GPU & inference cloud credits compared: Modal, RunPod, Lambda, Baseten and more
Credits and free compute from GPU and inference clouds outside the big three hyperscalers, including startup, research and free-tier offers.
15 offers · built only from our verified dataset · latest verification . We don’t rank or score offers; the quotes speak for themselves.
Side by side
| Vendor / offer | Type | Credit value | Eligibility | How to claim | Source quote | Verified |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Anyscale | signup credit | $100 credit to get started | New Anyscale accounts | Sign up on Anyscale | “Get started with $100 credit” source ↗ | |
| Baseten | startup program | Up to $25,000 credits (Dedicated Inference/Training) + up to $2,500 Model APIs | Eligible startups | Apply to Baseten startup program | “Up to $25,000 in credits for Dedicated Inference or Training” source ↗ | |
| Baseten | signup credit | Free credits for new accounts (amount not stated) | New Baseten accounts | Sign up | “new Baseten accounts come with credits” source ↗ | |
| Camber (via GitHub Student Pack) | student/education | Free Student plan: 40 CPU hours, 5 GPU hours, 50 GB storage/month | GitHub Student Pack members | Claim via GitHub Student Pack | “including 40 CPU hours, 5 GPU hours, 50 GB of storage” source ↗ | |
| Hugging Face | free tier | Community GPU Grants for Spaces + free CPU Basic hardware | Builders of community Spaces | Request a grant from Space settings | “Community GPU Grants” source ↗ | |
| Kaggle | free tier | Free access to NVIDIA Tesla P100 GPUs in notebooks (weekly quota) | Kaggle users (phone-verified) | Enable GPU accelerator in a Kaggle notebook | “Kaggle provides free access to NVIDIA TESLA P100 GPUs” source ↗ | |
| Lambda | student/education | Up to $5,000 in cloud credits for qualifying researchers | Qualifying researchers | Apply via Lambda research page | “offering qualifying researchers up to $5,000 in cloud credits” source ↗ | |
| Modal | free tier | $30/month free compute credits (Starter plan) | Anyone on Modal Starter | Sign up for Modal | “$30 / month free credits” source ↗ | |
| Modal | student/education | Up to $10k free compute credits for academics | Graduate students, labs, researchers | Apply via Modal pricing page | “Graduate students, labs, and researchers can get up to $10k free compute credits on Modal” source ↗ | |
| Modal | startup program | Startup credits for VC-backed startups (tiered; see page) | Raised VC from Modal partner network or >$1m from any fund | Apply on Modal startups page | “Raised VC funding >$1m from any fund” source ↗ | |
| Nebius | accelerator perk | Credits via Nebius VC partners for startups that raised $5M+ | Startups with $5M+ raised and a Nebius-partner investor | Ask your investor's platform team | “Credit offerings are currently available through our VC partners to startups that have raised $5M+” source ↗ | |
| NVIDIA | startup program | Free cloud credits from NVIDIA and partners + partner offers (amount not stated) | AI startups | Apply to NVIDIA Inception (free program) | “Access free cloud credits from NVIDIA and partners” source ↗ | |
| Paperspace (DigitalOcean) | free tier | Free GPU tier for Gradient notebooks | Free account holders | Sign up free | “Free FREE GPU For beginners, explorers, and adventurous learners” source ↗ | |
| RunPod | startup program | $1,000 in free credits (Starter Tier) | Earlier-stage startups with real AI workloads | Apply to Runpod Startup Program | “Get $1,000 in credits to get started on Runpod” source ↗ | |
| RunPod | startup program | $25,000 bonus credits when committing $50,000 ($75K total) | VC-backed startups with production workloads | Apply; requires $50K upfront commitment | “Load $50,000 and get $25,000 in bonus credits” source ↗ |