Recipes that work the first time.

The only Airtable program Airtable itself runs: 50% off the Team plan for 501(c)(3) nonprofits and education institutions, against submitted documentation. There is no first-party startup program — the startup-path Airtable credits come through other vendors' bundles.

First-try successnot yet measured

Free first-party Claude API credits and the highest rate-limit tier, self-serve in about two minutes. Anthropic publishes no dollar figure.

First-try successnot yet measured

Three tiers with very different gates: $1,000 self-serve for bootstrapped founders, $100,000 for portfolio companies with an Activate Provider Org ID, and up to $300,000 for AI/foundation-model companies.

First-try successnot yet measured

Up to $25,000 of dedicated deployment/training credits plus $2,500 of Model API credits, for VC-funded AI-first companies at seed to Series A that are new to Baseten.

First-try successnot yet measured

A high-limit charge card with no personal guarantee, plus partner perks across AWS, OpenAI and others. US entity required and a practical cash floor around $50k.

First-try successnot yet measured

A genuinely free plan for cap-table management, SAFE and equity issuance — until you cross 25 stakeholders or $1M raised, at which point you graduate to paid.

First-try successnot yet measured

Three tiers on a funding ladder — $10,000 bootstrapped, $100,000 under $5M raised, $350,000 above it — with credits valid for a year and review typically inside 48 hours.

First-try successnot yet measured

A 25% discount on all Cohere models for up to 12 months, plus technical support and co-marketing. A discount, not credits — there is no dollar ceiling.

First-try successnot yet measured

Two hand-selected programs with no published amounts: an accelerator (credits + discounts + engineering support) and CoreWeave Ventures, which can pay in compute for equity.

First-try successnot yet measured

Up to a year free on the full Datadog platform and up to $100k of credits — but only through an official partner, and the credits evaporate if you do not activate within 30 days.

First-try successnot yet measured

Three routes: case-by-case research grants for open-source AI work, a generative-media fund worth up to $250,000 per team, and a $20 self-serve signup credit for business emails.

First-try successnot yet measured

The largest headline numbers in the inventory — $200,000 Scale and up to $350,000 for the AI tier — but both are gated behind an approved accelerator, incubator or VC referral.

First-try successnot yet measured

$10,000 of LPU inference credits by referral only, expiring 90 days after award — plus a genuinely generous free tier that needs no card and no application.

First-try successnot yet measured

A steep multi-year software discount — 90/50/25% for VC-funded companies, 30/15% for accelerator-affiliated ones — on net-new Pro or Enterprise seats only.

First-try successnot yet measured

Up to six months free on a paid Linear plan, for teams under 50 that come through one of Linear's 900+ accelerator and VC partners.

First-try successnot yet measured

NOT a credits program, and labelled that way on purpose. Raise is Mercury's fundraising and community program: warm investor introductions through Investor Connect, plus a vetted founder community. Free and self-serve. Mercury's dollar credits live in a different program — see the traps.

First-try successnot yet measured

$5,000 of Azure credits self-serve with a 1-3 day approval, and a $150,000 tier gated behind Microsoft's Investor Network.

First-try successnot yet measured

A cohort program of about ten startups: ~$30,000 of La Plateforme credits, 1:1 support and early model access over six months. Separately, any new API account gets a $25-$50 trial credit.

First-try successnot yet measured

$25,000 of startup credits for seed-to-Series-A companies that are either backed by a Modal VC partner or have raised over $1M.

First-try successnot yet measured

Atlas credits plus Voyage AI tokens, support and marketing, on a four-name tier ladder whose amounts MongoDB does not publish. Unusually, existing Atlas users are welcome.

First-try successnot yet measured

Up to $150,000 of Nebius cloud credits, open at any stage — but only to existing NVIDIA Inception members. The realistic Nebius route for a pre-$5M startup.

First-try successnot yet measured

Intro GPU credits plus production compute discounts for VC-backed AI-native startups that have raised $5M+ and can reach Nebius through one of its venture partners.

First-try successnot yet measured

Free months on the Business plan including Notion AI — six with a partner code, three for tech startups, one for small businesses. New non-paying customers only.

First-try successnot yet measured

Free membership with no funding floor and no stage gate. The graph's root: holding it is what makes Nebius AI Lift reachable, and it is claimed to unlock elevated AWS Activate tiers.

First-try successnot yet measured

There is no clean self-serve grant. About $2,500 of credits arrives bundled through partner programs — Ramp, Microsoft for Startups, or certain VCs.

First-try successnot yet measured

$500 to start and up to $100,000 as you grow, on a continuous ladder with no published thresholds, plus a 70% OCI discount and a permanently free tier.

First-try successnot yet measured

Charge cards with 1.5% cashback and a large bundle of partner perks — including the OpenAI credits — with no VC referral required. US entity and roughly $75k of cash needed.

First-try successnot yet measured

A year at 100% off a monthly Team or Business plan — a published ceiling of $60,000 — then 25% off year two, for new customers under $10M raised.

First-try successnot yet measured

Incorporation as a service (Delaware C-corp/LLC, EIN, 83(b), Cooley docs) with $2,500 of first-year Stripe credits and a bundle of other vendors' discounts. There is a real fee.

First-try successnot yet measured

Three funding-banded credit tiers from $15K to $50K, plus engineering hours, GTM co-sell and VC network access. No equity, no company-age cap.

First-try successnot yet measured

There is no standing credit program. The only route is the annual AI Startup Searchlight competition, which closes 11 September 2026 and names honorees in mid-to-late November.

First-try successnot yet measured

Dollar-for-dollar credit matching against verified compute spend, for companies already shipping. No published ceiling and, by design, nothing for a team still evaluating.

First-try successnot yet measured

Up to $30,000 of credits plus free Pro if one of your investors is on Vercel's approved list; otherwise free Pro and about $2,400 of Pro credits a year, self-serve.

First-try successnot yet measured