The startup credit programmes, as their pages read on 7 October 2026

All amounts and criteria read from each programme's own page on 7 October 2026. AWS Activate Founders: $1,000, up to $5,000, for self-funded, pre-Series B companies founded in the last 10 years on the Paid Tier plan; AWS Activate Portfolio: up to $200,000, through an Activate Provider (an investor or accelerator), pre-Series B. Microsoft for Startups: up to $150K over time, for a for-profit software company before Series C with under $350K lifetime Azure credits. Google for Startups Cloud: $2,000 pre-funding, up to $350,000 for AI startups, seed to Series A, founded in the last 5 years, under $5K prior credits. Anthropic's startup programme: $1,000 API credits, a year of Claude Team and up to $45K in partner offers, for companies founded in the last 5 years or funded in the last 2. Also: E2B $20,000 one-time plus the Pro tier; Daytona $10K immediately, up to $100K; Scaleway Founders up to 1,000 euros over 12 months and Early Stage 9,000 euros (1,500 a month for 6 months); Cloudflare for Startups $10K, $100K or $350K by tier; Modal unspecified thousands. Programmes change; check before applying.

Decided by. Nobody yet: a candidate for Dinis to read, comment on and decide (keep, rewrite, merge, cut, article first, later, not doing it).

Note. The full table, as the article prints it. E2B, E2B for Startups: $20,000 one-time, plus the Pro tier; under 3 years old, raised under $5M, first-time E2B user, building AI agents; e2b.dev/startups/apply. Daytona, Startup Grid: $10K immediately, up to $100K; eligibility not published, the form asks for funding stage and VC partner; daytona.io/startups. Scaleway, Founders: up to 1,000 euros over 12 months; under 5 years old, under 50 staff, not yet a Scaleway customer; form on the Founders page, startup-program@scaleway.com. Scaleway, Early Stage: 9,000 euros (1,500 euros a month for 6 months); as Founders, with at least 500 euros a month of consumption; form on the Early Stage page. AWS, Activate Founders: $1,000, up to $5,000; self-funded, pre-Series B, founded in the last 10 years, account on the Paid Tier plan; aws.amazon.com/startups. AWS, Activate Portfolio: up to $200,000; through an Activate Provider (an investor or accelerator), pre-Series B; same link, with the provider's Org ID. Microsoft, Microsoft for Startups: up to $150K over time; for-profit software company, before Series C, under $350K lifetime Azure credits; startups.microsoft.com. Google Cloud, Google for Startups Cloud: $2,000 pre-funding; up to $350,000 for AI startups; seed to Series A, founded in the last 5 years, under $5K prior credits; cloud.google.com/startup/apply. Cloudflare, Cloudflare for Startups: $10K, $100K or $350K by tier; by funding tier, first-time applicants, business email; cloudflare.com/lp/startups. Modal, Modal for Startups: unspecified 'thousands' in credits; new to Modal, VC-funded through a partner or over $1M raised; modal.com/startups. Anthropic, Startup programme: $1,000 API credits, a year of Claude Team, up to $45K in partner offers; founded in the last 5 years or funded in the last 2; platform.claude.com/offers/startups-application. Two that look like startup programmes are not, for this purpose: MacStadium's open-source programme (a free Mac mini for unpaid maintainers; a commercial product does not qualify and should not be dressed up as one) and Hetzner's referral credit, which could not be confirmed from an official page on the day. Dinis's gen-zx article calls this 'the only table of startup cloud credits (AWS, Microsoft, Google, Anthropic)'; the table also carries E2B, Daytona, Scaleway, Cloudflare and Modal. The ElevenLabs grants programme (twelve months, 33 million characters, companies under 25 people with a monetised use; characters cannot be exchanged or resold) and AssemblyAI's twelve months of recurring credits are in the-key-is-the-billing-system, read on 12 October 2026, and belong in the same chapter.

Where it comes from

A locked-down desktop for an agent, by the minute, is still hard to rent The programmes that would pay for finding out (the table) (newsroom)

What it answers in the 2018 book

AWS answered outline, MVP for Gen Z Dev

Where it goes

Chapter The credits and programmes, 2026, part Hands on, 2026 (drafting); topic Be a founder (or a one-person service).

Other ideas proposed for the same chapter: Apply only where you meet the criteria, with the page that says what you would do, and publish the results.

Node idea:startup-credits-october-2026 in graph.json; see it in the graph. Source: admin/content/graph/ideas.json.