Launch a SaaS on a $0 Infrastructure Budget
You don't need a credit card to look like you have a real stack. The free tiers and startup programs below get you from idea to production-shaped app at $0, and the bill only arrives when you're actually making money.
Start with free cloud credits, not your card
Apply to AWS Activate first — the Founders tier hands you $1,000 automatically, no VC required. Google Cloud for Startups runs $1,000 to $350,000 depending on tier, and Microsoft for Startups puts $5,000 in your Founders Hub the moment you sign up. Cloudflare for Startups adds up to $250,000 in enterprise credits, and DigitalOcean Startups goes up to $100,000 over 12 months. Stack two or three and your compute is paid for a year.
Your database is free until you are not
Neon gives you serverless Postgres with branching and a free tier, plus up to $100,000 in startup credits if you qualify. Supabase's free tier ships 2 projects with auth and storage baked in. Need MySQL? PlanetScale's free tier is 10GB. CockroachDB Cloud hands you 50M request units and 10GB a month. Turso puts SQLite at the edge with a 3GB free tier. Pick one, branch it, and stop worrying about the schema bill.
Auth and monitoring you don't pay for yet
Auth0 is free for 7,000 monthly active users; Clerk is free for 10,000 — both cover a newborn SaaS comfortably. For product analytics, PostHog's free tier is 1 million events a month with session recordings and feature flags. Sentry gives startups $100 a month free for error tracking. That's your whole observability stack at $0.
Ship the frontend for nothing
Netlify's free tier is 300 build credits a month with unlimited deploy previews and SSL. Vercel's Hobby plan is free for three months out of the gate. Cloudflare sits in front of both for free CDN and DNS. You can deploy ten times a day and still pay zero.
Relevant Deals
Auth0
AuthFree for 7K MAUs — saves $30/mo vs. Auth0 Pro plan
Authentication and authorization platform with social login, MFA, and free tier for 7,000 active users.
AWS Activate
Hosting & Cloud$1K-$100K AWS credits for startups — Founders tier is automatic, Portfolio tier requires VC backing
AWS Activate provides startups with $1,000-$100,000 in cloud credits, technical support, and training. Founders tier offers $1,000-$5,000 automatically. Portfolio tier (VC-backed) offers up to $100,000. Includes access to AWS services, support credits, and training resources.
Clerk
AuthFree for 10K MAUs — saves $25/mo vs. Clerk Pro
Authentication and user management for Next.js, React, and web apps.
Cloudflare for Startups
Hosting & Cloud$250K Cloudflare enterprise credits — Workers, AI, CDN, DDoS protection for startups
Cloudflare for Startups offers $250,000 in enterprise credits for qualifying startups. Access to Workers, Workers AI, CDN, DDoS protection, D1 database, R2 storage, and enterprise security features. Requires application and targets software companies with active websites.
CockroachDB Cloud
DatabaseFree distributed SQL with 50M RUs + 10GB — PostgreSQL-compatible, multi-region, auto-scaling database at zero cost
Distributed SQL database with free Serverless tier. 50M request units/month, 10GB storage, multi-region replication, automatic scaling, and PostgreSQL compatibility. Ideal for global applications needing resilience without operational complexity.
DigitalOcean Startups
Hosting & Cloud$100K DigitalOcean credits — VMs, K8s, databases for startups under 6 years old
DigitalOcean Startups program offers up to $100,000 in credits over 12 months. Access to VMs, Kubernetes, databases, and serverless functions. Targets startups less than 6 years old with less than $10M revenue. Affiliation with accelerator/incubator/VC can improve approval chances.
Google Cloud for Startups
Hosting & Cloud$1K-$350K Google Cloud credits — AI-First tier offers $350K for AI-native startups
Google Cloud startup program grants $1,000 to $350,000 in credits over 2 years. Tiers: Start ($1K), Build ($25K), Scale ($100K), AI-First ($350K). Credits cover all GCP services including Vertex AI, BigQuery, Cloud Run, Compute Engine, and storage. AI-First tier requires accelerator alumni status.
Microsoft for Startups
Hosting & Cloud$5K-$150K Azure credits — Founders Hub offers instant $5K, Investor Network up to $150K
Microsoft for Startups offers up to $150,000 in Azure credits. Founders Hub provides instant $5,000 tier accessible to all startups. Investor Network tier offers $100,000-$150,000 for investor-backed companies. Includes access to GitHub Enterprise, Visual Studio, Microsoft 365, and OpenAI API credits.
Neon
DatabaseFree $15/mo Postgres with branching — instant database branching for dev workflows
Serverless Postgres with branching, instant provisioning, and generous free tier.
Neon Startup Credits
Database$100K Neon credits + free tier — serverless Postgres with branching for startups
Neon offers startup credits of up to $100,000 for early-stage companies, plus their generous free tier. Serverless Postgres with branching, instant provisioning, and scale-to-zero compute. Perfect for startups building modern, scalable applications.
Netlify
Hosting & Cloud300 free credits/month on Netlify — deploy unlimited previews, static sites, and serverless functions with no CC
Netlify's free tier includes 300 credits/month (~$2 value), unlimited deploy previews, custom domains with automated SSL, serverless Functions (125K requests/mo), edge functions, and form handling. No credit card required. Credits cover build minutes, function executions, and edge invocations.
PlanetScale
DatabaseFree 10GB MySQL-compatible database with branching — $30/mo value
Serverless MySQL-compatible database with branching and deploy requests.
PostHog
Web AnalyticsBest free product analytics platform — 1M events/mo, session recordings, feature flags, surveys, all open-source, no CC
PostHog's generous free tier includes 1 million events/month, 5,000 session recordings, 1 million feature flag requests, 100K error tracking exceptions, 1,500 survey responses, and 50GB of logs. Open-source product analytics platform. No credit card required.
Sentry
Monitoring$100/mo free for startups — error monitoring without the enterprise price tag
Error monitoring and performance tracking for web and mobile apps.
Supabase
DatabaseFree Postgres with auth, realtime, and edge functions — Firebase alternative
Hosted Postgres database with authentication, instant APIs, edge functions.
Turso
DatabaseFree 3GB edge SQLite — global read replicas without the complexity
Edge SQLite database for global applications with generous free tier.
Vercel
Hosting & Cloud$10/mo free for 3 months — deploy Next.js apps with instant CI/CD
Deploy frontend apps with automatic CI/CD. Free Hobby plan for 3 months.