Updated June 2026. If you are building with AI, the fastest way to keep your costs near zero is to start with the providers that give you free credits just for signing up — no application, no pitch deck, no funding round. This guide is the complete, hand-verified list of who pays out free AI API credits in 2026, exactly what you get, whether a card is required, and how to make the credits last.
For the always-current version with apply links and a difficulty rating on each offer, browse the Perkstack catalog and filter to Free perks. Below is the full playbook.
In this guide
- What counts as a free AI credit
- The fastest free AI credits (no credit card)
- Best free LLM API in 2026
- Free image generation credits
- Free voice and transcription credits
- Free cloud and GPU credits
- Provider-specific free credit guides
- How to stretch your free AI credits
- Free AI credits at a glance
What counts as a free AI credit
There are three different things providers call "free", and they are worth keeping straight:
- Signup credits — a one-time dollar grant added to your account automatically when you create it (for example, $5 to $300). Highest value, lowest effort.
- Free tiers — an ongoing monthly allowance you never pay for (rate-limited), rather than a one-time dollar grant.
- Startup programs — large credit packages ($10k to $350k) that require an application and usually some funding or accelerator tie. We cover those separately in startup cloud credits and AI startup grants and accelerators.
This guide focuses on the first two: the self-serve offers anyone can claim today, no questions asked.
The fastest free AI credits (no credit card)
If you want to be making API calls in the next five minutes with no card on file, start here. These are the lowest-friction free AI credits in 2026:
- SambaNova Cloud — about $5 in free API credits the moment you create an account, no card required.
- Google AI Studio (Gemini) — an indefinite free tier with no billing setup at all. See the dedicated Gemini API free tier guide.
- Groq — a generous no-card free tier on the fastest inference around. Details in the Groq API free tier guide.
- Cerebras — up to a million tokens a day on the free tier, no card.
- Mistral — a free tier on La Plateforme for prototyping; see the Mistral API free tier guide.
- Cohere — a no-card trial tier for embeddings and chat.
None of these ask for payment details, so there is zero risk of an accidental charge. They are the ideal place to prototype before you spend a cent.
Best free LLM API in 2026
For pure text generation, the free tiers are usually more valuable than a one-time dollar grant because they refill. Ranked by how far the free allowance actually goes:
- Google AI Studio (Gemini) — the most generous indefinite free tier for general use. Read the Gemini free tier limits.
- Cerebras — up to ~1M tokens/day, extremely fast.
- Groq — fast, no-card, great for low-latency apps. Groq free tier and limits.
- Mistral — solid open-weight models on a free tier. Mistral free tier and pricing.
- SambaNova — $5 signup credit plus fast open-model inference.
Want frontier models specifically? See the provider-specific guides for free OpenAI API credits, free Claude API credits and DeepSeek pricing and free access. When you outgrow the free tier, the cheapest paid host for any open model is in our provider price rankings — the same model is often 5–10x cheaper on one host than another.
Free image generation credits
- fal.ai — around $20 in credits across image, video and GPU models, no application.
- Replicate — pay-as-you-go with a small free allowance to test.
- Google AI Studio — free image generation via the Gemini image models (see Nano Banana API).
For the full breakdown of free image options and the cheapest paid endpoints, see free AI image generation and the cheapest image generation API.
Free voice and transcription credits
- Deepgram — $200 in credits for speech-to-text and text-to-speech. One of the largest no-strings grants anywhere.
- AssemblyAI — $50 in credits for transcription and speech understanding.
- ElevenLabs — a free monthly character allowance for text-to-speech.
Compare paid rates once your credit runs out in the cheapest speech-to-text and TTS guide and the Whisper API guide.
Free cloud and GPU credits
You will need somewhere to run all this. The best no-application infrastructure credits in 2026:
- DigitalOcean — $200 in credit (valid 60 days) for new accounts.
- Oracle Cloud — a $300 trial credit plus a genuinely generous permanent Always Free tier.
- Modal — $30 of compute credits every month on the free plan, ideal for serverless GPU jobs.
- Baseten — $30 in credits to deploy and test model inference.
For GPU specifically, see where to get free GPU compute. For the big six-figure cloud packages, see startup cloud credits and the AWS Activate guide.
Provider-specific free credit guides
Want the exact, current state of free credits for one provider? We keep a dedicated, dated guide for each of the majors:
- Free OpenAI API credits — what's actually available, plus alternatives.
- Free Anthropic Claude API credits.
- Google Gemini API free tier — limits, pricing and how to use it free.
- DeepSeek API — pricing, free access and how to run it cheap.
- Groq API free tier.
- Mistral API free tier.
- xAI Grok API pricing and free credits.
- Qwen API free access and cheapest hosts.
How to stretch your free AI credits
- Start on the free tiers, save the dollar grants. Prototype on Gemini, Groq or Cerebras free tiers, and spend your one-time DigitalOcean or Deepgram credits only when you are running real workloads.
- Pick the cheapest provider per model. The same open model can be 5–10x cheaper on one host than another. Our price trackers show the cheapest verified endpoint per model, re-pulled weekly.
- Use prompt caching and batch APIs. These alone can halve your bill — see prompt caching and batch APIs.
- Watch expiry dates. Most signup credits expire in 30–90 days. Don't claim them until you're ready to use them.
- Stack, don't duplicate. Use one provider for inference, another for storage, another for voice — each with its own free credit.
Free AI credits at a glance
| Provider | Type | Amount | Card required | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| SambaNova | Signup credit | ~$5 | No | Fast open-model LLM calls |
| Google AI Studio | Free tier | Indefinite | No | General LLM + image |
| Groq | Free tier | Daily allowance | No | Low-latency LLM |
| Cerebras | Free tier | ~1M tokens/day | No | High-volume prototyping |
| Deepgram | Signup credit | $200 | No | Speech-to-text / TTS |
| AssemblyAI | Signup credit | $50 | No | Transcription |
| fal.ai | Signup credit | ~$20 | No | Image / video |
| Baseten | Signup credit | $30 | No | Model deployment |
| DigitalOcean | Cloud credit | $200 / 60d | Yes | Hosting |
| Oracle Cloud | Cloud credit | $300 + Always Free | Yes | Hosting + permanent free |
| Modal | Free tier | $30 / month | No | Serverless GPU |
Amounts change — the Perkstack catalog shows the date each was last verified by hand.
The bottom line
You can run a real AI prototype for months without paying a cent if you combine signup credits with free tiers and always route to the cheapest provider. Create a free Perkstack account to unlock every apply link and the step-by-step claim guides, then start with the offers above.
Related reading: How to Use AI for Free and The Cheapest Way to Run LLMs.