Stack six figures in AI credits before you spend a dollar
Almost every major provider runs a startup credit program. Most founders claim two or three, in the wrong order, and quietly leave the rest behind. We track all of them and tell you which ones you qualify for today.
Free to use. No account, no paywall, no reselling of credits.
Programs we track
We are not affiliated with these providers. Names are listed to identify the programs in our database.
Why founders leave most of it on the table
The hard part was never finding a list. It is knowing which door to walk through, and in what order.
Order changes the total
Most programs are one-time and tier you by what you have raised on the day you apply. Claim Cloudflare while bootstrapped and you take $10,000 instead of the $100,000 the same company qualifies for two months after a round closes. Sequencing is worth more than volume.
The big numbers are partner-gated
The six-figure headlines are almost never self-serve. AWS routes them through Activate Providers, HubSpot through approved partners, Modal and Datadog through investor networks. Knowing which relationship unlocks which tier is the entire game.
You usually get one attempt
Cloudflare accepts first-time applicants only. MongoDB, Notion and ElevenLabs reject companies that already claimed. A rushed application is not a retry — it is a permanently closed door for that company.
Credits run on a clock
Cloudflare expires at 12 months with no extensions. DigitalOcean gives exactly 12 months. Neon starts counting from acceptance, not from first use. Claiming before you can actually burn the credit converts it into nothing.
How it works
Three steps, no account required.
Tell us four facts
Incorporation date, how much you have raised and from whom, what you are building, and where the entity is registered. Those four facts decide almost every eligibility decision on this list.
Get an ordered list
Not everything you might qualify for eventually — the programs you can win right now, ranked by value against effort, with the ones that must be claimed before your next round flagged first.
Apply without burning attempts
For each program we tell you what the reviewer actually checks: domain age, live website, LinkedIn presence, business email, whether agencies are excluded. You submit once, correctly.
Start from what you actually need
Every category links straight into the filtered database. Ceilings are the sum of published maximums in that category.
The largest programs we track
Six highest published ceilings. The database has the rest, including the small self-serve ones a bootstrapped team can claim this afternoon.
Three tiers. Start gives bootstrapped teams up to $2,000 in Google Cloud and Firebase credits, self-serve. Scale covers 100% of usage up to $100,000 in year one plus 20% of usage up to another $100,000 in year two. The AI-First tier adds up to $150,000 on top of Scale, reaching $350,000 total for teams whose core technology is AI.
Cleanly tiered by how much you have raised. Tier 3 gives $10,000 to bootstrapped teams with no minimum funding. Tier 2 gives $100,000 to companies under $5M raised that are backed by an affiliated partner. Tier 1 gives $350,000 to companies at $5M+ raised with an affiliated partner, plus priority support and bi-weekly Solutions Architect office hours.
The largest cloud credit program by ceiling. A small self-serve tier is open to any incorporated startup with a live product, while the six-figure tiers are routed through Activate Providers — accelerators, incubators, VCs and startup-friendly banks. Credits are redeemable on third-party models through Amazon Bedrock, and AWS lists additional credits for AI startups ready to scale.
Two clearly separated tracks. Self-funded teams under $1M raised get up to $1,000 in Neon credits with onboarding support and early feature access. VC-backed teams get up to $200,000 in combined Neon and Databricks credits, plus co-marketing and speaking slots at Neon events. Decisions usually land within a few business days.
Credits usable across Azure, GitHub and other eligible Microsoft platforms, with the top of the range reserved for VC-backed companies coming in through Microsoft's investor network. The entry tier is genuinely self-serve and needs no funding, which makes this one of the few six-figure programs with a real bootstrapped on-ramp. Includes access to AI models and go-to-market support.
Amount is set per company and per partner organisation, with a $10,000 monthly spend ceiling on credited usage. Comes with 15 months of free Standard-tier support, one-on-ones with DigitalOcean PMs and engineers, and a partner perk bundle from 15+ ecosystem companies. Watch the carve-out: core credits do not cover GPU Droplets or dedicated inference.
Questions founders actually ask
Is this free, and what is the catch?
Do you guarantee I will be approved?
Do you resell or broker credits?
I am bootstrapped with no investors. Is any of this for me?
How current is the data?
Does my country matter?
What disqualifies a company most often?
Can you apply on my behalf?
Find out what you qualify for today
Send us four facts about your company and we will come back with an ordered list. No account, no charge.
Check my eligibility