ai startup credits · 14 programs · verified Oct 9, 2026
AI startup credits: every program, verified
Credits from AI model providers and GPU clouds that startups can apply for: 14 programs worth $327K at their top tiers combined. Each row shows the real maximum, who qualifies, whether you need a referral and how hard the application is, with a link to the official page. You apply for every one yourself. For AI work on AWS, see AWS credits for Amazon Bedrock.
Anthropic's Claude startup program, Claude for Startups, gives up to $100,000 in extra Claude API credits if a VC in Anthropic's partner network backs you. Members get partner offers worth up to $45,000 and office hours with Anthropic's Applied AI team. The free year of Claude Team (up to 5 Premium seats, about $6,000) and $1,000 API credit announced on 6 Oct 2026 are over capacity as of 10 Oct 2026, and Anthropic is re-reviewing all applications.
who files it: You apply directly. The base tier needs no code; the top tier needs an investor or partner referral.
you likely qualify if
Your company was founded within the last 5 years, or closed a funding round within the last 2 years (Anthropic announcement, 6 Oct 2026).
You do not need VC funding: the program is open to bootstrapped, pre-seed and venture-backed startups.
You sign in to, or create, a Claude Console account (platform.claude.com) and submit the application there.
tiers
Direct applicant (announced 6 Oct 2026; over capacity as of 10 Oct 2026) Free year of Claude Team for up to 5 Premium seats (Anthropic values this at $6,000: 5 seats x $100 per seat per month, billed annually) plus a one-time $1,000 Claude API credit available once approved
Partner-VC tier Up to $100,000 in additional Claude API credits
Claude Startup Stack Discounts and credits from partner companies worth 'up to $45,000' at partner list prices (Sept 2026), including ClickHouse $5K Cloud credits, ElevenLabs 12 months free plus 33M characters, Hex 6 months free on Enterprise, Granola 3 months of Business free (up to 10 seats), Augment Code $100 in Cosmos credits, Attention 20% off the first year, Gamma 25% off the first year of Pro annual, Emergent 20% off the first 6 months, Firecrawl 2.5x monthly credits for a year
Member perks (non-cash) Higher API rate limits, 45-minute Applied AI office hours every other week, help getting a connector or plugin listed on Claude Marketplace, Claude Startup events and hackathons (Claude Founder House in San Francisco ran 6-8 Oct 2026 and has ended), Startup Newsletter
Free, no-equity membership for incorporated AI startups under 10 years old, with free Deep Learning Institute courses, rebate pricing on select NVIDIA hardware, and eligibility-based VC introductions. Bigger credits are separate gated requests: NVIDIA says qualified members can get up to $100,000 in DGX Cloud H100 credits (criteria unpublished), NVIDIA Cloud Partners issue their own credits, and an NVIDIA-issued AWS Activate Org ID lets members apply to AWS's Portfolio tier, where AWS decides the amount.
who files it: You apply directly on the provider's site. No referral or partner code is needed.
you likely qualify if
Company is officially incorporated and can supply its incorporation date (unincorporated teams cannot apply)
Company is less than 10 years old
Company employs at least one developer
tiers
Base membership Free: codes for free self-paced NVIDIA Deep Learning Institute courses, discounted instructor-led workshops, latest SDKs and model libraries, NVIDIA Developer Forums access, preferred pricing on a subset of enterprise GPUs and select software (a rebate deducted from the standard supplier price
NVIDIA DGX Cloud credits Up to $100,000 in DGX Cloud credits for dedicated NVIDIA H100 GPU capacity, plus expert office hours for members approved for the benefit (announced at GTC, March 25, 2025)
NVIDIA Cloud Partner credits Free cloud credits from NVIDIA Cloud Partners (the March 2025 GTC announcement named Nebius, Scaleway and Lintasarta for free credits, and Yotta and Lambda for credits)
AWS Activate via Inception NVIDIA is listed as an AWS Activate Provider: approved members request the AWS benefit in the portal, receive an Organization ID, and apply to AWS Activate Portfolio
Up to $50,000 in Together AI platform credits plus up to 10 hours of forward-deployed engineering time, with the amount set by how much your startup has raised.
who files it: You apply directly on the provider's site. No referral or partner code is needed.
you likely qualify if
You are a startup building an AI-native application (Together's own wording).
Your tier is set by total funding raised: up to $5M (Build), $5M to $10M (Scale), over $10M (Grow).
Stage range listed by Together: pre-seed to growth-stage AI startups.
tiers
Build Up to $15K in platform credits + 3 hours of forward-deployed engineering
Scale Up to $30K in platform credits + 6 hours of forward-deployed engineering
Grow Up to $50K in platform credits + 10 hours of forward-deployed engineering
Up to $30,000 in Runware API credits (image, video, audio, LLM, 3D and avatar models), equity-free, for pre-Series A teams with a working product, covering 12 months of API access.
who files it: You apply directly on the provider's site. No referral or partner code is needed.
you likely qualify if
You have a working product or a credible MVP that exists today (an idea on paper does not qualify)
Your company has not raised a Series A; pre-seed, seed and bootstrapped teams all qualify
You plan to build or launch on Runware within the next 6 months
Up to $25,000 in bonus GPU credits when you prepay $50,000 on a 12-month commit (Growth Tier), or $1,000 in free credits with no prepay for pre-Series A teams (Starter Tier).
who files it: You apply directly on the provider's site. No referral or partner code is needed.
you likely qualify if
You are an AI startup with a GPU workload that fits one of: production inference at scale (API-based AI products), model training or fine-tuning pipelines, or compute-intensive R&D with a clear path to production.
You are new to Runpod. Existing customers whose spend is below the Growth Tier threshold may be considered case by case; others are routed to their account manager.
You are ready to onboard now (Runpod's words: not 'in 6 months') and GPU infrastructure is a current bottleneck.
tiers
Growth Tier $25,000 in bonus credits added to a $50,000 upfront deposit on a committed 12-month agreement ($75,000 total credits, $50,000 of which is your own money)
Starter Tier $1,000 in free credits, no deposit mentioned
Groq offered $10,000 in GroqCloud inference credits (expiring 90 days after award) to hand-selected scaling startups and VC partners, but the program appears to be withdrawn: as of October 9, 2026 both the program page and the application page redirect to groq.com and no intake is open.
who files it: You apply directly on the provider's site. No referral or partner code is needed.
you likely qualify if
You are a startup Groq would call 'scaling' (the official wording is 'hand-selected scaling startups'). Groq published no hard criteria; third-party trackers report the application asked for a working product or clear GroqCloud use case and an estimate of expected inference volume.
Or you are a VC partner applying for access on behalf of portfolio companies (named explicitly on the official page).
You have, or will create, a GroqCloud account at console.groq.com, because credits are attached to that account rather than issued as a code.
tiers
Groq Startup Program (single tier) $10,000 in GroqCloud inference credits, applied to your GroqCloud account
full details →official page ↗stage fit: Groq's own wording was 'scaling startups' with live inference workloadsno equity
33,000,000 free text characters (ElevenLabs states "$5,500+ in value", about 680 hours of Agents usage) plus 12 months of free access to the full ElevenLabs platform for startups with fewer than 25 employees.
who files it: You apply directly on the provider's site. No referral or partner code is needed.
you likely qualify if
Company has fewer than 25 employees at the time ElevenLabs receives the application
Product has a business or monetization strategy and is one the company intends to take to market long term (no short-term or one-off projects or campaigns)
Product is a new or early-stage product or business model powered by ElevenLabs AI voice (agents, text to speech, or speech to text)
tiers
Startup Grant 33,000,000 text characters and 12 months of free platform access (Agents/Conversational AI, Text to Speech, Speech to Text and more)
VC partner route Fast-tracked access to "exclusive perks like ElevenLabs credits, access to events and product updates" for portfolio companies of VCs that have signed up as ElevenLabs VC partners
$5,000 in Sonar API credits plus free Perplexity Enterprise Pro for up to 50 seats, for startups backed by an approved VC or accelerator partner. As of October 2026 the official page redirects away and the application form is closed, so treat it as paused until Perplexity says otherwise.
who files it: You apply directly, but only with a referral or code from an investor, accelerator or partner.
you likely qualify if
Your startup has raised no more than $20M in equity funding (grants and non-equity money do not count toward the cap; the application form asks for equity raised in full dollars and says to exclude grants and non-equity funding). The $20M cap comes from the archived March 2026 program page.
Your company was founded less than 5 years ago (archived March 2026 program page)
Your startup is backed by, or part of, one of Perplexity's approved Startup Partners (roughly 250 VCs, accelerators and hubs per the archived program page, including Y Combinator, a16z, Sequoia, Accel, 500 Global, Antler, Plug and Play, Entrepreneurs First, Seedcamp, Speedinvest, Techstart Ventures, Blume Ventures, T-Hub, Astana Hub, Hult Prize Foundation and JPMorgan)
tiers
Startup track (via approved partner) $5,000 in Perplexity Sonar API credits + free Enterprise Pro for up to 50 seats for 3 months (the official page said 6 months from April 2025 until at least August 2025
Y Combinator alumni Additional Perplexity perks claimed through YC's Bookface deals page, no application form needed
HubSpot for Startups perk (separate partner channel, still live Oct 2026) 3 months of free Perplexity Enterprise Pro for up to 50 seats per company
full details →official page ↗stage fit: Pre-seed through Series A: under $20M in equity raised and under 5 years oldno equity
$1,000 in Lambda Cloud credits for on-demand GPU instances (B200, H100, A100, GH200) and persistent storage, for startups that are NVIDIA Inception members, valid 12 months.
who files it: You apply directly on the provider's site. No referral or partner code is needed.
you likely qualify if
Your company is a current member of NVIDIA Inception (free; NVIDIA requires an incorporated company under 10 years old, with at least one developer and a working website; any funding stage, no revenue requirement).
Your company has not already received a Lambda Inception grant (one grant per company).
You are located in, and pay with a credit card issued in, one of: Australia, Canada, Chile, European Union (except Lithuania), Iceland, Israel, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, Puerto Rico, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Switzerland, Taiwan, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, or United States.
tiers
NVIDIA Inception member grant $1,000 in Lambda Cloud credits, one grant per company
Lambda Research Grant (separate program, context only) Up to $5,000 in Lambda Cloud credits
Closed: it offered a 25% discount on Cohere's models for one year (not free credits) to startups at Series B or earlier, but Cohere's own post says applications closed for 2024 and the program pages now redirect to the homepage.
who files it: You apply directly on the provider's site. No referral or partner code is needed.
you likely qualify if
Company has raised Series B or less (bootstrapped, pre-seed, seed, Series A, or Series B)
Company is an early-stage startup, not an established enterprise
Company is working on AI applications or products where Cohere's technology could help (Cohere's team reviewed each application to decide fit)
tiers
Cohere Startup Program (2024 cohort, now closed) 25% discount on the AI models on Cohere's platform for one year, plus access to Cohere technical experts, logo and use-case showcase on cohere.com, and joint webinars and co-marketing opportunities
One year of Fireworks inference and fine-tuning credits (dollar amount not published) plus direct access to applied-AI engineers, for venture-backed AI startups that have raised more than $500k.
who files it: You apply directly. The base tier needs no code; the top tier needs an investor or partner referral.
you likely qualify if
Your company is legally registered and has a functional website.
Your company is privately held and for-profit.
Your company was founded within the last 5 years.
tiers
Fireworks for Startups (build credits) Credits for on-demand usage (serverless text/vision inference, image generation, speech-to-text, embeddings, fine-tuning, on-demand GPU deployments), options for higher rate limits, applied-AI engineer access, roadmap sessions, community events, joint marketing
AWS x Fireworks startup acceleration (separate joint track) Funded proof-of-concept plus hands-on model customization and deployment support from Fireworks and the AWS Generative AI Innovation Center Startup Team
Free Modal serverless GPU/CPU compute credits for new-to-Modal startups backed by a Modal partner VC or accelerator, or with more than $1M of VC funding. Modal no longer publishes a dollar amount ('thousands of free GPU credits'); credits last 1 year.
who files it: You apply directly on the provider's site. No referral or partner code is needed.
you likely qualify if
New to Modal: only customers new to Modal can apply. Credits are a one-time grant and you cannot reapply once you have received credits in a given tier.
Seed to Series A tier: raised any amount of VC funding from one of Modal's 40+ partner VCs and accelerators, OR raised more than $1M in VC funding from any fund. The application form says it only accepts applicants funded by Modal's partners or with more than $1M raised, counting funding for the current company only.
Scaling and Series B+ tier: raised more than $30M or completed a Series B, AND a VC on the cap table is in Modal's partner network.
tiers
Seed to Series A Free compute credits
Scaling and Series B+ Custom credit amount for rapidly growing AI-native companies
Modal for Academics (separate program) Up to $10,000 ('Unlock up to $10k of credits')
Free OpenAI API credits (no global dollar amount published), rate-limit upgrades and time with OpenAI solutions engineers, unlocked with a referral code from a partner VC such as Sequoia, a16z, Thrive Capital, Kleiner Perkins or Conviction. Australia has a separate program with up to US$15,000 in credits per OpenAI.
who files it: You apply directly, but only with a referral or code from an investor, accelerator or partner.
you likely qualify if
Your startup has raised from a VC that is in OpenAI's partner network (OpenAI names Thrive Capital, Sequoia, a16z, Kleiner Perkins and Conviction Partners as examples; the full list is not published, so ask your VC). VC firms can apply to join via OpenAI's VC Partnership Application
Your VC has given you a unique referral code for the OpenAI credits application
You have an OpenAI platform account and can supply its Organization ID (Settings > Organization settings > General)
tiers
VC partner route (the credits program) Free OpenAI API credits (OpenAI publishes no global dollar figure), rate-limit upgrades, time with solutions engineers and technical staff, invite-only events, direct line to the Startup team, dedicated technical and GTM support
Open resources (no referral needed) Free Build Hours (live technical sessions), starter repos and cookbooks on GitHub, founder events (Builder Lounges, campus events), Startup Drop monthly newsletter
Australia startup program (regional) Up to US$15,000 in API credits, technical mentorship and workshops, per OpenAI's Dec 4, 2025 'Introducing OpenAI for Australia' page
OpenAI Grove 5-week program at OpenAI's San Francisco HQ (first and last week in person, travel covered
Salad publishes no startup credit program on its own site. A third-party directory lists $1,000 in SaladCloud credit (valid 24 months), rising to $5,000 with a published case study, for pre-seed to Series B startups running containerized GPU workloads, and a 2024 Salad blog post describes a separate SSAP track of up to $10,000 for 2 months for AI companies with 10+ GPUs.
who files it: You apply directly on the provider's site. No referral or partner code is needed.
you likely qualify if
Company stage is pre-seed, seed, Series A or Series B (the request form also offers 'Bootstrapped').
Your workload runs in Docker containers on GPUs, for example image, video or LLM inference, batch or async GPU jobs, transcription, scientific compute.
Your company is not already a paying SaladCloud customer.
Case-study upgrade (third-party listing) Raised to $5,000 total
SSAP (Salad Solutions Architect Program), separate official track Up to $10,000 in credits for a 2-month duration, plus a dedicated solutions engineer for coding and migration help and GPU benchmarking
This page lists 14 AI model and GPU programs, worth $327K at their top tiers combined. The largest: Anthropic (Up to $100,000); NVIDIA (Up to $100,000 in NVIDIA DGX Cloud credits (qualified members only)); Together AI (Up to $50,000). Each row links to the official program page and shows when we last checked it.
Which AI credit programs need no investor or referral?
10 of the 14 take a direct application with no referral: NVIDIA, Together AI, Runware, Runpod, Groq, ElevenLabs, Lambda, Cohere, Modal (Modal Labs), SaladCloud (Salad Technologies, Inc.). 2 need a referral or partner code, usually from your VC or accelerator.
Can I run Claude and other models on AWS credits?
Yes, through Amazon Bedrock: usage there is billed on your AWS invoice, so AWS credits can pay for it. Activate is the credit most startups apply for themselves. For a larger AI build on AWS, a vetted AWS partner can request POC or incremental workload funding when the work qualifies and AWS approves it.
Do AI startup credits expire?
Almost always. Most expire 12 months after they are granted, and some sooner. Each program page in this list quotes the provider's own expiry rule.
