RunPod Startup Program

Overview

The RunPod Startup Program offers GPU cloud credits to AI startups through two tracks. The Starter tier provides $1,000 in free credits with self-serve onboarding. The Growth tier is not a free offer: it requires a $50,000 upfront commitment and adds $25,000 in bonus credits, for $75,000 of total spending power under a 12-month agreement.

Free Credits (Starter)

• $1,000 in credits with no upfront cost and self-serve onboarding.
• Aimed at pre-Series A startups with a working product and near-term GPU needs, and primarily for new RunPod customers.
• Credits are one-time; there is no reload.
• Usable across Pods, Serverless, Instant Clusters, Public Endpoints, and Storage.
• No GPU-type restrictions are listed.

What Credits Cover

Credits apply to RunPod's full platform: on-demand GPU Pods on Secure and Community Cloud with per-second billing, auto-scaling Serverless endpoints for inference, multi-node Instant Clusters for distributed training, and network volumes plus S3-compatible object storage. Available GPUs include H100, H200, A100 80GB, L40S, RTX 6000 Ada, RTX 4090, and AMD MI300X.

Eligibility and Applying

RunPod reviews applications holistically and prefers venture-backed teams; it is primarily designed for new customers. Existing customers and bootstrapped or pre-product teams are directed to standard pay-as-you-go access instead.

How to Get Started

1. Apply at runpod.io/startup-program with company details, funding stage, investors, team, and workload description.
2. Select the Starter or Growth tier on the form.
3. If accepted for Starter, the $1,000 credit is applied to your account and you can deploy immediately.