Together AI — Together AI for Startups
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.
What you need to qualify
- Early-stage startup running inference or fine-tuning on open models
- Larger tiers depend on partner referral
Before you submit
- Company domain email, not a personal address
- Live public website that describes a product, not a coming-soon page
- Company profile findable on LinkedIn, X or GitHub
- Incorporation documents and funding evidence to hand
- Confirm the company has not claimed credits from this program before, under any entity
Other programs in this category
Three tiers. Start gives bootstrapped teams up to $2,000 in Google Cloud and Firebase credits, self-serve. Scale covers 100% of usage up to $100,000 in year one plus 20% of usage up to another $100,000 in year two. The AI-First tier adds up to $150,000 on top of Scale, reaching $350,000 total for teams whose core technology is AI.
The largest cloud credit program by ceiling. A small self-serve tier is open to any incorporated startup with a live product, while the six-figure tiers are routed through Activate Providers — accelerators, incubators, VCs and startup-friendly banks. Credits are redeemable on third-party models through Amazon Bedrock, and AWS lists additional credits for AI startups ready to scale.
Credits can be used across Azure, GitHub and other eligible Microsoft platforms, with the top of the range reserved for VC-backed companies coming in through Microsoft's investor network. The entry tier is genuinely self-serve and needs no funding, which makes this one of the few six-figure programs with a real bootstrapped on-ramp. The program also includes access to AI models and go-to-market support.