Free for Students 2026: Verified AI Tools and Dev Credits

Name: GENZ TECH Free for Students
Creator: GENZ TECH
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

the move

As of 2026-10-16, the single best first move for a student is still the GitHub Student Developer Pack — it's genuinely free, verifies via uploaded documents (no institutional email required, which matters for Indian colleges), and bundles free Copilot, the full JetBrains IDE lineup, Azure/MongoDB credits, a free year of 1Password, and dozens more. Figma, Framer, and JetBrains also hand out real free tiers with no institution-side gatekeeping.

Watch for discount-vs-free confusion: Microsoft 365 (50% off), Le Chat (60% off), and Replit (50% off) are paid plans at a reduced price, not free access, and several once-free perks have lapsed outright: Cursor's free year of Pro and DigitalOcean's $200 GitHub Pack credit, which was retroactively killed — it expired every Pack credit on August 1, 2026, including balances already redeemed months earlier on a stated 12-month term.

Read "free for a year" in this list as free until the vendor changes its mind, and the newest example is the opposite case: Google quietly relaunched a free-year AI offer on 2026-08-19, after having killed the old one in late 2025.

It now splits by region — US students get a free year of Google AI Pro (renewing at $19.99/mo), and students in 140+ other markets (not Canada, and a handful of others) get a free year of the cheaper Google AI Plus tier (renewing around $4.99/mo or local equivalent) — both require a card on file and both must be redeemed by December 31, 2026.

Verification is the other India-specific snag: Notion and Le Chat require an institutional email domain most Indian colleges don't issue with no document fallback, while GitHub, JetBrains, and Framer accept uploaded student ID or enrollment paperwork instead. Two rows were added in the 2026-08-23 check after their vendor pages became reachable again: Canva for Campus and ChatGPT Edu.

Neither is a self-serve individual discount — both are institution-level programs an individual student cannot unlock alone, the same shape as Claude for Education and GitLab for Education, so they're listed as "check with your school" rather than a real free tier. Perplexity Pro for Students remains needs-recheck: the vendor's own page still states a student discount exists without ever publishing its size or resulting price before signup.

Adobe Creative Cloud Pro for Students remains a discount, not free: 71% off year one (US$19.99/mo, then US$39.99/mo), and Autodesk and Unity remain genuinely free one-year educational licences for their respective catalogues.

show moreshow less

what changed in 2026

Aug 19, 2026 Google AI Pro/Plus for Students (Gemini): Relaunched a free-year student AI plan, replacing the version that ended in September 2025: a free year of Google AI Pro for US students and of Google AI Plus in most other markets. A card is required, and it must be redeemed by December 31, 2026.
Aug 1, 2026 DigitalOcean credit via GitHub Student Developer Pack: Left the GitHub Student Developer Pack. Redemption closed July 31, 2026, and every Pack credit expired August 1, 2026, including credits already redeemed on a 12-month term.
Jun 25, 2026 Cursor for Students: The free year of Cursor Pro for verified students closed to new sign-ups. Students who already redeemed it keep their rate until it expires.
Jun 17, 2026 GitHub Copilot Student plan (via GitHub Student Developer Pack): New Copilot Student sign-ups, paused since April 20, 2026, reopened. Students who had already activated the benefit were not affected by the pause.
Jun 2, 2026 Windsurf student discount (now Devin Desktop): Windsurf was rebranded to Devin Desktop. Its student page now redirects to Devin Desktop pricing, which has no student or education tier.

the offers

#	Offer	Category	Value	Eligibility	India note	Official
1	Codex Credits for Students ($100, US and Canada)OpenAI	AI Models & Assistants	free	Current students at degree-granting universities in the United States or Canada who also live in the US or Canada when claiming, verified through…	Not available in India: the offer is limited to students enrolled and living in the US or Canada.	↗ visit
2	Claude for EducationAnthropic	AI Models & Assistants	see terms	Must attend/work at a partner university; sign in to claude.ai with your school email to be auto-upgraded. Unaffiliated students must get their…	Access depends entirely on whether a specific Indian college has signed a Claude for Education agreement — there is no SheerID-style individual self-verification route…	↗ visit
3	Microsoft 365 Personal Student Discount (with Copilot)Microsoft	AI Models & Assistants	discount	Full-time or part-time enrollment at an accredited college/university; verify via school email, enrollment details, school account, ISIC card…	The flexible, document-based verification options (student ID, class schedule, acceptance letter) are usable by Indian students even without an institutional email…	↗ visit
4	Le Chat Education PlanMistral AI	AI Models & Assistants	discount	Must verify with an institutional (school-issued) email address at an accredited higher-education institution; must not have previously used Le…	Mistral's own help article explicitly states that documents (student ID, enrollment certificate, confirmation/acceptance letter) are 'not accepted as a substitute' for…	↗ visit
5	Google AI Pro/Plus for Students (Gemini)Google	AI Models & Assistants	free	University students aged 18+ in an eligible market, verified annually. Excluded markets as of this check: the US gets the Pro variant instead of…	India is not on the excluded-market list, so Indian students qualify for the free year of Google AI Plus; the India-localized version of the page quoted a post-trial…	↗ visit
6	Perplexity Pro for StudentsPerplexity AI	AI Models & Assistants	discount	Sign in or sign up with any email address, then verify student status inside the product. Notably the sign-in step does not itself demand an…	Promising for Indian students on the verification route, because sign-up accepts any email address rather than requiring an institutional domain, which is the usual…	↗ visit
7	ChatGPT Plus for Students (4 months free, US)OpenAI	AI Models & Assistants	free	Current full-time or part-time students at eligible U.S. degree-granting institutions, verified by SheerID (enrollment records, school SSO or…	Not available in India: the offer is limited to students at eligible U.S. institutions.	↗ visit
8	ChatGPT EduOpenAI	AI Models & Assistants	see terms	Only available if a student's university has separately contracted with OpenAI for a campus-wide ChatGPT Edu deployment; individual students cannot…	Not applicable to individual verification — this is an institution-level enterprise sale, not a program an Indian student (or any student) can join on their own. Ask…	↗ visit
9	GitHub Student Developer PackGitHub (Microsoft)	Cloud & APIs	free	Enrolled in a degree- or diploma-granting course of study, age 13+, own a GitHub personal account. Verify via school-issued email OR uploaded proof…	Works for Indian college students. Most Indian colleges don't issue .edu-style emails, but GitHub explicitly supports manual verification via uploaded documents (student…	↗ visit
10	Microsoft Azure for StudentsMicrosoft	Cloud & APIs	free	Full-time university student, verified via school-issued email address recognized by Microsoft.	Works for many Indian students but is gated on Microsoft recognizing the student's college email domain — Microsoft does not publish a public list of eligible Indian…	↗ visit
11	DigitalOcean credit via GitHub Student Developer PackDigitalOcean (via GitHub Education)	Cloud & APIs	expired / none	No longer obtainable. Previously required an active GitHub Student Developer Pack verification.	Dead as of 2026-08-17, kept on the list so students who budgeted around it are not left guessing. Indian students who redeemed this earlier in 2026 lost the remaining…	↗ visit
12	MongoDB Atlas credit via GitHub Student Developer PackMongoDB	Cloud & APIs	free	GitHub Student Developer Pack verification, then separately verify student status at mongodb.com/students by entering GitHub info.	Same GitHub Education verification path as the main pack applies (document upload accepted for Indian colleges); redeeming the Atlas credit itself requires adding a…	↗ visit
13	Heroku credit via GitHub Student Developer PackHeroku (Salesforce)	Cloud & APIs	free	Must be verified for the GitHub Student Developer Pack and be 18 or older; sign up for a Heroku account, then apply through the Heroku for GitHub…	Same GitHub Education verification path as the main pack (document upload accepted at Indian colleges without an .edu-style email). The 18+ requirement is Heroku's own…	↗ visit
14	AWS EducateAmazon Web Services	Cloud & APIs	free	Open to anyone 13+ worldwide with just an email address — no school verification required for the free labs.	Fully open to Indian students — registration only requires an email address, no institutional or geographic restriction found on the official page. However, expect…	↗ visit
15	Google Cloud for Education — Teaching & Learning CreditsGoogle Cloud	Cloud & APIs	see terms	Institution must be an accredited, regionally-recognized, non-profit, degree-granting higher-ed institution in an eligible country; student must be…	Confirmed directly on Google's own eligibility page that India is on the list of eligible countries for this program. That said, it remains faculty-gated — an individual…	↗ visit
16	Vercel v0 for StudentsVercel	Cloud & APIs	see terms	Must attend one of roughly 15 listed partner universities (e.g., Stanford, Harvard, Princeton, UC Berkeley, MIT, NYU, Northwestern, Cornell, USC…	Does NOT currently work for Indian college students — this is not a general program, it is restricted to a small named whitelist of mostly US/Canadian universities, none…	↗ visit
17	Netlify for StudentsNetlify	Cloud & APIs	expired / none	N/A (no dedicated program to be eligible for).	Not applicable — there's no distinct student program currently to check India-specific eligibility against. Older forum/community claims that Netlify gave a free…	↗ visit
18	JetBrains Student Pack (All Products Pack + AI Pro trial)JetBrains s.r.o.	Dev Tools & IDEs	free	Full-time student enrolled in an accredited program lasting one year or more.	Verify with a university/college email address, an ISIC/ITIC card, or an active GitHub Student Developer Pack — no credit card needed. If an Indian college's email…	↗ visit
19	GitHub Copilot Student plan (via GitHub Student Developer Pack)GitHub (Microsoft)	Dev Tools & IDEs	free	Same as the GitHub Student Developer Pack: age 13+, enrolled in a degree- or diploma-granting course of study, verified via school-issued email…	Same GitHub Education verification path as the main pack applies, manual document upload is accepted for Indian colleges without institutional email addresses. Existing…	↗ visit
20	GitLab for EducationGitLab Inc.	Dev Tools & IDEs	see terms	Institution must be accredited, primarily focused on teaching enrolled students, credential-granting, and not-for-profit. Application is made by…	This is granted at the institution level, not to individual students, so an Indian student cannot self-verify with a personal college email the way they can for…	↗ visit
21	Replit for StudentsReplit, Inc.	Dev Tools & IDEs	discount	Sign up / verify with a school-issued '.edu' email address; discount auto-applies once the account email is recognized as academic.	The official page explicitly asks for a '.edu' email, which is the US convention — most Indian institutions use domains like .ac.in or custom institutional domains. It's…	↗ visit
22	Termius Pro + Team via GitHub Student Developer PackTermius	Dev Tools & IDEs	free	Anyone with an active GitHub Student Developer Pack; link your GitHub account to Termius to unlock it.	Rides on the GitHub Student Developer Pack, which verifies with uploaded student ID or enrollment documents rather than an institutional email, so it is fully usable…	↗ visit
23	Cursor for StudentsAnysphere, Inc. (Cursor)	Dev Tools & IDEs	expired / none	Free tier: open to everyone, no verification. Campus-event credits: tied to attending/being near a Cursor campus event or submitting the…	The free Hobby tier works globally, including India, with zero verification. Since the old .edu-verified free-year program is closed, Indian students no longer have a…	↗ visit
24	Windsurf student discount (now Devin Desktop)Cognition AI	Dev Tools & IDEs	expired / none	N/A — no program currently exists to apply eligibility criteria to.	Not applicable — there is nothing to verify against right now. Devin Desktop's general Free tier remains open to anyone worldwide, including India, without student…	↗ visit
25	Warp terminal student/education discountWarp.dev, Inc.	Dev Tools & IDEs	expired / none	N/A — nothing to be eligible for.	Not applicable — there is no program to check eligibility against. Warp's Free tier is globally available, including India, with no student verification required or…	↗ visit
26	1Password credit via GitHub Student Developer Pack1Password (via GitHub Education)	Dev Tools & IDEs	free	Requires an active, verified GitHub Student Developer Pack account; redeemed as one of the Pack's partner offers rather than through a separate…	Uses the same GitHub Education verification as the rest of the Pack (school email or uploaded proof of enrollment), so the same document-upload fallback that works for…	↗ visit
27	Miro Education Plan (students and educators)Miro (RealtimeBoard, Inc.)	Design & Productivity	free	Students and educators apply through the Apply as student / Apply as educator form on the education page; Miro does not state on that page which…	Verification is a manual application form rather than a fixed .edu-domain check, so Indian students without an institutional email are not automatically excluded; the…	↗ visit
28	Figma EducationFigma, Inc.	Design & Productivity	free	Currently enrolled college/university student, higher-ed educator, or bootcamp participant (Professional tier); or K-12 student/teacher (Education…	Figma's own help article (help.figma.com) states the program is 'only available in select regions and may not be accessible everywhere' without naming which regions — it…	↗ visit
29	Framer for EducationFramer B.V.	Design & Productivity	free	Must be enrolled in a certified in-person or online educational program (high school, college, or university). Offer applies to new Framer customers…	Framer's page doesn't name a verification vendor (e.g., SheerID) or list excluded countries — it describes enrollment proof reviewed manually within about 5 business…	↗ visit
30	Notion for EducationNotion Labs, Inc.	Design & Productivity	free	Must sign in to Notion using an email address issued by an institution that is listed in the World Higher Education Database (WHED). Personal email…	Eligibility hinges entirely on having an official institutional email address matched against the WHED list — there is no ID-upload fallback. Many Indian…	↗ visit
31	Adobe Creative Cloud Pro for StudentsAdobe	Design & Productivity	discount	Students and teachers, verified through Adobe's own 'Check eligibility' flow. Billed as an annual plan paid monthly. The headline price applies to…	The US$19.99/mo figure is the US storefront. Adobe localises Creative Cloud pricing, so Indian students are quoted INR on the .in storefront and both the rupee price and…	↗ visit
32	Canva for CampusCanva	Design & Productivity	see terms	University/college students get Canva Free automatically; Pro-tier 'Canva for Campus' access requires the student's institution to have a Canva for…	No individual verification path exists to check against — eligibility hinges entirely on whether a specific Indian college or university has set up Canva for Campus, not…	↗ visit
33	Otter.ai Pro student and teacher discountOtter.ai	Design & Productivity	discount	Individual students and teachers with an email address ending in .edu. No SheerID or document-upload route is described.	Eligibility is tied strictly to a .edu email address, which almost no Indian college issues (Indian institutions use .ac.in, .edu.in or .in domains), so this discount is…	↗ visit
34	Lovable for StudentsLovable	AI Coding Tools	discount	Students at most accredited universities worldwide, verified either by logging in with a university email or by submitting a student ID; teachers at…	The student-ID upload route means Indian students whose college does not issue an institutional email can still qualify; the page says most accredited universities…	↗ visit
35	Autodesk Education (AutoCAD, Fusion, Revit, Inventor)Autodesk	Design & Creative	free	Students, educators and school IT admins at an accredited educational institution. You pick a product first, then run Autodesk’s eligibility…	Autodesk runs eligibility confirmation through its own verification flow rather than requiring an institutional email domain, which is the usual blocker for Indian…	↗ visit
36	Unity Student PlanUnity	Game Development	free	Students aged 16 and older enrolled at an accredited educational institution who can consent to their personal information being collected and…	The stated eligibility is enrolment at an accredited institution plus the age-16 floor, with no institutional-email requirement written into the eligibility text, so…	↗ visit

how to read this

free means the vendor's own page confirms $0 cost for verified students. discount means a paid plan at a reduced price — real value, but not free, and easy to mistake for one when a headline just says "for students." expired / none means the promo has lapsed or no dedicated student program currently exists, kept here so you stop looking for it. The India note on each row exists because verification method — institutional email vs. an uploaded student ID or enrollment letter — is the single biggest reason an otherwise-real offer turns out to be unreachable for a given student.

cite & embed

Every row is checked directly against the vendor's own page, not aggregated from other roundups — this is a curated, verified list, not an exhaustive one. Raw data: JSON · CSV. Embedding this live table adds it to your site and credits GENZ TECH.

CiteGENZ TECH. (2026). Free for Students. https://genztech.blog/free-for-students/

Embed

<iframe src="https://genztech.blog/free-for-students/embed/" width="100%" height="470" loading="lazy" title="Free for Students by GENZ TECH" style="border:1px solid #26282b;border-radius:10px;max-width:560px"></iframe>

quick answers

What's the single best free tool for students right now?

GitHub Student Developer Pack — Free bundle of 85+ partner developer tools/services for verified students, refreshed continuously. Currently-listed partners most relevant to cloud/APIs include Microsoft Azure ($100 credit + 25+ free services, plus a separate 13-17 age variant), MongoDB Atlas ($50 credit + free certification), Namecheap (.me domain + SSL), .TECH (free domain), JetBrains (free IDE subscription), Heroku, Notion, GitHub Codespaces/Pro, Datadog, Sentry, BrowserStack, and dozens more. It verifies via an uploaded student ID or enrollment letter as well as a school email, which matters for Indian students whose college doesn't issue one.

Which of these are actually free, and which are just a discount?

Microsoft 365 Personal Student Discount (with Copilot) (50% discount ($4.99/month), not free — includes Copilot in Office apps); Le Chat Education Plan ($5.99/mo for verified students, normally $14.99/mo, for up to 12 months); Perplexity Pro for Students (Discounted Pro at $10/month for verified students); Replit for Students (50% off Replit Core with a .edu email; the page no longer prints the resulting dollar price); Lovable for Students (50% off Lovable Pro (100 credits/mo) or $12.50/mo off other plans, for up to 12 months. A discount, not free.); Adobe Creative Cloud Pro for Students (71% off year one: US$19.99/mo, then US$39.99/mo (list US$69.99/mo)); Otter.ai Pro student and teacher discount (20% off Otter Pro: $6.67/mo billed $79.99 annually, or $13.59/mo monthly. Not free.) are paid plans at a reduced price, not free access — don't confuse a discount for free. Everything else on this list marked "free" in the Value column has been confirmed as $0 on the vendor's own page.

Which of these work without an official college email address (India-specific)?

GitHub Student Developer Pack and JetBrains Student Pack both accept an uploaded student ID or enrollment letter as an alternative to an institutional email, which matters for Indian colleges that don't issue one. Notion for Education and Le Chat Education Plan go the other way — both require a verified institutional email with no document-upload fallback, so they may be unreachable for students at colleges that don't issue one.

How is this list verified?

Every entry is checked directly against the vendor's own official page before being added — dated, and only marked "confirmed" once we could load that page ourselves; anything we couldn't verify is excluded rather than guessed at. Terms change fast, so eligibility and value can drift between our check date (Oct 16, 2026) and when you claim it — always confirm on the vendor's own page (linked from each row) before signing up.

// maintained by GENZ TECH — student perks, verified