Guides / Starter stack
$0 AI builder starter stack (October 2026)
A starter stack for shipping a first AI app for $0, with the limit that bites first on each free tier. Every entry is taken from the official pricing page as listed on this site; pricing changes often, so confirm on the vendor's site before you depend on any of it.
29 listings · facts checked on official pages, latest 2026-10-26. Plans change; confirm on the vendor's site.
01LLM APIs
- Google AI StudioFree input and output tokens for some Gemini models plus Google AI Studio access.Catch: Free-tier content is used to improve Google products; newest models such as Gemini 4 Argon are not available.
- GroqFree API plan with per-model rate limits (for example 30 requests a minute and 1,000 a day on gpt-oss-120b).Catch: Low per-model rate limits.
- OpenRouter25+ free models from 4 free providers via chat and API, with activity logs.Catch: Capped at 50 requests a day, with no budgets, spend controls or prompt caching on Free.
- Cloudflare Workers AI10,000 Neurons per day at no charge.Catch: Requests fail with an error past the daily cap (resets 00:00 UTC); some models need a paid billing method.
- NVIDIA NIMFree NIM API endpoints for prototyping, plus self-hosting NIM on up to 16 GPUs for development.Catch: Not for production use; production requires an NVIDIA AI Enterprise license (from $4,500 per GPU per year). Some free model endpoints are deprecated at short notice (for example GLM 5.3 after October 28, 2026), so check the model's page.
- CohereFree API calls with a Trial API key.Catch: Trial keys are rate limited and may not be used for production or commercial purposes.
02Coding assistants
- GitHub CopilotEntry-level models (auto model selection), 2,000 code completions a month, limited chat and agent mode, and Copilot CLI.Catch: Chat and agent use draw on a small GitHub AI Credits allowance. More use needs Pro ($10/month); frontier models need Pro+ ($39/month) or Max ($100/month).
- Jules15 coding tasks per rolling 24 hours, up to 3 at once, on Gemini 2.5 Pro.Catch: Newer models (starting with Gemini 3 Pro) and higher task limits come with Google AI Pro or Ultra.
- Google AntigravityAccess to a variety of agent models, unlimited Tab completions and Command requests.Catch: Basic weekly rate limits. Claude Sonnet 4.6, Claude Opus 4.6 and GPT-OSS-120b leave the Free tier on November 2, 2026; Gemini 3.8 Flash stays.
- v0$5 in one-time credits for new users, deploys to Vercel, Design Mode and GitHub sync.Catch: The $5 credit is one-time, not monthly, and Free is capped at 7 messages a day.
- ClineThe open-source Cline VS Code extension and CLI, MCP Marketplace, community support.Catch: Free software, but you pay your own model inference costs.
- AiderTerminal coding agent that maps your codebase, auto-commits to git, and works with cloud or local LLMs.Catch: No hosted plan; you pay your own model API costs unless you run a local model.
- ZedThe Zed code editor, free forever, with unlimited AI use through your own API keys or external agents like Claude Agent and Codex CLI.Catch: Zed-hosted models and unlimited edit predictions are on Pro ($10/month); on Free, AI runs on your own keys (billed by your provider) or local models.
03Hosting and backend
- Cloudflare WorkersLimited usage of Workers, Pages Functions, Workers KV and Hyperdrive.Catch: Durable Objects and higher limits need the $5/month Paid plan.
- Cloudflare PagesSite hosting with 500 builds a month, up to 20,000 files per site and 25 MiB per file.Catch: Builds run one at a time on Free and time out after 20 minutes.
- VercelHobby: deploy from Git with CI/CD, CDN, firewall, DDoS mitigation and fluid compute.Catch: Hobby is for personal, non-commercial use only.
- Render750 free instance hours a month for web services, plus a free Postgres database with 1 GB of storage.Catch: Free web services spin down after 15 minutes without traffic, and free Postgres databases expire 30 days after creation.
- SupabaseUnlimited API requests, 50,000 MAU, 500 MB database, 5 GB egress, 1 GB file storage.Catch: Projects pause after 1 week of inactivity; limit of 2 active projects.
- Cloudflare D15 million rows read and 100,000 rows written a day, with 5 GB of total storage, on the Workers Free plan.Catch: Limits reset daily at 00:00 UTC; once you hit them, queries fail until the reset.
- Oracle Cloud Always FreeAlways Free Arm compute equal to 2 OCPUs and 12 GB of memory, AMD micro VMs, an Autonomous AI Database, 200 GB of block storage and 10 TB a month of outbound data.Catch: Oracle places temporary authorization holds on the card (no charges), Always Free instances must be in your home region, and Oracle notes you may hit out-of-host-capacity errors.
04Images, video and voice
- Recraft3 generations per style a day, 3 image uploads a day, up to 2 images per generation, basic editing tools and custom styles.Catch: Personal use only: all free images are public, commercial use isn't allowed and only Recraft models are available.
- Leonardo.ai150 fast tokens a day for image and video generation, 1 personal collection.Catch: Free creations are public and Leonardo can use, reproduce and distribute them (you get a non-exclusive commercial licence); basic quality settings only.
- Google Flow50 Google Flow credits a day without a subscription, for video and image generation and the Google Flow Agent.Catch: Unused credits don't roll over, and during peak hours (roughly 2 PM to 5 PM UTC) non-subscribers may not be able to generate video.
- Runway125 one-time credits, a selection of generative models, 5 GB asset storage.Catch: Credits are one-time and do not renew.
- ElevenLabs10,000 credits a month for text to speech, speech to text, sound effects and more; 3 Studio projects.Catch: No commercial license on Free (it starts on the Starter plan); unused credits do not roll over.
- Suno50 credits a day on free models, standard features, upload up to 8 minutes of audio.Catch: No commercial rights and a shared queue; downloads are capped at 7 lifetime trial downloads for personal, non-commercial use.
05Time-limited offers and credits
- DeepSeek Ends: 2026-10-31 16:00 UTC (billing starts Nov 1, 2026, 00:00 Beijing time)Free Search and Fetch tool calls (normally $0.75 per 1,000 successful requests each) when the DeepSeek API is used through DeepSeek Harness, Claude Code or Codex.Catch: Only the Search and Fetch calls are free; model tokens are billed as usual, and the offer ends at 00:00 Beijing time on November 1, 2026 (16:00 UTC on October 31).
- Cloudflare for StartupsUp to $350,000 in credits for a year; entry tier is $10,000, plus core security features free.Catch: Approval needed; higher tiers need more funding.
- Google for Startups Cloud$2,000 in credits for pre-funded startups; $200,000 to $350,000 for funded startups, over two years.Catch: Approval needed.
Patterns to watch
- "Free" often means non-commercialVercel, ElevenLabs, Suno, Recraft. Check the license before you launch something paid.
- One-time credits look like monthly onesRunway, v0, Voyage AI. A one-time allotment runs out and does not renew.
- Inactivity pauses stop side projects quietlySupabase, Appwrite, Render. Idle projects pause or spin down; free databases can expire.