Baseten AI Startup Program
AI startups get up to $25,000 for Dedicated Deployments or Training credits
What you get from Baseten AI Startup Program for free
Overview
Baseten runs an AI Startup Program offering up to $25,000 in credits for Dedicated Inference or Training and up to $2,500 in credits for Model APIs to eligible AI-first startups. Credits apply across Baseten's inference platform — dedicated GPU deployments for your own models, a training service, and serverless Model APIs for open-weight models like DeepSeek V4.1 Flash, GLM-5.3, Kimi K3, and Qwen3.8-27B.
Credits & Limits
- Up to $25,000 in credits for Dedicated Inference or Training
- Up to $2,500 in credits for Model APIs
- Credit amounts are set per applicant; no cash payout
- No stated expiration date for the program
Additional Benefits
- Support with response times within a few business hours, scaling to shared Slack channels and Zoom calls
- Exclusive networking events with Baseten engineers and founders
- Cross-cloud autoscaling across nodes, clusters, clouds, and regions
- Go-to-market support: launch amplification, consultations, and webinars
How to Apply
- Review the program details on the startup program page.
- Submit your application at baseten.co/talk-to-us/startup-program.
Before you claim
- Startups verification: Confirm your company details (age, funding, or website) to claim.
- Payment card: Not needed.
- Account: Sign up with the provider.
Key limits
- Up to $25,000 for Dedicated Deployments or Training
- Up to $2,500 for Model APIs
- Application review required before credits are granted
Eligibility
- AI-first startup — AI must be core to your primary products or solutions
- Seed to Series A funding stage, with the company started less than 5 years ago
- Net new customers only — you must never have received credits from Baseten before
Not eligible? 3 alternatives open to everyone
This offer is only for startups. These API credit offers have no student, startup, nonprofit or country requirement.
- Alibaba Cloud Model Studio Free Token Quota — About 1M free tokens per model for 90 days on Model Studio (Singapore)alibabacloud.com · Verified · No card
- Context.dev Free Plan — 1,000 free API credits every month for scraping, extraction, and brand dataContext.dev · Verified · No card
- NaraRouter Free Tier — 7M free tokens/day across three models via an OpenAI-compatible API routerrouter.bynara.id · Verified · No card
Check everything you qualify for — five questions, no signup.
Models served free
Limits as the provider publishes them; a dash means none is published.
| Model | Context | RPM | RPD | TPM | Tools | Vision |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DeepSeek V4.1 FlashModel API; tool use platform-wide; limits unpublished | 1,000k | — | — | — | yes | — |
| Kimi K3Model API | 1,000k | — | — | — | yes | — |
| GLM-5.3Model API | — | — | — | — | yes | — |
| GPT OSS 120BModel API | — | — | — | — | yes | — |
History
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Full history with screenshots · How we verified this offer · Sitewide changelog
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