AI models & APIs credits for Bootstrapped startups

Three tiers. Start gives $2,000 self-serve. Scale covers 100% of usage up to $100K, then 20% up to another $100K. AI-First adds $150K on top, reaching $350K for AI-core teams.

The largest ceiling in the database. A small self-serve tier needs just a live product; six-figure tiers route through Activate Providers — accelerators, incubators, VCs. Credits cover third-party models via Bedrock.

Works across Azure, GitHub and other Microsoft platforms. Entry tier is self-serve, no funding needed — a real bootstrapped on-ramp. Top tiers need VC backing through Microsoft's investor network.

A five-week cohort program open to founders at any stage, including pre-idea and pre-product. Participants receive $50,000 in API credits, early access to unreleased tooling and hands-on mentorship from OpenAI staff. This is the largest OpenAI credit allocation a founder can reach without a VC or accelerator relationship, and it is competitive rather than automatic.

One of the more generous open-model inference programs, with the allocation scaling by which partner refers you. Useful if you are serving Llama, Qwen, DeepSeek or other open weights and want to move off per-token frontier pricing without standing up your own GPUs.

Twelve months of the full ElevenLabs platform — Conversational AI, text-to-speech, speech-to-text, voice cloning, sound design and music — with 33 million characters included, roughly 680 hours of agent usage. Rolling applications, decisions within about a week. Note the branding condition: recipients display the ElevenLabs Grants logo on their site for at least 12 months.