$5 doesn’t sound like much, but for SambaNova it can be a lot of tokens. New accounts get $5 in free credits (good for about 3 months), plus a rate-limited Free Tier you can keep using without paying.
If you’re searching for SambaNova free credits because you’re testing DeepSeek R1, swapping providers in an OpenAI-compatible codebase, or benchmarking inference speed for an app, this program is a clean way to start. It’s also friendly for students and researchers who just need “some” access, not an enterprise contract.
Below: eligibility, the exact signup steps, what the credits cover (models and limits), the catches, and a few practical ways to stretch the $5.
Program at a Glance
| Provider | SambaNova |
| Credit Amount | $5 free credit + ongoing rate-limited Free Tier |
| Duration | $5 expires after 3 months; Free Tier continues |
| Eligibility | New accounts; no payment method required for Free Tier |
| Credit Card Required? | No (required only to upgrade to Developer Tier) |
| Difficulty | Easy. Instant signup and credits auto-apply. |
| Best For | Model evaluation, prototyping, OpenAI-compatible integrations |
| Official Page | SambaNova Program Page |
What You Actually Get
SambaNova Cloud gives you free API access to a roster of open-source models, including DeepSeek R1, DeepSeek V3, Llama 4 Maverick, Qwen 3, and others. The API is OpenAI-compatible, so you can use standard OpenAI client libraries by setting base_url to https://api.sambanova.ai/v1. When you create a new account, SambaNova automatically applies $5 in free credits that expire after 3 months. After those credits are gone (or expire), you can still call the API on a rate-limited Free Tier with no payment method required.
In practical terms, the $5 credit can be a real evaluation budget. SambaNova states it’s over 30 million tokens on Llama 8B, or roughly 70,000 tokens on DeepSeek-R1-0528. That’s enough for “does this model work for my use case?” testing, latency benchmarks, and building a small prototype you can demo internally.
Who Qualifies (and Who Doesn’t)
Eligibility is refreshingly simple: create a SambaNova Cloud account and the free credit is automatically applied. You do not need to add a credit card to use the Free Tier, and you can stay on the Free Tier after the $5 credit runs out.
- You need a SambaNova Cloud account created at cloud.sambanova.ai.
- No payment method is required for the Free Tier, which also means no surprise charges.
- If you want Developer Tier limits, you must link a payment method (credit card) to upgrade.
- You can create up to 25 API keys per account, which matters for teams and environments.
If you’re expecting “production-grade free usage,” the Free Tier daily caps will likely disqualify you in practice. Also, preview models are explicitly not safe to rely on for production workloads.
How to Sign Up
Registration takes about 5 minutes if you already know where the API keys live.
- Go to cloud.sambanova.ai.
- Click “Get Started” or “Sign Up”.
- Create an account (email signup or SSO).
- Once logged in, navigate to the API Keys page at cloud.sambanova.ai/apis.
- Click “Create New Key” and save it immediately, because keys cannot be viewed again after creation.
- Set the environment variable
SAMBANOVA_API_KEYor pass it directly in your API calls. - Use the base URL
https://api.sambanova.ai/v1(compatible with OpenAI client libraries).
The $5 credit is automatically applied to your account after signup. If you stay on the Free Tier (no payment method linked), you will simply be rate-limited after the credit is gone.
What the Credits Cover
The $5 credit applies to SambaNova’s Developer Tier usage (pay-as-you-go rates) and is included even if you link a payment method. If you never add a payment method, you can still use the rate-limited Free Tier for ongoing evaluation with the same API and model catalog, just with much tighter caps.
| Service / Feature | What It Does | Included? |
|---|---|---|
| Chat / text models | General chat and instruction following (DeepSeek V3, Llama). | ✓ |
| Reasoning models | Math/code reasoning (DeepSeek-R1 variants). | ✓ |
| Embeddings | Text embeddings via E5-Mistral-7B-Instruct. | ✓ |
| Audio transcription | Speech-to-text via Whisper-Large-v3. | ✓ |
Notable exclusions: “Preview” models have limited capacity and may be removed without notice, so don’t build anything mission-critical on them. Also, the Free Tier is intentionally not practical for production use because of the daily caps.
Limitations to Know About
Every free program has catches. With SambaNova Cloud, the big one is that the Free Tier is for evaluation, not for running a real app.
- The Free Tier caps you at 40 requests per day across all models, which limits any “always on” workload.
- The Free Tier also caps tokens at 200,000 tokens per day across all models.
- RPM varies by model (about 10–40), but the daily caps are usually what you hit first.
- Preview models are experimental, may have limited capacity, and can disappear at short notice.
When credits run out, what happens depends on whether you linked a payment method. On the Free Tier (no payment method), you won’t be charged and you just stay rate-limited. On the Developer Tier (payment method linked), usage beyond the $5 credit becomes billable pay-as-you-go, so set spending alerts if they’re available in your billing setup.
Have Unused SambaNova Credits?
Credits expire. And teams often end up with small leftover balances (or larger allocations from programs and contracts) that never get used before the deadline. If you have SambaNova credits you’re not going to burn through, selling them is better than watching them turn into $0. AI Credit Mart lets you list unused credits so another builder can use them at a discount.
Need More SambaNova Credits?
Once your $5 is gone, you can keep using the Free Tier, but the daily caps make it slow going. If you’re ready to run higher limits without paying full price, AI Credit Mart is a practical next step. Buyers typically find discounted SambaNova credits listed by teams with surplus, often running about 30–70% below retail.
Tips for Getting the Most Out of Your Credits
- Start on the Free Tier first if you only need quick evaluation, because without a payment method you will never be charged.
- Use the $5 credit on the Developer Tier when you need real throughput; SambaNova notes Llama 8B jumps from 40 to 1,440 RPM after upgrading.
- Save API keys immediately after creation, since you cannot view them again later.
- Don’t rely on Preview models (like Llama 4 Maverick, gpt-oss-120b, Qwen3) for production features, because they may be removed without notice.
- Track rate limit headers like
X-RateLimit-Remainingso you can back off before you start getting throttled.
Frequently Asked Questions
New accounts get $5 in free credits that expire after 3 months. SambaNova estimates that’s over 30 million tokens on Llama 8B, or roughly 70,000 tokens on DeepSeek-R1-0528 (a much more expensive model). In other words, it’s plenty for evaluation, a prototype, and speed benchmarking. It is not enough to run a production workload for long, especially on higher-priced reasoning models.
No.
The $5 credit expires after 3 months, but you can continue on the rate-limited Free Tier after that.
Yes. If you have SambaNova credits you won’t use before they expire, you can list them on AI Credit Mart and sell them at up to 70% of face value. Companies regularly list surplus credits from startup programs and enterprise agreements.
AI Credit Mart has discounted SambaNova credits available from companies with surplus allocations. Prices are typically 30-70% below retail.
On the Free Tier (no payment method), you just remain rate-limited and won’t be charged. If you linked a payment method and are on the Developer Tier, usage beyond the $5 credit becomes pay-as-you-go billable.
The Free Tier caps you at 40 requests per day and 200,000 tokens per day across all models, with per-model RPM typically around 10–40.
Honestly, no. SambaNova notes preview models have limited capacity and may be removed at short notice, so treat them as experimental only.
$5 in free credits plus a no-card Free Tier makes SambaNova Cloud a low-friction way to test fast inference on popular open models. Sign up, benchmark what you care about, and upgrade only if the limits are holding you back.
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