Startup Credits List 2026: AWS, Azure, Google Cloud & More

Most early-stage founders pay full price for tools they could have had for free. Cloud providers, AI labs and SaaS companies give startups credits and discounts, and a founder who stacks them can claim more than $500K in value.

This guide covers 60 programs across cloud, AI APIs, developer tools, databases, banking, sales and compliance. It closes with the order to apply in and the mistakes that get applications rejected.

Figures are the publicly advertised maximums as of May 2026. Amounts, tiers and eligibility change often, so confirm each offer on the provider's official page before you apply.

Cloud infrastructure: the biggest cheques

Cloud credits are the largest single prize on this list. Providers subsidize startups heavily to win long-term infrastructure revenue, so the top tiers run well into six figures.

Three programs matter most. AWS Activate is the oldest and largest, Microsoft Founders Hub is the easiest to enter because it needs no investor, and Google's program reaches $350K at its Scale tier.

AWS Activate: $1K self-serve; $100K Portfolio; $300K Gen AI tier. Who qualifies: $1K open to all; higher tiers need a VC, accelerator or incubator affiliation. Good to know: Credits valid about 2 years. Bedrock AI model credits available.
Microsoft for Startups Founders Hub: $1K–$5K self-serve; $150K Investor Network. Who qualifies: $1K–$5K open to all, no VC required. Good to know: Best self-serve entry point. Includes Azure OpenAI Service, M365 and GitHub Enterprise.
Google for Startups Cloud Program: $100K Start; $200K–$350K Scale. Who qualifies: Higher tiers through an accelerator or VC partnership. Good to know: Includes Firebase, the AI platform and 30+ partner perks.
Oracle for Startups: $100K OCI credits plus a 70% discount. Who qualifies: Open application. Good to know: $500 free to start.
IBM Cloud for Startups: Varies by region and partner. Who qualifies: Partner-referred. Good to know: watsonx AI access.
DigitalOcean Hatch: Up to $100K. Who qualifies: Early-stage startups. Good to know: Simpler, developer-friendly infrastructure.
Cloudflare for Startups: Varies (perks bundle). Who qualifies: Accelerator or partner. Good to know: Workers, R2, CDN and security.
Alibaba Cloud Startup Catalyst: Up to $120K. Who qualifies: Open application. Good to know: Strong for APAC.
Scaleway: Varies. Who qualifies: EU-focused programs. Good to know: European data residency.
Vultr: Up to $120K. Who qualifies: Startup program. Good to know: GPU instances and storage.
Akamai (Linode) Rise: Varies. Who qualifies: AI and startup program. Good to know: Offers GPU instances.

No investor yet? Start with Microsoft Founders Hub and the AWS Activate $1K tier. Both are open to everyone.

AI, ML and LLM API credits

NVIDIA Inception is the best first stop for an AI startup. It is free, takes about 10 minutes to apply for, and unlocks elevated AWS Activate tiers.

The rest of these credits go straight toward inference, training and model APIs. The larger tiers at Anthropic and OpenAI usually come through a VC referral, so ask your investors which partner programs they belong to.

Anthropic Startup Program: $25K–$100K+ in Claude API credits. Who qualifies: Backed by Anthropic's VC partners; AI builders. Good to know: Priority rate limits and early model access.
OpenAI for Startups: $2,500 self-serve; Tier 2 and 3 by VC referral. Who qualifies: Small tier is self-serve; larger tiers through a VC. Good to know: Often reached through Brex, Ramp or Azure too.
NVIDIA Inception: $100K+ in software, GPU discounts and DLI training. Who qualifies: Free to join. Good to know: Unlocks elevated AWS Activate tiers.
Hugging Face: Discounted or credited compute. Who qualifies: Startup program. Good to know: Spaces and Inference Endpoints.
Cohere: Up to 25% off enterprise plus Cohere Labs grants. Who qualifies: Early-stage. Good to know: Discounted AI pricing.
ElevenLabs: API credits. Who qualifies: Startup program. Good to know: Voice and audio AI.
Perplexity: API credits. Who qualifies: Startup program. Good to know: Search and answer engine API.
AssemblyAI: Up to $150K in API credits. Who qualifies: Early-stage. Good to know: Speech-to-text and voice AI.
Baseten: Up to $25K for deployments plus $2.5K for model APIs. Who qualifies: Startup program. Good to know: Model serving and inference.
Contextual AI: $1.5K credits plus expert support. Who qualifies: Through Google Cloud perks. Good to know: RAG platform.
Arize AI: 3 months free of AX Pro. Who qualifies: Startup program. Good to know: AI and LLM observability.

Developer tools and observability

Your first year of code hosting, monitoring and product analytics can cost close to nothing. GitHub gives 20 Enterprise seats free for 12 months, Datadog offers up to $100K in credits, and PostHog covers a full year of its Growth plan.

Bootstrapped teams should look at Sentry first. Its startup program accepts pre-seed companies and needs no referral.

GitHub for Startups: 20 Enterprise seats free for 12 months plus $10K credits. Who qualifies: Through the partner network. Good to know: Covers Copilot and Advanced Security.
GitLab for Startups: 12 months of Ultimate free. Who qualifies: Early-stage, under 50 employees. Good to know: Full DevOps platform.
Datadog for Startups: Up to $100K credits over 1 year. Who qualifies: Funded startups. Good to know: APM, logs, metrics, RUM and synthetics.
Sentry for Startups: Discounted or credited Team and Business plans. Who qualifies: Bootstrapped or pre-seed, no referral needed. Good to know: Error and performance monitoring.
Vercel: Credits plus the AI Accelerator. Who qualifies: Startup and AI program. Good to know: Frontend hosting and AI infrastructure.
JetBrains: Free or discounted licenses. Who qualifies: Startup program. Good to know: IDE suite.
Linear: Discounted plans. Who qualifies: Startup program. Good to know: Issue tracking and project management.
Notion for Startups: $500+ credits, often through partners. Who qualifies: Open or partner-unlocked. Good to know: Docs, wiki and project management.
PostHog: 1 year of the Growth plan free, up to 1.2B events or 200K MTUs. Who qualifies: Early-stage. Good to know: Product analytics.
Clerk for Startups: Clerk Pro features at a discount. Who qualifies: Up to 1 year after launch and up to $5M in funding. Good to know: 50K monthly retained users are already free on every plan.

Databases and data platforms

Six database vendors make this list, and most of their programs lean toward AI workloads. Redis puts a number on it, with up to $25K in Redis Cloud credits. The others offer usage credits plus hands-on support.

MongoDB for Startups: Atlas credits, Voyage AI tokens and go-to-market support. Who qualifies: Through a VC or accelerator, or direct. Good to know: Document database.
Redis for Startups: Up to $25K in Redis Cloud plus an AI consult. Who qualifies: Startup program. Good to know: Caching and vector search.
Neo4j Aura: Aura credits plus expert guidance. Who qualifies: Startup program. Good to know: Graph database for AI.
Pinecone: Usage credits plus Pro support, all regions. Who qualifies: Startup program. Good to know: Vector database.
Upstash: Startup credits. Who qualifies: Startup program. Good to know: Serverless Redis and Kafka.
YugabyteDB Aeon: Free to start. Who qualifies: Through Google Cloud perks. Good to know: Distributed PostgreSQL.

Banking and fintech: one account, dozens of deals

A business account at one of these four platforms unlocks credits from dozens of other providers. They bundle partner deals, so opening the account is the application.

Mercury is the friendliest for founders who have not raised yet, because it has no $50K minimum. Brex and Ramp carry the widest networks, with 100+ SaaS discounts each.

Brex: AWS and OpenAI credits plus 100+ SaaS discounts. Requirement: Business account. Good to know: Extensive perks network.
Ramp: AWS and OpenAI credits plus 100+ SaaS discounts. Requirement: Business account. Good to know: Similar to Brex.
Mercury: GitHub free for 1 year, AWS and partner perks. Requirement: Business account, no $50K minimum. Good to know: Friendlier for pre-funded founders.
Stripe Atlas: AWS and Notion credits plus partner deals. Requirement: $500 incorporation fee. Good to know: Unlocks many programs in one step.

Sales, marketing and CRM

The go-to-market stack is where the steepest percentage discounts sit. HubSpot and Intercom both take up to 90% off the first year, and Amplitude gives a year of its Growth plan free.

Nearly all of these are first-year offers. Budget for the renewal price before you build your whole funnel on the tool.

HubSpot for Startups: Up to 90% off year 1 across CRM, marketing and sales. Who qualifies: Through a partner accelerator or VC. Good to know: Discount tiered by funding stage.
Mailchimp: Startup credits and discounts. Who qualifies: Startup program. Good to know: Email marketing.
Amplitude for Startups: 1 year of the Growth plan free (Scholarship). Who qualifies: Tiers from pre-seed to Series C. Good to know: Product analytics.
Customer.io: Up to 12 months discounted. Who qualifies: Startup program. Good to know: Messaging and lifecycle.
Intercom for Startups: 90% off year 1. Who qualifies: Early-stage, under $5M raised. Good to know: Customer messaging.
Zendesk for Startups: 6 months free. Who qualifies: Eligible startups. Good to know: Customer support.

Compliance and security

If you sell to enterprises, SOC 2 or ISO 27001 will come up in your first serious deal. Vanta and Drata automate that work, and both discount it for startups that come through a partner or VC.

Vanta: Startup discounts. Who qualifies: Through a partner or VC. Good to know: SOC 2 and ISO automation.
Drata: Startup discounts. Who qualifies: Through a partner or VC. Good to know: Compliance automation.
1Password for Startups: Free or discounted. Who qualifies: Eligible startups. Good to know: Password and secrets management.

Communications and customer data

Twilio runs two programs worth claiming together. Segment's is the larger: the Team plan free for up to 2 years, plus a $1M partner software bundle.

Twilio for Startups: API credits for SMS, voice, WhatsApp and video. Who qualifies: Startup program. Good to know: Adds education and Signal conference access.
Twilio Segment for Startups: Team plan free for up to 2 years plus $1M in partner software. Who qualifies: Under 2 years old, under $5M raised. Good to know: Bundles AWS, Intercom and Amplitude.

Incorporation and operations

How you incorporate decides which credits you can reach. Stripe Atlas sets up a US C-Corp, an EIN and founder agreements for a flat $500, and that one step opens the partner deals listed in the banking section.

Stripe Atlas: US C-Corp incorporation, EIN and founder agreements for $500 flat. Unlocks downstream credits.
Clerky: Startup legal paperwork. Incorporation and fundraising documents.
Carta: Cap table management. Startup tiers available.

Accelerators and incubators

An accelerator is the key that opens the highest credit tiers at almost every provider above. That holds even for remote and free cohorts.

Y Combinator: Unlocks $1M+ in combined partner deals.
Techstars: Global accelerator network.
Antler: Early and pre-seed, global.
500 Global: Seed-stage accelerator.
AWS Generative AI Accelerator: Up to $1M in credits for select cohorts.

How to stack them: a three-phase plan

The order you apply in changes how much you get. Early programs unlock better terms on later ones, and the biggest tier has a deadline tied to your funding round.

Phase 1: bootstrapped, no VC

None of these needs an investor.

NVIDIA Inception: free, and unlocks better terms elsewhere
Microsoft Founders Hub: $1K–$5K in Azure, self-serve
AWS Activate self-serve tier: $1K
Stripe Atlas, Mercury or Brex: each unlocks a bundle of partner deals
Result: roughly $25K–$40K claimed with no funding

Phase 2: post-funding, within 12 months of your round

Move fast here.

AWS Activate Portfolio: $100K, with a hard 12-month deadline
Google Cloud Scale: $200K+
Microsoft Investor Network: $150K

Phase 3: AI and specialty tools

Add these as the product needs them.

Anthropic Startup Program ($25K+ in Claude credits) and OpenAI Tier 2 or 3
Datadog, HubSpot, Vanta or Drata, and MongoDB

Apply to several programs at the same time. Many need an accelerator or VC affiliation only for the higher tiers, so collect the easy ones first.

Seven tips that keep applications from being rejected

Most rejections come from avoidable basics, and the email address is the top one.

Use a company-domain email. Applying from Gmail or Outlook is the number one rejection reason.
Have a real website. Thin or placeholder sites get rejected.
Keep Crunchbase and PitchBook consistent. Mismatched company information triggers rejection.
Read the billing fine print. Some programs, AWS among them, charge for usage above your credits. Others just cut you off.
Track expiry dates. Most credits expire in 12 to 24 months. Keep a spreadsheet of approvals, amounts and renewal terms.
Don't build critical dependencies on expiring credits. Use them for development, testing and experimentation.
Watch for stacking caveats. Claiming AWS credits through Brex or Mercury may reduce your direct AWS Activate amount.

Start with the free ones this week

You do not need funding to begin. NVIDIA Inception, Microsoft Founders Hub and the AWS Activate $1K tier are open to everyone, and together they start the stack.

This guide is based on Awesome Startup Credits, an open-source list on GitHub. If you spot a missing program or an outdated figure, open a pull request with the official link, credit amount, eligibility and a short note.

If it helped, star the repo and share this post with another founder.