How to Get Free AI Credits in 2026: Every Verified Route (APIs, Students, Startups)

Free AI credits come from five places: free API tiers that need no card (such as Gemini, Groq and Mistral), student programs (GitHub Student Developer Pack, Azure for Students, Codex for Students), startup programs that give thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars in cloud and API credits, open-source programs such as Claude for Open Source, and credits bundled with paid plans such as Claude Max. Start with a free API tier if you just want to build. Apply to startup programs if you have a company. Students should check their school offers first.

Every offer linked below has its own page with eligibility, limits and sources, checked against the provider's official pages. This guide was last reviewed on October 17, 2026. Offers change often, so check the status and date on each deal page before you apply.

Which route fits you

Step 1: Start with a free API tier

These providers let you call models for free within rate limits or a fixed starting balance. They're the fastest route: you can usually create a key and make a request in a few minutes.

For a step-by-step walkthrough of the most popular one, read how to get a Gemini API key, then compare paid rates on Gemini API pricing before you scale. Our free AI API keys guide compares the free tiers side by side.

Getting the most out of free tiers

• Match the provider to the job. Use an LLM tier (Gemini, Groq, Mistral) for chat and generation, Jina or Voyage for embeddings and search, and Deepgram or AssemblyAI for speech-to-text. Spreading work across specialist free tiers goes further than pushing everything through one.
• Build in retries. Free tiers return rate-limit errors (usually HTTP 429) when you go over. Wait and retry with increasing delays instead of hammering the endpoint.
• Keep keys separate per project, so one runaway script doesn't use up the quota your demo depends on. Note that some providers, Gemini included, count limits per project rather than per key.
• Check commercial-use terms. Cohere's trial keys aren't for production or commercial use, and ElevenLabs' free plan doesn't include a commercial license.

Anthropic and OpenAI don't offer a public free API tier. For Claude, the official included API credits come with Max and Team plans; see Claude API pricing and how to get an Anthropic API key. For OpenAI, see OpenAI API pricing.

Free offers that ended or can't be confirmed

Older lists still mention some of these. Here's where they stand:

• GitHub Models: retired on July 30, 2026. The free playground and inference API are gone.
• Together AI signup credits: no free trial now; a first purchase of at least $15 is required.
• Hugging Face Inference Providers: free users get no monthly credits; PRO users get $2 a month.
• xAI Grok API credits, DeepSeek and Fireworks AI: no signup credit is published on their official pages.
• NVIDIA NIM API and Pollinations: free access exists in some form, but the exact allowance isn't officially stated.

Step 2: Claim student offers

Students usually get the most free AI value per minute of effort. Most offers need a school email or verified enrollment, and several are limited to certain countries.

• GitHub Student Developer Pack: Copilot Student, GitHub Pro, Codespaces, a $100 Azure credit for students 18 and older, JetBrains IDEs and partner offers.
• GitHub Copilot free for students: the Copilot Student plan with unlimited completions and 200 monthly AI Credits.
• Azure for Students: $100 in Azure credit to use within 12 months plus free services, no credit card.
• Codex credits for students: $100 in OpenAI Codex credits for verified university students in the US and Canada.
• Google AI Pro free for students: a free year of Google AI Pro for US college students 18 and older who redeem by December 31, 2026, or Google AI Plus in other countries. A payment method is required, and the plan renews at $19.99 a month unless you cancel.
• ChatGPT Plus student offer: four free months for eligible US college students, limited availability, payment method required.
• Claude student options: no individual discount. Access comes through your university's Claude for Education plan or the Claude Campus program.
• Tools with AI features: JetBrains student license, Figma Education plan, Notion Education plan, Lovable student discount (50% off Pro) and Perplexity Education Pro.

Two student offers have ended: the Cursor free year of Pro closed to new sign-ups on June 25, 2026, and the 2025 SuperGrok student promotion has no current official equivalent.

Offers that require a card, such as Google AI Pro for students and ChatGPT Plus, start charging when the free period ends. Set a reminder a few days before the renewal date if you don't want to keep paying.

Step 3: Apply to startup credit programs

If you have a company, startup programs are where the large amounts are. Most ask for a working website, a company email and a company founded within the last 10 years, and the biggest tiers need venture funding or a referral from a partner investor or accelerator.

Non-AI tools also have startup programs worth knowing: Notion for Startups and HubSpot for Startups. Researchers can apply for the Lambda Research Grant, which gives up to $5,000 in GPU cloud credits.

How to apply without wasting your shot

1. Read the eligibility rules first. AWS Activate, for example, requires a pre-Series B company founded in the last 10 years with a paid-tier AWS account, and is for companies new to Activate credits or asking for more than they got before. Google's AI tier requires that Vertex AI or Gemini be core to your product and that you haven't already received more than $5,000 in Google Cloud credits.
2. Get your basics in order: a live website that describes the product, an email on your company domain, and incorporation details.
3. Ask your investors or accelerator for partner codes. AWS Activate Portfolio needs an Org ID from an Activate Provider, and the Cloudflare, Claude and OpenAI VC tracks depend on partner investors.
4. Pick the cloud you'll actually use. Credits are tied to one provider and usually expire after one or two years, so applying everywhere can leave most of them unused.
5. Track expiry dates. Cloudflare credits last one year; Google's Scale credits are spread across two years.

Step 4: Open-source maintainer programs

Claude for Open Source gives qualifying maintainers and contributors six months of Claude Max 20x for free. You qualify through any one of several routes, including 500 or more dependent repositories, 200,000 or more combined monthly downloads, 100 or more merged pull requests to repositories you don't own in the last 12 months, or maintaining a project with an OpenSSF criticality score of 0.4 or above. Anthropic says you can still apply and explain your case if you don't meet them. It's a subscription, not API credits. When the six months end, a previous paid plan resumes, or the account returns to the free plan.

Step 5: Use free trials and credits bundled with paid plans

• Google Cloud free trial: $300 for 90 days on most Google Cloud services, with a card required. Google excludes Gemini API usage from it.
• Claude Max and Team: Max 5x includes $100 and Max 20x $200 a month in Claude API credits; Team plans get $20 per Standard seat and $100 per Premium seat, pooled and capped at $500 a month. The credits cover the Claude API, Managed Agents and the Agent SDK but not Claude Code, and they expire each billing cycle. Compare plans on Claude pricing and Claude Code pricing.
• Google AI Pro and Ultra include a monthly Google Cloud credit. See Google AI plans pricing.
• Free plans of AI apps aren't credits, but they're often enough: see is Claude free?, Claude free trial options, is Codex free? and our ChatGPT pricing and GitHub Copilot pricing pages.

Worked example: a Team plan's API credits

Anthropic's own example: a Team plan with three Standard seats and two Premium seats gets 3 × $20 + 2 × $100 = $260 in API credits a month. Adding one more Premium seat raises the next month's credit to $360. Because the pool is capped at $500, a team with eight Premium seats ($800 by the per-seat math) still receives $500. Credits that aren't used by the end of the billing cycle are lost, so plan builds around the monthly refresh.

Common mistakes that cost people their free credits

• Letting credits expire. Most credits have a clock: the Google Cloud trial lasts 90 days, Cerebras' $5 lasts 30 days, Claude plan API credits reset every billing cycle, and Cloudflare startup credits last a year. Even Deepgram's $200 credit, which its pricing page says lasts until used, expires one year from signup according to its docs.
• Assuming credits cover every product. The Google Cloud $300 trial doesn't cover the Gemini API, and Claude plan API credits don't cover Claude Code.
• Skipping spend limits. Set a budget alert or spend cap before adding a card, so a trial or a leaked key doesn't turn into a bill.
• Sending private data to free tiers. Some free tiers, such as Gemini's, may use your content to improve the provider's products. Paid tiers usually don't.
• Buying "free API keys" from third parties. Official keys come only from the provider's own console. Shared or resold keys can be revoked at any time and may break the provider's terms.
• Relying on outdated lists. Programs close or change often, as GitHub Models did in July 2026 and Cursor's student offer did in June 2026. Check the status and date on each deal page.

Where to go next

Browse every offer by category from our deal pages, or go straight to pricing if you've outgrown the free options: Claude pricing, OpenAI API pricing, Gemini API pricing, Cursor pricing, Perplexity pricing and Grok pricing. If you're setting up a coding assistant, see how to install Claude Code.