CloudAPIcredits
Straight from the providers, checked by hand

Free cloud and AI credits, minus the guesswork

Which trials, startup programs and free tiers are real right now on Google Cloud, Gemini, OpenAI, Anthropic, AWS, Azure, xAI, OpenRouter, DigitalOcean and Groq and five more, how much you get, how long it lasts and who qualifies. We read the fine print so you don't have to.

Google CloudGemini APIOpenAI APIAnthropic APIAWSMicrosoft Azure All 10 providers
  • We checked it on the provider's own page
  • Nothing resold, nothing shady
  • Free, no sign-up
Google Cloud Gemini API OpenAI API Anthropic API AWS Microsoft Azure xAI Grok API OpenRouter DigitalOcean Groq Google Cloud Gemini API OpenAI API Anthropic API AWS Microsoft Azure xAI Grok API OpenRouter DigitalOcean Groq

What's on offer right now

Biggest first. Every card says how much, who qualifies and when we last looked.

See all 45 offers
Anthropic API

Up to $500 monthly Claude API credits with a plan

$100 Max, $200 Ultra, up to $500 Team per month Verified Nov 2 Sample
See details

Who qualifies: Max, Ultra or Team subscribers after seven days on the plan, one linked Console organization

Open Settings, Billing on claude.ai, find API credits and select Link organization to attach one Claude Console organization. Credits refresh each billing cycle, are spent before purchased credits, and cover the API, Playground, Managed Agents and Agent SDK.

Unused credits expire at the end of each billing cycle. Not valid for interactive Claude Code, extra app usage, Bedrock, Vertex AI or Foundry. Free, Pro and Enterprise plans are not eligible.

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AWS

$100 at sign-up, up to $200 in Free Tier credits

$100 now, up to $200 over 6 months Verified Nov 2 Sample
See details

Who qualifies: Brand-new AWS accounts opened since July 15, 2025, most without a payment method

A new account receives $100 immediately and earns $20 for each of five console activities covering AWS Budgets, EC2, RDS, Lambda and Bedrock. The Free plan runs six months or until the balance is spent and can’t produce a charge.

Accounts that previously existed are ineligible. Not available in GovCloud or China Regions. Credits expire 12 months after account creation once upgraded. Free plan accounts cannot receive other promotional credits.

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Microsoft Azure

$200 free account credit for 30 days

$200 for 30 days Verified Nov 2 Sample
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Who qualifies: New customers with a non-prepaid card, a phone number and a Microsoft or GitHub account

New customers get $200 to use within 30 days on services outside the free list, plus free monthly amounts of 20+ services for 12 months and 65+ always-free services. The card is verified with a reversed $1 hold and isn’t charged until you upgrade.

One free account per customer. Credit can’t be used on Marketplace offers or Spot VMs and can’t combine with Azure Hybrid Benefit. The subscription is disabled after 30 days unless you upgrade to pay-as-you-go.

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DigitalOcean

$5 signup credit on your first team for 90 days

$5 for 90 days Verified Nov 2 Sample
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Who qualifies: New accounts, first team only, payment method required before use

Applied automatically when you create your first DigitalOcean team and shown as Signup Credit in the control panel header. Covers every product except SaaS Add-Ons. No promo code needed, and the balance drops as resources accrue charges.

Expires 90 days after signup. Can’t be transferred to other teams. Excludes sales tax, Marketplace and paid Support. Governed by the Promotional Credit and Discount Terms.

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Gemini API

Free Gemini 3.8 Flash and Flash-Lite calls with no card

$0 on Flash, Flash-Lite and embedding models, rate limited Verified Nov 2 Sample
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Who qualifies: Any Google account holder 18 or over in a supported country, no billing account needed

Every active project in Google AI Studio starts on the free tier, where Gemini 3.8 Flash, 3.6 Flash, 3.5 Flash-Lite, 3.1 Flash-Lite, 3 Flash Preview and both Gemini Embedding models cost nothing. Per-project rate limits apply and are shown inside AI Studio.

Free tier prompts and responses may be used to improve Google products and reviewed by humans, except in the EEA, UK and Switzerland. Pro models, Gemini 4 Argon and Omni Flash are paid only. Limits change without notice.

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Google Cloud

$350 in trial credits for 90 days, new accounts

$350 for 90 days Exclusive Verified Nov 2 Sample
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Who qualifies: New Google Cloud customers, card on file, no prior paid Google Cloud, Maps or Firebase use

The standard $300 Welcome credit plus the $50 affiliate bonus Google Cloud offers through CJ Affiliate links. Nothing is charged until you click Activate. Credit expires 90 days after signup and can’t pay for Gemini API usage in AI Studio or Marketplace listings.

Card required, $0 to $1 authorization. No GPUs, Marketplace, Windows Server images or quota increases during the trial. Unused credit expires at day 90. One trial per customer.

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Groq

200,000 free tokens per day on gpt-oss-120b

200K tokens and 1,000 requests per day Verified Nov 2 Sample
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Who qualifies: Any GroqCloud account on the Free plan, no card required

Free plan accounts get 30 requests per minute, 8,000 tokens per minute, 1,000 requests per day and 200,000 tokens per day on gpt-oss-120b, gpt-oss-20b and qwen3.8-27b, plus 7,200 audio seconds per hour on Whisper. Create a key on the API Keys page and start.

Limits are per organization and per model, reset daily and may differ from the public table. Community support only.

Start Free

Start with your provider

Every platform gets its own credits page, a free-tier table and a review that says what we'd actually do.

Read the reviews
Google Cloud 5 offers $350 Credit Gemini API 4 offers 50% Off OpenAI API 5 offers Up To $500/Mo Anthropic API 4 offers Up To $500/Mo AWS 5 offers Up To $200 Microsoft Azure 5 offers $200 Credit xAI Grok API 4 offers 20% Off OpenRouter 5 offers Up To $5K DigitalOcean 4 offers $5 Credit Groq 4 offers 50% Off

Or start with what you qualify for

Raised a round, got a .edu address, need a GPU for a month. Each page ranks the providers for that situation.

All program types
Startup creditsStudent and education creditsFree tiersAPI free tiersGPU and training creditsResearch and nonprofit credits

Three steps, and your console has a balance

Nothing to install, nothing to sign up for here. The provider opens in a new tab and the offer stays put, so you can finish signing up without losing your place.

Start with the offers

  1. Pick the provider you're setting up

    Or start from a program type and put two providers side by side.

  2. Tap Claim Credits

    The provider's own page opens in a new tab. The amount, the clock and the fine print stay here.

  3. Set a budget alert before you build anything

    Every provider page tells you what happens the day the credit runs out and how to make sure it isn't a bill.

What a new account gets you

The headline credit on a brand-new account, straight from each provider's free-tier page. The clock matters as much as the amount, and the provider pages spell out what the credit won't cover.

Free cloud credits compared

What we promise

  • Checked, not scraped. Someone on the team opens the official program page on the date you see. When a program changes, the offer changes within a business day.
  • Honest when the cupboard is bare. If a provider has no credit on offer, we say so in the first line and show you the free tier and programs that do exist.
  • Provider-issued only. No resold credits, no accounts, no "pre-loaded" keys. If you can't claim it yourself through the provider, it isn't here.
  • Commissions don't buy rankings. Offers are ordered by value and recency, and the review scores get written before anyone looks at a payout rate.
How we verify every offer

Compare before you commit

The same model or the same VM can cost wildly different amounts once you count credits, free tiers and billing rules.

All comparisons
Anthropic API logo vs Gemini API logo Anthropic vs Gemini API when the bill is mostly repeated context Pick Anthropic for agent and chat workloads that reread the same long context, because cache reads are a twentieth of input price and don’t count toward rate limits. Pick the Gemini API for prototypes, classrooms and high-volume cheap classification, where the free tier and $0.10 Flash-Lite win. Teams with privacy obligations should stay on paid tiers of either, since only Gemini’s free tier feeds product improvement. AWS logo vs Microsoft Azure logo AWS vs Azure for Free Credits, Startup Programs and Small VM Pricing AWS is the safer start for a developer who wants to try services without a card and without a 30-day deadline. Azure is the better home for a team on Microsoft 365 and Entra ID, or anyone who wants a year of free B1s VM hours and a spending limit that stops charges on its own. Investor-backed startups should take whichever program their investor is affiliated with, since both top tiers require a referral. DigitalOcean logo vs AWS logo DigitalOcean vs AWS on Free Credits, Droplet Pricing and Startup Programs Choose AWS if you want $200 of credits to experiment with, need a specific managed service, or expect to apply for Activate through an investor. Choose DigitalOcean if you’re running a web app or API on a few servers and want a bill that matches the published price, outbound bandwidth included. Hobby projects and small SaaS teams usually spend less on DigitalOcean. Anything built on Lambda, DynamoDB or Bedrock belongs on AWS. Gemini API logo vs OpenAI API logo Gemini API vs OpenAI for developers who want free usage first Choose the Gemini API if you’re testing, teaching or building something that can live inside free Flash limits, or if you’re a VC-backed startup that can apply for Google Cloud credits worth up to $250,000 in year one. Choose OpenAI if you need stable long-term pricing, since Gemini has two scheduled increases on the books, or if your rate limit needs outgrow Tier 1 faster than $100 of spend can raise them.

What changed lately

Credit amounts, windows and eligibility rules move several times a year. We log each change with the source.

Full changelog

Guides from people who pay these bills

How trials, free tiers and billing really work, written by the team that runs them every month.

All guides
AWS AWS Free Tier and Activate credits: the 2026 credit model explained How the AWS Free Tier works after the July 2025 change: $200 in credits, free plan vs paid plan, always-free services, and Activate Founders and Portfolio. November 2, 2026 Compare Free AI API credits compared: OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini, Groq, xAI Which AI APIs give free credits or a free tier in 2026, the limits, and the cheapest paid entry at OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini, xAI, OpenRouter and Groq. November 2, 2026 Compare Free cloud credits compared: Google Cloud, AWS, Azure, DigitalOcean Google Cloud, AWS, Azure and DigitalOcean trial credits compared: amounts, windows, always-free tiers, startup programs and card rules as of November 2026. November 2, 2026

Questions people ask us

Is CloudAPIcredits free to use?
Yes, always. When you sign up with a provider through one of our links, that provider or its affiliate network may pay us a referral commission. Your credits and your bill are exactly what they'd be if you went straight to the provider.
Are these real promo codes for Google Cloud or OpenAI?
Mostly no, and each page says so up front. Cloud consoles and AI APIs almost never hand out public promo codes. What they do hand out are trial credits, startup and research programs, free tiers and referral bonuses. That's what we list, with the amount, the clock and who qualifies. On the rare occasion a real code exists, it's marked as one.
How do you verify an offer?
Someone on the team opens the provider's own program, pricing or docs page on the date you see next to the offer and checks the amount, the clock and the eligibility rules. If a trial can be claimed, we claim it on a test account. When a program changes or closes, the offer changes within a business day and the change goes in the changelog.
Can I buy cloud credits here?
No, and please don't buy them anywhere. Google, AWS, Microsoft and the AI labs all make promotional credits non-transferable, and accounts caught trading them get suspended. Everything on this site is something you claim yourself, in your own account, through the provider's own process.
What happens when the free credit runs out?
Depends who you're with. Google Cloud pauses the trial and asks you to upgrade. AWS and Azure start charging the card on file once the credit or the window ends. Prepaid API platforms just stop answering requests. Each provider page walks through the exact behaviour and how to set a budget alert before it matters.