region.
- How long
- $300 credit: 30 days or until used. Always Free: no time limit.
- Referral or funding needed
- No
- Card needed
- Yes
- Work or school email
- No
- Countries
- Always Free: available in all regions with commercial OCI service (checked 13 October 2026). The $300 credit is offered only in select countries, which Oracle does not list.
- India
- Yes. Oracle India’s Free Tier page (checked 13 October 2026) advertises the $300 credit for 30 days plus Always Free services. Oracle says Free Tier is available in every region with commercial OCI service, which includes Mumbai and Hyderabad. The same page still says the $300 credit is offered only in select countries and does not name them, so the credit is likely but not guaranteed for Indian sign-ups. Always Free resources are tied to the home region you pick at sign-up.
- How to apply
- Sign up at oracle.com/cloud/free, choose your home region carefully, and add a card for verification.
- Watch out for
- Oracle may reclaim Always Free VMs it deems idle over 7 days: 95th-percentile CPU, network and (for A1) memory use all below 20%.
- Accounts left idle for 30 days or more may be treated as abandoned and suspended or closed.
- Free Tier availability is subject to capacity limits, so creating Always Free shapes can fail until capacity is free.
- After you upgrade to Pay As You Go, anything beyond the Always Free amounts is billed.
- Object Storage drops to 20 GB combined once the trial ends. If you hold more than 20 GB when the trial ends, all objects are deleted.
- Status note
- Oracle’s Always Free docs (checked 13 October 2026) list Ampere A1 at 1,500 OCPU hours and 9,000 GB hours a month (2 OCPUs and 12 GB), half the earlier 4 OCPUs and 24 GB. The docs carry no date or change note and Oracle published no announcement. Third-party reports give 15 June or 18 August 2026 as the effective date; neither is confirmed by Oracle. (Corrected 13 October 2026 after a second check.)
Official page for Oracle Cloud Free Tier (Always Free + Free Trial) (opens in a new tab)Checked 13 October 2026
Azure free account
Microsoft AzureActiveNew customers; card required
Solo developersBootstrapped startupsAnyone
$200 for 30 days + 12 months of free services
$200 credit to use within 30 days on any Azure service, 20+ popular services free for 12 months, and 65+ services with free monthly amounts that never expire.
Eligibility, card, India and how to apply for Azure free account
- Who qualifies
- New customers only, one free account per customer.
- Needs a phone number, a non-prepaid credit or debit card, and a Microsoft or GitHub account.
- Only credit cards are accepted in Hong Kong and Brazil.
- You must be in a supported country.
- How long
- Credit: 30 days. Popular services: 12 months from account creation. Always-free amounts: ongoing.
- Referral or funding needed
- No
- Card needed
- Yes
- Work or school email
- No
- Countries
- Supported-country list applies; India is on it. Not valid for the US Government, Azure China or Azure Germany clouds.
- India
- Yes. India is on Azure’s supported-country list. Azure says the 12-month free services are not available to customers in India or China who sign up directly for pay-as-you-go, so start with the free account instead.
- How to apply
- Sign up at azure.microsoft.com/free with a Microsoft or GitHub account, verify your phone and add a card.
- Watch out for
- To keep the free services, move to pay-as-you-go within 30 days or when the credit runs out. Otherwise the account and services are disabled.
- After 12 months, any services still running are billed at standard rates.
- The credit cannot pay for Marketplace offers or Spot VMs, or be combined with Azure Hybrid Benefit.
- A temporary $1 authorization hold may appear on your card.
- Status note
- No 2025-2026 change found on the official pages. The page advertises 20+ twelve-month services and 65+ always-free services; its service cards show fewer.
Official page for Azure free account (opens in a new tab)Checked 12 October 2026
IBM Cloud Free Tier (Lite plans and $200 credit)
IBMActiveNew accounts; card required
AnyoneSolo developers
$200 for 30 days + 40+ always-free Lite servicesBest case: Up to $500 over 3 months with the TRYCOS code
New Pay-as-you-go accounts get a $200 credit for the first 30 days. 40+ products have always-free Lite plans with monthly quotas. A separate TRYCOS code advertises up to $500 over 3 months.
Eligibility, card, India and how to apply for IBM Cloud Free Tier (Lite plans and $200 credit)
- Who qualifies
- Credit card needed at sign-up for identity checks (a hold of about $1). Debit cards only if Visa or Mastercard. No disposable or one-time card numbers.
- The $200 credit is only for first-time Pay-as-you-go accounts
- Email address not tied to an existing IBM Cloud account
- How long
- $200 credit: first 30 days. Lite plans: no expiry, quotas reset on the 1st of each month. TRYCOS: first 3 months, no end date stated.
- Referral or funding needed
- No
- Card needed
- Yes
- Work or school email
- Not stated
- Countries
- Personal (non-business) use is not supported in 28 listed countries, including UAE, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Vietnam, Taiwan, Egypt, Nigeria, Kenya and Ukraine. Norway and Switzerland are listed, but local IBM entities can contract personal accounts there. India is not on the list.
- India
- Yes. India is not on IBM’s list of countries where personal use is barred, and the free-tier page lists no other country limit. Your card must be authorised by the issuer for the verification hold; IBM says issuer declines are a common reason cards fail.
- How to apply
- Register at cloud.ibm.com/registration with a card for verification. The $200 credit applies to new Pay-as-you-go accounts. Enter TRYCOS while provisioning if you want that promo.
- Watch out for
- The $200 credit lasts only 30 days and cannot be used on third-party offerings.
- Lite service instances are deleted after 30 days without development activity. Apps sleep after 10 days.
- Reaching a Lite quota suspends that service for the rest of the month. Non-Lite free-tier products bill monthly once you pass the free allowance.
- Adding a card to an academic Trial account turns it into Pay-as-you-go permanently. Educational feature codes cannot be used on Pay-as-you-go accounts.
- Status note
- Re-confirmed on 12 October 2026 on ibm.com/cloud/free, the pricing page and IBM Cloud docs: $200 within the first 30 days, 40+ always-free Lite products (the page also says 50+ products have a free tier), card required. Since 25 October 2021 new accounts are created as Pay-as-you-go; Lite accounts created before then are legacy. The TRYCOS promo (up to $500 for 3 months) has no stated end date.
Official page for IBM Cloud Free Tier (Lite plans and $200 credit) (opens in a new tab)Checked 12 October 2026
AWS Free Tier (Free account plan and sign-up credits)
Amazon Web ServicesChanged 16 September 2026New AWS accounts only
Solo developersBootstrapped startupsStudentsAnyone
$100 credit at sign-up + 30+ Always Free servicesBest case: Up to $200 after completing set activities
New AWS accounts get $100 in credits at sign-up, on either the Free or the Paid plan, and can earn up to $100 more by completing set activities. You also get 30+ Always Free services. The Free plan lasts up to 6 months.
Some details are uncertain or conflict between official pages. Check the official page before you apply.
Eligibility, card, India and how to apply for AWS Free Tier (Free account plan and sign-up credits)
- Who qualifies
- New customers only. Anyone who has or had an AWS account is ineligible.
- At sign-up you choose the Free plan (no charges, some services blocked) or the Paid plan (all services, billed beyond credits). AWS’s docs say the $100 sign-up credit applies on either plan.
- The extra $100 is earned by completing activities with key services in the console.
- Free plan accounts cannot receive other promotional credits such as AWS Activate. Upgrade to the Paid plan first.
- How long
- Free plan: 6 months or until credits run out, whichever comes first. AWS pages disagree on when sign-up credits expire (6 or 12 months after account creation). Activities must be done within 6 months, and activity credits expire 12 months after account creation.
- Referral or funding needed
- No
- Card needed
- Not stated
- Work or school email
- No
- Countries
- No country limit stated. Credits and plan choice are not available in the AWS China (Beijing, Ningxia) regions, and the Free Tier does not cover AWS GovCloud (US) except some services such as Lambda.
- India
- Yes. Indian sign-ups are billed by AISPL. AWS’s registration FAQ says AISPL charges INR 2 to verify a card and refunds it (3-5 days), and accepts Visa, Mastercard and American Express. AWS lists no separate India credit amount.
- How to apply
- Create a new account from aws.amazon.com/free and pick the Free or Paid plan during sign-up. Complete the credit activities in the console within 6 months to earn the extra $100.
- Watch out for
- When the Free plan ends, AWS suspends the account and keeps your data for 90 days. If you do not upgrade in that time, it permanently erases the account and its content. The Free plan cannot be extended past 6 months.
- The Free plan blocks services that would use up the credit quickly, and hardware purchases.
- On the Paid plan, usage beyond your credits, or on services the credits do not cover, is billed at standard rates.
- Pending credit activities expire at once if you join an AWS Organization or set up an AWS Control Tower landing zone.
- Whether you must add a card depends on which sign-up flow you get. The new flow skips it for most customers, the classic flow asks for one.
- AWS pages give different credit expiry dates (6 vs 12 months). Check the Credits page in Billing and Cost Management for your actual date.
- Status note
- AWS replaced the old 12-month Free Tier with this credit model (announcement dated 16 July 2025). On 16 September 2026 AWS announced a new sign-up experience: sign in with Google, GitHub, Apple or Amazon, and no credit card for most new customers. On 12 October 2026 AWS’s docs said this was reaching a limited number of customers, and the Free Tier FAQ describes it as introduced in October 2026. The classic registration FAQ still says AWS asks for a card. We could not confirm on an official page what accounts opened before July 2025 keep.
Official page for AWS Free Tier (Free account plan and sign-up credits) (opens in a new tab)Checked 12 October 2026
Akamai Cloud new-customer credit
Akamai (Linode)ActiveNew customers; card to verify identity
Solo developersBootstrapped startupsAnyone
$100 credit for new customers (excludes GPU plans)
$100 credit for new Akamai Cloud (formerly Linode) customers, usable on most compute plans, Object Storage, Block Storage and NodeBalancers.
Some details are uncertain or conflict between official pages. Check the official page before you apply.
Eligibility, card, India and how to apply for Akamai Cloud new-customer credit
- Who qualifies
- New customers who have not had a free trial before.
- A valid payment method is needed to confirm identity (major cards, PayPal or Google Pay); you are not charged during the trial.
- Sign up with Google, GitHub or email.
- How long
- The offer page does not state the trial length. Through a referral link the $100 credit lasts 60 days.
- Referral or funding needed
- No. A referral link gives the same $100, with a stated 60-day term.
- Card needed
- Yes
- Work or school email
- No
- Countries
- No country limit stated.
- India
- Yes. No country restriction stated on the offer, referral or promotion-rules pages.
- How to apply
- Sign up through akamai.com/lp/free-credit-100 (or a referral link) and add a payment method.
- Watch out for
- GPU plans are excluded.
- Usage above the credit during the trial is billed at standard rates.
- Unused credit expires when the trial ends.
- Akamai’s general promo-code rules exclude Marketplace and third-party services and allow one promo code per business.
- A temporary pre-authorization may be placed on your card.
- Status note
- On 12 October 2026, linode.com offer URLs redirected to akamai.com. The general offer page does not give the trial length or an end date.
Official page for Akamai Cloud new-customer credit (opens in a new tab)Checked 12 October 2026
DigitalOcean new-user free credit
DigitalOceanChanged: $5 credit for 90 daysNew accounts; payment method on file
Solo developersBootstrapped startupsAnyone
$5 credit for 90 days + 3 free static sites
$5 free credit for new users, valid 90 days, per DigitalOcean’s pricing FAQ. Free extras include 3 static sites on App Platform, 90,000 GiB-seconds of Functions a month, and 1 Container Registry repo (500 MiB).
Some details are uncertain or conflict between official pages. Check the official page before you apply.
Eligibility, card, India and how to apply for DigitalOcean new-user free credit
- Who qualifies
- New accounts.
- A payment method is kept on file (card, PayPal, Google Pay or Apple Pay); it is charged only after the credit is used up or expires.
- How long
- 90 days, per the pricing FAQ; unused credit then expires.
- Referral or funding needed
- No
- Card needed
- Yes
- Work or school email
- No
- Countries
- No country limit stated.
- India
- Yes. No country restriction stated. Adding a card may trigger a temporary pre-authorization (typically $1); Indian cards need international payments switched on.
- How to apply
- Sign up at digitalocean.com and add a payment method; the credit applies to the new account.
- Watch out for
- Usage beyond the credit is charged to your payment method.
- Adding a card may trigger a temporary pre-authorization, typically $1, which is cancelled.
- Treat any ‘$200 credit’ link with care until DigitalOcean confirms the amount at sign-up.
- Status note
- On 12 October 2026 the pricing FAQ explained ‘the $5 free credit’ with a 90-day validity. The $200/60-day offer still quoted by coupon and affiliate sites was not found on any official DigitalOcean page that day, and the old free-trial URLs redirect to the homepage. The referral page says the referrer gets $25 once the new user spends $25, but does not state what the new user gets.
Official page for DigitalOcean new-user free credit (opens in a new tab)Checked 12 October 2026
Railway Free Trial and Free plan
RailwayActiveNo card; GitHub-verified for full trial
Solo developersStudentsAnyone
$5 trial credit for 30 days, then $1 a month
New accounts get a one-time $5 trial credit for up to 30 days with no card. After that the Free plan gives $1 of usage credit each month. Hobby is $5 a month and includes $5 of usage.
Eligibility, card, India and how to apply for Railway Free Trial and Free plan
- Who qualifies
- Connect a GitHub account to be verified for the full trial. Approval is automated and depends on the account’s age and activity.
- Unverified accounts get a limited trial with restricted outbound network access and limited ports
- How long
- Trial: 30 days or until $5 is spent. Free plan: $1 a month with no time limit.
- Referral or funding needed
- No
- Card needed
- No
- Work or school email
- No
- Countries
- No country limit stated
- India
- Yes. No country limit is listed, and the trial needs no card, so Indian developers can start without one. Paid plans are billed by credit card (prepaid credits are also mentioned).
- How to apply
- Sign up at railway.com and connect GitHub to be verified (railway.com/verify). When the trial ends, the account moves to the Free plan unless you upgrade.
- Watch out for
- Trial credit expires after 30 days. Volumes from trial accounts are deleted 30 days after the credits expire unless you upgrade.
- Unverified trials have restricted outbound networking and limited ports. Railway does not respond to verification requests.
- The Free plan’s $1 does not roll over, allows only 1 project and no custom domain.
- On Hobby, if usage goes over $5 you are charged for total usage, not only the excess. Cancelling Hobby while paying with prepaid credits cancels at once and forfeits the balance.
- Status note
- Re-confirmed on 12 October 2026 on railway.com/pricing and the Railway docs. Trial: $5 one-time for 30 days, 2 vCPU / 1 GB per service, 2 projects / 5 services, 1 custom domain. Free plan: $1 a month, 1 vCPU / 0.5 GB per service, 1 project / 3 services, no custom domains.
Official page for Railway Free Trial and Free plan (opens in a new tab)Checked 12 October 2026
Cloudflare Free plan (websites)
CloudflareActiveNo application; free for any website
Solo developersBootstrapped startupsNonprofitsAnyone
Free CDN, DNS, SSL, WAF and DDoS protection
$0 plan for websites: unmetered DDoS protection, CDN, Universal SSL, DNS, a WAF with the Free Managed Ruleset, and 70 rules plus 10,000 bulk redirects.
Eligibility, card, India and how to apply for Cloudflare Free plan (websites)
- Who qualifies
- Anyone with a domain they can point to Cloudflare.
- Cloudflare says the plan is for all websites, however small; it suits personal or hobby projects that do not need paid support.
- How long
- No end date.
- Referral or funding needed
- No
- Card needed
- No
- Work or school email
- No
- Countries
- No country limit stated.
- India
- Yes. No country restriction. For startup credits on top of this, see our Cloudflare for Startups guide.
- How to apply
- Create a Cloudflare account, add your domain and switch its nameservers to Cloudflare.
- Watch out for
- Support is community forums and docs only.
- Pro costs $20 a month billed annually or $25 billed monthly.
- Add-ons such as Load Balancing (from $5 a month) and Advanced Certificate Manager (from $10 a month) are paid.
- Status note
- No 2025-2026 change found to the core Free plan features.
Official page for Cloudflare Free plan (websites) (opens in a new tab)Checked 12 October 2026
Cloudflare Workers Free plan
CloudflareActiveNo application; any Cloudflare account
Solo developersBootstrapped startupsStudentsAnyone
Free tier: 100,000 Workers requests a day
Free daily allowances: 100,000 Workers requests a day (10 ms CPU each), KV, D1 and Durable Objects quotas, 10 GB R2 storage with free egress, 10,000 Workers AI Neurons a day, 500 Pages builds a month.
Eligibility, card, India and how to apply for Cloudflare Workers Free plan
- Who qualifies
- Any Cloudflare account.
- Included: KV 100,000 reads and 1,000 writes a day, 1 GB stored.
- Included: D1 5 million rows read and 100,000 written a day, 5 GB total.
- Included: R2 10 GB-month, 1 million Class A and 10 million Class B operations a month; no egress fees.
- Included: Workers Logs 200,000 events a day with 3 days retention.
- How long
- No end date; daily limits reset at 00:00 UTC.
- Referral or funding needed
- No
- Card needed
- No
- Work or school email
- No
- Countries
- No country limit stated.
- India
- Yes. No country restriction.
- How to apply
- Sign up at cloudflare.com and create a Worker or Pages project from the dashboard or with Wrangler.
- Watch out for
- On the Free plan, Workers AI stops at 10,000 Neurons a day; you must move to Workers Paid ($5 a month minimum) to use more.
- The R2 free tier covers Standard storage only, not Infrequent Access.
- Pages Free allows 1 concurrent build and a 20-minute build timeout. Creating new Pages projects is restricted during your first 48 hours, as an anti-abuse measure.
- Durable Objects on Free are SQLite-backed only.
- Status note
- No 2025-2026 cut found to these limits.
Official page for Cloudflare Workers Free plan (opens in a new tab)Checked 12 October 2026
Firebase Spark (no-cost) plan
Google FirebaseChanged 3 February 2026No application; any Google account
Solo developersStudents
Free Firestore, Hosting and Auth (50K MAU)
No-cost Spark plan: Firestore 1 GiB with 50K reads, 20K writes and 20K deletes a day; Hosting 10 GB storage and 360 MB a day transfer; Authentication up to 50K monthly active users.
Eligibility, card, India and how to apply for Firebase Spark (no-cost) plan
- Who qualifies
- Anyone with a Google account.
- No payment method needed on Spark.
- How long
- No end date.
- Referral or funding needed
- No
- Card needed
- No
- Work or school email
- No
- Countries
- No country limit stated.
- India
- Yes. No country restriction. Moving to Blaze needs a Google Cloud billing account; Indian billing addresses must pass identity verification within 30 days (see the Google Cloud entry).
- How to apply
- Create a project in the Firebase console; it starts on Spark.
- Watch out for
- No Cloud Storage or Cloud Functions on Spark. Default buckets on Spark projects become inaccessible (data kept until you upgrade).
- Phone (SMS) authentication is not available on Spark.
- Blaze keeps no-cost quotas but needs billing set up.
- Status note
- Since 3 February 2026, Cloud Storage for Firebase needs the Blaze (pay-as-you-go) plan, including to keep access to older *.appspot.com default buckets. Cloud Functions are also Blaze-only.
Official page for Firebase Spark (no-cost) plan (opens in a new tab)Checked 12 October 2026
Free .is-a.dev developer subdomain
is-a.dev (open-source project)ActiveOpen: request via GitHub pull request
Solo developersStudents
Free yourname.is-a.dev subdomain
Free .is-a.dev subdomain for a personal developer website. You register it with a pull request to the is-a-dev/register GitHub repository.
Eligibility, card, India and how to apply for Free .is-a.dev developer subdomain
- Who qualifies
- A GitHub account.
- Meant for personal websites; follow the docs and terms of service.
- How long
- No end date stated.
- Referral or funding needed
- No
- Card needed
- No
- Work or school email
- No
- Countries
- No country limit stated.
- India
- Yes. No country restriction.
- How to apply
- Fork github.com/is-a-dev/register, add your domain file as the docs explain, and open a pull request.
- Watch out for
- Each request is reviewed by hand; if you ignore requested changes, it is rejected.
- The project asks people not to use AI to write the request.
- Domains that break the terms can be reported and removed.
- Only is-a.dev, data.is-a.dev and docs.is-a.dev are official staff sites; distrust others claiming to be the project.
- Status note
- Volunteer-run; DNS is supported by Cloudflare’s Project Alexandria. The same team also runs .is-a.bot subdomains (seen 12 October 2026).
Official page for Free .is-a.dev developer subdomain (opens in a new tab)Checked 12 October 2026
GitHub Codespaces free monthly usage
GitHubActiveNo application; personal GitHub account
Solo developersStudentsOpen-source maintainers
120 core-hours + 15 GB storage a monthBest case: 180 core-hours + 20 GB a month on GitHub Pro
Personal GitHub accounts get free Codespaces each month: 120 compute hours and 15 GB-month storage on GitHub Free, or 180 hours and 20 GB-month on GitHub Pro.
Eligibility, card, India and how to apply for GitHub Codespaces free monthly usage
- Who qualifies
- Personal GitHub accounts.
- How long
- Monthly, ongoing.
- Referral or funding needed
- No
- Card needed
- No
- Work or school email
- No
- Countries
- No country limit stated.
- India
- Yes. No country restriction stated.
- How to apply
- Open any repository on GitHub and choose Code > Codespaces > Create codespace.
- Watch out for
- Hours are counted with a core multiplier, so a 2-core machine uses the allowance twice as fast (about 60 real hours on Free).
- Without a payment method, Codespaces are blocked once the quota runs out until the next month; with one, extra use is billed.
- Status note
- No 2025-2026 change found.
Official page for GitHub Codespaces free monthly usage (opens in a new tab)Checked 12 October 2026
MongoDB Atlas Free cluster (formerly M0)
MongoDBActiveNo application; one free cluster/project
Solo developersStudents
Free 512 MB MongoDB cluster
Free Atlas cluster: 512 MB storage, shared RAM and CPU, up to 100 operations a second and 500 connections. One free cluster per project.
Eligibility, card, India and how to apply for MongoDB Atlas Free cluster (formerly M0)
- Who qualifies
- One free cluster per Atlas project.
- How long
- No end date, but idle clusters pause.
- Referral or funding needed
- No
- Card needed
- Not stated
- Work or school email
- No
- Countries
- No country limit stated.
- India
- Yes. No country restriction stated.
- How to apply
- Sign up at mongodb.com/atlas and deploy a Free cluster.
- Watch out for
- Atlas pauses a Free cluster after 30 days with no connections.
- No backups; use mongodump and mongorestore yourself.
- Data transfer is capped at 10 GB in and 10 GB out per rolling 7 days; above that the cluster is throttled.
- You cannot choose the MongoDB version; Atlas sets it (8.0 on 12 October 2026).
- Status note
- On 12 October 2026 MongoDB called M0 the Free cluster. The paid Flex tier costs $8 to $30 a month.
Official page for MongoDB Atlas Free cluster (formerly M0) (opens in a new tab)Checked 12 October 2026
Neon Free plan
NeonActiveNo application; no card needed
Solo developersStudentsBootstrapped startups
Free Postgres: 100 CU-hours and 1 GB per project
Free serverless Postgres: up to 100 projects, 100 CU-hours of compute per project a month, 1 GB storage per project (20 GB total), 5 GB egress per project. No card needed.
Eligibility, card, India and how to apply for Neon Free plan
- Who qualifies
- Anyone.
- Compute autoscales up to 2 CU (8 GB RAM).
- How long
- No time limit.
- Referral or funding needed
- No
- Card needed
- No
- Work or school email
- No
- Countries
- No country limit stated.
- India
- Yes. No country restriction and no card needed.
- How to apply
- Sign up at neon.com and create a project.
- Watch out for
- Compute always suspends after 5 minutes idle, and you cannot turn this off, so expect cold starts.
- Status note
- No change found on the pricing page fetched on 12 October 2026.
Official page for Neon Free plan (opens in a new tab)Checked 12 October 2026
Netlify Free plan (credit-based)
NetlifyChanged 4 September 2025No application; hard 300-credit cap
Solo developersStudentsAnyone
300 credits a month (e.g. 15 GB bandwidth)
Free plan with 300 credits a month. Production deploys cost 15 credits, bandwidth 20 per GB, compute 10 per GB-hour, web requests 2 per 10,000. Deploy previews, branch deploys and form submissions are free.
Eligibility, card, India and how to apply for Netlify Free plan (credit-based)
- Who qualifies
- Anyone.
- The 300 credits are a hard limit; Free accounts cannot buy extra credits or turn on auto recharge.
- How long
- No end date; credits reset each billing cycle and do not roll over.
- Referral or funding needed
- No
- Card needed
- Not stated
- Work or school email
- No
- Countries
- No country limit stated.
- India
- Yes. No country restriction. Netlify accepts only credit cards for paid plans (ACH or wire only on Enterprise).
- How to apply
- Sign up at netlify.com and deploy a site from Git or by drag and drop.
- Watch out for
- 300 credits covers, for example, 15 GB of bandwidth or 20 production deploys, not both.
- When credits run out, projects can be paused until the next cycle or an upgrade.
- AI inference also uses credits (180 credits per $1 of model usage).
- The next tier, Personal, costs $9 a month for 1,000 credits.
- Status note
- New accounts have used credit-based plans since 4 September 2025. Free, Starter and Pro accounts created before then stay on Legacy plans. Switching a legacy account to credits cannot be undone.
Official page for Netlify Free plan (credit-based) (opens in a new tab)Checked 12 October 2026
Render free instances
RenderActiveNo application; per-workspace limits
Solo developersStudents
750 free instance hours a month
Free web services, Postgres and Key Value instances, plus free static sites. Each workspace gets 750 free instance hours a month; free web services sleep after 15 minutes without traffic.
Eligibility, card, India and how to apply for Render free instances
- Who qualifies
- Per workspace: one free Postgres database (1 GB) and one free Key Value instance.
- 750 instance hours a month; unused hours do not roll over.
- How long
- No end date for web services. Free Postgres databases expire 30 days after creation.
- Referral or funding needed
- No
- Card needed
- No
- Work or school email
- No
- Countries
- No country limit stated.
- India
- Yes. No country restriction stated. Adding a card triggers a $1 security check that is refunded.
- How to apply
- Sign up at render.com and choose the Free instance type when creating a service.
- Watch out for
- Free Postgres expires after 30 days, then has a 14-day grace period before deletion unless you upgrade. It has no backups.
- Free Key Value is in memory only; data is lost on restart.
- A sleeping service takes about a minute to wake, and local file changes are lost when it sleeps.
- If all 750 hours are used, all free web services are suspended until next month.
- Without a card on file, going over the included bandwidth suspends free services and going over build minutes stops builds; with a card, overages are billed.
- Render’s terms allow a temporary hold of up to $1 to verify a card, plus periodic test authorizations as an abuse check.
- Status note
- No 2025-2026 change found on the official docs.
Official page for Render free instances (opens in a new tab)Checked 12 October 2026
Supabase Free plan
SupabaseActiveNo application; 2 active projects
Solo developersStudentsBootstrapped startups
2 free projects with a 500 MB database each
Free plan: 2 active projects, 500 MB database per project, 1 GB file storage, 5 GB egress plus 5 GB cached egress, 50,000 monthly active users and 500,000 Edge Function invocations.
Eligibility, card, India and how to apply for Supabase Free plan
- Who qualifies
- Anyone.
- Up to 2 active free projects.
- How long
- No end date, but inactive projects pause.
- Referral or funding needed
- No
- Card needed
- Not stated
- Work or school email
- No
- Countries
- No country limit stated.
- India
- Yes. No country restriction stated.
- How to apply
- Sign up at supabase.com and create a project on the Free plan.
- Watch out for
- Free projects pause after 1 week of inactivity.
- The pricing page does not say whether a card is needed for the Free plan.
- Status note
- No 2025-2026 change found on the pricing page.
Official page for Supabase Free plan (opens in a new tab)Checked 12 October 2026
Vercel Hobby plan
VercelActivePersonal, non-commercial use only
Solo developersStudents
Free hosting: 100 GB transfer, 1M requests a month
Free plan for personal, non-commercial projects: 100 GB Fast Data Transfer, 1M CDN requests, 1M function invocations, 4 active CPU-hours a month, and up to 200 projects.
Eligibility, card, India and how to apply for Vercel Hobby plan
- Who qualifies
- Non-commercial, personal use only (Vercel’s fair use guidelines).
- One person per Hobby team; no team collaboration features.
- How long
- No end date. If you hit a limit, that feature can stay paused for up to 30 days.
- Referral or funding needed
- No
- Card needed
- No
- Work or school email
- No
- Countries
- No country limit stated.
- India
- Yes. No country restriction. Prices exclude GST or other taxes, which are added to invoices for paid plans.
- How to apply
- Sign up at vercel.com with GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket or email and deploy a project.
- Watch out for
- Commercial use is not allowed. A business site needs Pro, at $20 per developer seat per month.
- Most features stay blocked for up to 30 days after you exceed a limit.
- Limits include 100 deployments a day and 1 hour of runtime logs.
- The free first-year domain applies only to paid Pro teams, not the Pro trial.
- Status note
- Docs last updated 14 September 2026. Vercel asks for card details only when you upgrade to Pro.
Official page for Vercel Hobby plan (opens in a new tab)Checked 12 October 2026
WorkOS User Management free tier
WorkOSActiveNo application: free tier
AnyoneBootstrapped startupsSolo developers
Free user management up to 1M MAUs
WorkOS user management (AuthKit) is free up to 1 million monthly active users. Enterprise features such as SSO are priced per connection.
Eligibility, card, India and how to apply for WorkOS User Management free tier
- Who qualifies
- Anyone who signs up
- How long
- Ongoing
- Referral or funding needed
- No
- Card needed
- Not stated
- Work or school email
- Not stated
- Countries
- No country limit stated
- India
- Yes. No country restriction stated; global self-serve sign-up.
- How to apply
- Sign up at workos.com; no application.
- Watch out for
- Enterprise SSO and directory connections are billed per connection
- Status note
- Checked 12 October 2026. WorkOS’s startups page has no separate credit program; it promotes the free tier.
Official page for WorkOS User Management free tier (opens in a new tab)Checked 12 October 2026
Vultr new-account free credit
VultrNot fully confirmedNew accounts; payment method needed
Solo developersAnyone
Free credit for up to 30 days (amount unconfirmed)
Vultr’s docs say new accounts can get free credits for up to 30 days. The amount depends on the current promotion and could not be confirmed on an official page on 12 October 2026.
Low confidence: we could not confirm the key details on an official page. Check the official page before you rely on this entry.
Eligibility, card, India and how to apply for Vultr new-account free credit
- Who qualifies
- New accounts.
- Add a payment method for verification. With a credit card you can choose a $0.00 deposit; other payment methods need a small deposit.
- How long
- Up to 30 days, per Vultr’s docs.
- Referral or funding needed
- No
- Card needed
- Yes
- Work or school email
- No
- Countries
- No country limit stated in the docs checked.
- India
- Unclear. No country rule found, but the promotion pages could not be fetched.
- How to apply
- Sign up at vultr.com and check the credit and expiry shown during account creation.
- Watch out for
- Your card provider may place a temporary authorization hold when you link a card.
- The credit expiry date is shown at sign-up and in billing; remove resources before it ends to avoid charges.
- Coupon-site amounts are unverified.
- Status note
- vultr.com pages returned 403 or a bot-check page to every fetch on 12 October 2026 (promo, pricing, homepage). Vultr’s billing FAQ has a promo-code question with no answer text. Coupon sites list conflicting offers ($50 to $300, 30 days, or a deposit match up to $100); none were confirmed on an official page.
Official page for Vultr new-account free credit (opens in a new tab)Checked 12 October 2026
When you outgrow the free tier: where startup credits fit
Free tiers suit learning and side projects. If you are building a company, startup programs give far more credit, often for a year, but you apply and must qualify. On 12 and 13 October 2026, this is what the four biggest gave a startup with no investor referral:
- AWS Activate: $1,000, and selected startups up to $5,000. Your AWS account must be on the Paid plan first.
- Google for Startups Cloud: $2,000 for 12 months (Start tier).
- Microsoft for Startups: $200 on joining, then $5,000 after business verification. Medium confidence, as Microsoft’s own pages give conflicting amounts.
- Cloudflare for Startups: $10,000 for 1 year if you raised under $1M.
Investor-backed startups can get much more, and DigitalOcean, Akamai, OVHcloud and Render run startup programs too. Our startup cloud credits comparison covers every tier, gate and billing trap. Do not add these figures up: each is a separate credit with its own rules and expiry. Credits are not cash either, so ask your accountant how to treat them.
How to avoid a surprise cloud bill
Each trial ends differently, and the difference decides whether you lose data, get a bill or nothing happens.
| Provider | Ends | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| AWS, Free plan | Up to 6 months, or when credits run out | Account suspended; data kept 90 days, then erased unless you upgrade |
| AWS, Paid plan | When credits run out or expire | Usage billed at standard rates |
| Google Cloud | 90 days, or when the $300 runs out | Billing disabled and resources stop; 30 days to upgrade before deletion. Always Free continues only after an upgrade |
| Azure | 30 days, or when the $200 runs out | Disabled unless you move to pay-as-you-go; services still running after 12 months are billed |
| Oracle | 30 days, or when the $300 runs out | Always Free continues; Object Storage over 20 GB deleted; after an upgrade, usage beyond Always Free is billed |
| IBM | 30 days | Lite plans continue; other free-tier products bill once you pass the free allowance |
| Akamai, DigitalOcean | When the credit runs out or expires | Usage charged to your payment method |
- Set a budget and alerts on day one, at a low amount. An alert is a warning, not a cap: Google says an alerts-only budget does not automatically cap usage or spending.
- Know which card is on file and whether your plan can bill it. AWS’s Paid plan, an upgraded Google Cloud account and Azure pay-as-you-go all bill what the credit does not cover.
- Watch free plans that start billing. Azure’s 12-month services are billed from month 13. On Render and GitHub Codespaces, a card on file means usage over the free allowance is billed; without one, the service stops instead.
- Delete what you do not need before the trial ends, and download anything you want to keep.
Paying from India. Use a card with international payments switched on; IBM says issuer declines are a common reason cards fail. Many providers bill in US dollars, while AWS in India is billed by AISPL and Google Cloud offers INR billing. Some prices exclude tax: Vercel, for example, adds GST or other taxes to paid invoices. Ask your chartered accountant (CA) how tax applies to what you buy. See paying for cloud from India.
Free download
Startup credits tracker for Excel
Log each credit grant with its expiry date and how much you use each month, and see which credits will run out or expire first. The workbook also lists the programs we track, with a link to each official page.
Download the tracker (.xlsx)Free Excel file. No email or sign-up needed. Programs checked 12 and 13 October 2026.
Free cloud credits: FAQ
Which cloud gives the most free credit to a new account?
Google Cloud and Oracle both give $300, but Google’s lasts 90 days and Oracle’s 30 days, and Oracle offers its $300 only in select countries. Azure and IBM each give $200 for 30 days. AWS gives $100 at sign-up plus up to $100 more for set activities, and its Free plan lasts up to 6 months (checked 12 and 13 October 2026).
Is the AWS Free Tier still 12 months?
No, not for new accounts. Since the change AWS announced on 16 July 2025, a new account gets $100 in credits at sign-up and up to $100 more for set activities, and the Free plan lasts up to 6 months. More than 30 services stay always free (checked 12 and 13 October 2026).
Does the Google Cloud free trial need a credit card?
Yes. You need a card or another accepted payment method, and Google places a temporary $0 to $1 hold. Google does not upgrade you automatically, so when the $300 or the 90 days run out your resources stop instead of being billed.
What happens when the Azure $200 credit runs out?
If you have not moved to pay-as-you-go, your account and services are disabled. If you move within 30 days or when the credit runs out, you keep the 12 months of free services and the always-free amounts, and services still running after 12 months are billed.
Is Oracle Always Free really free forever?
It has no end date, but it is not guaranteed. On 13 October 2026 Oracle’s docs listed the Arm allowance as 2 OCPUs and 12 GB, half the earlier amount, with no date for the change. Idle VMs can be reclaimed after 7 days, and accounts idle for 30 days or more may be suspended.
Which free cloud and hosting plans need no credit card?
On 12 and 13 October 2026: Cloudflare Free and Workers Free, Vercel Hobby, Render, Railway’s trial, Neon, Firebase Spark, GitHub Codespaces and is-a.dev, plus Azure for Students if you are a student. AWS’s new sign-up flow skips the card for most new customers, but on 12 October 2026 it was still a limited rollout. Netlify, Supabase, MongoDB Atlas and WorkOS do not say on the pages we checked.
Which free hosting plans allow commercial use?
Vercel Hobby does not: it is for personal, non-commercial projects, and a business site needs Pro at $20 per developer seat a month. is-a.dev is meant for personal sites. The other plans on this page did not state a non-commercial rule on the pages we checked, but read the provider’s terms first.
Can I sign up for cloud free trials from India?
Yes. None of AWS, Google Cloud, Azure, Oracle, IBM, Akamai or DigitalOcean excludes India on the pages we checked, though Oracle offers its $300 only in select countries. Expect a card check (AISPL charges INR 2 and refunds it), identity verification within 30 days for a Google Cloud billing account, and Azure’s rule that direct pay-as-you-go sign-ups in India miss the 12-month free services.
Related guides
- Every free credit program we track, A to Z
- Cloudflare for Startups: tiers, credits and how to apply
- Startup cloud programs: AWS Activate, Google for Startups and more
- Free AI API credits: the Gemini API free tier and free GPU notebooks
- Free credits for students, including Azure for Students
- Free credits in India, and paying for cloud from India
- Cloud credits for researchers, nonprofits and open-source projects
- Cash flow decision tool: plan for the bill after the trial
Please note: we update this page from time to time, but free tiers, trial credits and their terms change often, and there can be a gap between a change and our update. We checked every program’s official page on 12 and 13 October 2026. Check the provider’s own page and your billing console before you rely on a figure. Credit amounts are the providers’ advertised values, mostly in US dollars. They are not cash, and nothing here is tax or legal advice.
Sources
- AWS Free Tier (opens in a new tab)
- AWS Free Tier FAQs (opens in a new tab)
- AWS Billing docs: Free Tier and account plans (opens in a new tab)
- AWS Account docs: the new sign-up experience (limited rollout) (opens in a new tab)
- AWS: Free Tier credits and the Free plan (16 July 2025) (opens in a new tab)
- AWS: new sign-up experience (16 September 2026) (opens in a new tab)
- AWS registration FAQs, including AISPL card checks (opens in a new tab)
- Google Cloud: free trial and Free Tier (opens in a new tab)
- Google Cloud: billing accounts and identity verification in India (opens in a new tab)
- Google Cloud: paying with UPI in India (opens in a new tab)
- Google Cloud: budgets and budget alerts (opens in a new tab)
- Azure free account (opens in a new tab)
- Azure free services (opens in a new tab)
- Oracle Cloud Free Tier (opens in a new tab)
- Oracle Cloud docs: Always Free resources (opens in a new tab)
- Oracle Cloud Free Tier, India page (opens in a new tab)
- IBM Cloud Free Tier (opens in a new tab)
- IBM Cloud docs: countries where personal accounts are not supported (opens in a new tab)
- Akamai Cloud: $100 credit for new customers (opens in a new tab)
- Akamai Cloud docs: referral program terms (opens in a new tab)
- DigitalOcean pricing and free credit FAQ (opens in a new tab)
- Vultr docs: create an account (opens in a new tab)