Observability and LLM monitoring credits: Datadog vs New Relic vs Grafana vs PostHog vs LangSmith and more
Free tiers and startup programs for monitoring, product analytics and LLM tracing tools, side by side. This table covers 14 offers from 12 vendors; 6 of the 14 live offers need no application, and the largest stated one-time USD credit is $50,000 (PostHog).
14 offers · built only from our verified dataset · latest verification . We don’t rank or score offers; the quotes speak for themselves. Published by Avatar 8.
Side by side
| Vendor / offer | Type | Credit value | Application needed? | Eligibility | How to claim | Source quote | Verified |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Amplitude | startup program | Growth plan free for one year ($60,000 value), year two 40% off | Yes | <20 employees, <$10M raised | Sign up and apply | “$60,000 value. Year two, 40% off.” source ↗ | |
| Braintrust | free tier | $10 credits/month included on Starter ($0) | No | Anyone | Sign up, no card | “$10 credits / month included” source ↗ | |
| Braintrust | startup program | Pro plan free for 6–12 months | Yes | Qualifying startups | Apply via pricing page | “6–12 months F ree for qualifying startups” source ↗ | |
| Datadog | startup program | A year of Datadog, up to $100k in credits | Yes | Early-stage companies | Apply to Datadog for Startups | “A year of Datadog (up to $100k in credits)” source ↗ | |
| Grafana Labs | free tier | Always-free Grafana Cloud tier: 10k active metric series and 50 GB logs per month, 14-day retention | No | Anyone; no credit card required | Sign up for the Grafana Cloud free tier. | “Actually useful free tier with access to everything that Grafana Cloud has to offer.” source ↗ | |
| Helicone | free tier | 10,000 free requests/month | No | Anyone | Get started for free | “10,000 free requests” source ↗ | |
| LangChain (LangSmith) | free tier | Developer plan $0: up to 5k base traces/month | No | Solo users | Start for free | “Up to 5k base traces / mo” source ↗ | |
| LangChain (LangSmith) | startup program | $10K in LangSmith credits available for 1 year | Yes | Early-stage startups backed by LangChain premier VC partners | Apply on LangChain startups page | “LangSmith Credits: $10K in credits, available for 1 year” source ↗ | |
| Langfuse | startup program | 50% off entire Langfuse bill for 12 months | Yes | Early-stage, bootstrapped or <$5M raised | Fill in form | “enjoy 50 % off your entire Langfuse bill for 12 months” source ↗ | |
| Mixpanel | startup program | Free first year, worth $145,000 (1B events, 1M session replays) | Yes | Eligible startups | Apply | “Worth $145,000. Costs $0.” source ↗ | |
| New Relic | free tier | 100 GB/month of free data ingest + 1 free full platform user | No | Anyone; no credit card required | Sign up for New Relic's free tier. | “Sign up for free access with our perpetual free tier and 100 GB/month of data ingest included.” source ↗ | |
| PostHog | startup program | $50,000 in PostHog credits for 12 months + $12,000 partner benefits | Yes | Early-stage teams | Apply to PostHog for Startups | “$50,000 in PostHog credits for 12 months” source ↗ | |
| Pydantic Logfire | free tier | $20/month of free usage (10 million spans, logs or metrics) on every plan | No | Anyone; the Personal plan is free with no credit card | Sign up for Logfire's free Personal plan. | “Every plan includes $20 of free usage a month: 10 million spans, logs, or metrics.” source ↗ | |
| Weights & Biases | student/education | Free for students, educators, academic researchers | Yes | Students, educators, academic researchers | Sign up for academic plan | “Free for students, educators, and academic researchers. Always.” source ↗ |
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