Free AI credits are real and worth claiming. They are also surrounded by small print that costs people their budget in predictable ways. Check these six conditions before planning a project around an offer.
Before comparing balances, distinguish a trial credit from a recurring free tier.
1. The credit clock and the application deadline are different
An open application does not imply a non-expiring balance. Check which event starts your credit clock:
- Cerebras — $5 for 30 days after issue, with a verified payment method required.
- Google Cloud — $300, valid 90 days from signup.
- Azure — $200 for the first 30 days.
- AWS — the free plan ends 6 months after you open the account or when the credits run out, whichever comes first. (AWS’s own FAQ currently gives both 6 and 12 months for the credits themselves, so check the actual expiry in your AWS account.)
So the instinct to “sign up now and have it ready for the project” is exactly wrong. Create the account when you are ready to build. Azure’s 30-day window in particular is short enough that a delayed start wastes most of it.
A recurring allowance has another clock: Cloudflare’s free Neurons reset daily at 00:00 UTC; a one-off trial does not refill. A programme can also close applications while existing members keep access, as Claude Startups now does. See the current change log.
2. The credit covers the platform, not necessarily the model
This one is easy to get wrong because the platform-level statement is true and the model-level exception is buried. Two live examples:
Google Cloud’s $300 welcome credit covers Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform (formerly Vertex AI) — but Google’s documentation states you “can’t access or use the $300 credit for a generative AI partner model that is offered as a managed API, which is also known as model as a service”, and separately that it “can’t pay for Gemini API in AI Studio costs”. So the $300 pays for Google’s own Gemini models, not for Claude or Llama, and not for the standalone Gemini API.
AWS’s new-account credits are usable on Amazon Bedrock, but Claude on Bedrock is “offered and billed through AWS Marketplace”, and AWS’s credit terms say promotional credit will not be applied to AWS Marketplace charges “Unless authorized by us”. AWS documents that authorisation for its startup programme, AWS Activate — not for the Free Tier.
We got both of these wrong ourselves, and the corrections are on the record in our change log — which is precisely the point: check the model you intend to call, not just the platform.
3. “Free” does not always mean “no card”, and the card can matter later
Several offers marketed as free require a payment method up front. Google Cloud’s trial requires “a credit card or other payment method”. Azure requires a phone number and a card, and Microsoft for Startups answers “Do I need a credit card to activate Azure credits?” with “Yes”. AWS is the exception that moved: it now says a payment method “isn’t required to sign up for most new customers”, but may ask for one to verify your identity.
Google, Azure and AWS free-trial plans describe their own stop/upgrade rules. Do not carry those rules across to every startup programme. What is real is that a card on file is there for a reason. Microsoft states that its startup sponsorship converts to pay as you go when credits are used or expire. Once paid billing is enabled, eligible overage can be charged.
Set a budget alert on day one. A budget alert is a notification, not a spending cap; also review the provider’s billing controls.
4. Rate limits break projects long before totals do
A tier with a huge daily token allowance can still be unusable. Cerebras allows 1,000,000 tokens per day per model — and 5 requests per minute. That is excellent for a nightly batch job and hopeless for a chat interface. (Cerebras is also a good example of pitfall #1: since September 2026 those limits sit inside a 30-day trial that needs a card, not inside a free tier.)
Check the shape of the limit, not just the size: requests per minute, requests per day and tokens per minute are separate ceilings and you hit whichever binds first. On some providers failed requests count too — OpenRouter states that “Failed attempts count toward that daily cap”. Our guide on staying within free-tier rate limits covers the mechanics, and matching a tier to a hobby workload covers the choice.
5. Third-party guides go stale fast — including this one, eventually
Offers change quietly. Between August and October 2026 alone: Cerebras turned its free tier into a card-gated trial; Hugging Face ended the monthly credit it gave free accounts; Mistral stopped publishing the $10 a month it had advertised; Cloudflare now lists eight models outside its free allowance; Microsoft narrowed its startup programme to Series B; and Google renamed Vertex AI.
A six-month-old guide may describe earlier terms. Use dated sources and check the current offer before relying on it.
The habit that protects you: before relying on a number, open the provider’s own
page and look for a date. That is why every offer we list carries a lastVerified
date and a link to the primary source, why we say “we could not confirm this” rather
than guessing — see our methodology — and why we keep a public
change log.
6. Stretching eligibility is the most expensive mistake
Startup and student programs verify. Funding rounds and founding dates are checked against investor and public records; student status is checked against enrollment and re-checked periodically.
An application that overstates eligibility risks rejection, and credits already granted can be revoked along with the account — after you have built on them. The same applies to the account-multiplication idea: creating several accounts to multiply one free tier violates essentially every provider’s terms, and is the fastest route to losing access to the free tier you already had.
The honest path is also the practical one, because entry tiers exist for exactly this: AWS Activate Founders (up to $5,000) is for self-funded startups, Google’s Start tier (up to $2,000) requires no equity funding at all, and Microsoft for Startups is open with or without an investor referral code. See the startup credits roundup for who qualifies for what, and how to combine free AI tiers legitimately for the line between stacking and abuse.
The short checklist
- Check whether applications are open, then record the credit clock: signup, issue or approval.
- Confirm the specific model is covered, not just the platform.
- Check after-credit billing and set alerts; an alert is not a spending cap.
- Check requests-per-minute, not just the headline total.
- Verify figures on the provider’s own page, and check its date.
- Never stretch eligibility — the entry tiers are there for a reason.