Koyeb free tier: One free web Service, no cash credit

Koyeb’s free tier is resources, not money: one free web Service in Frankfurt or Washington DC with 512MB RAM, 0.1 vCPU, and 2GB SSD, plus one free PostgreSQL database limited to 5 active hours and 1GB. There is no cash signup credit, a credit card is required, and, the part that costs people real money, new signups default to the $29 per month Pro plan and are charged a prorated amount until they downgrade to the Starter plan. Checked against the official pricing page and FAQ on 2026-08-29.

The default-to-Pro trap, first

This is the biggest gotcha in this entry and it deserves the top slot. Signing up puts you on the Pro trial track, and Koyeb charges prorated Pro plan fees until you actively downgrade to the free Starter plan. If you create an account to try the free Service and do not visit the plan settings, you will be billed for a plan you never meant to use. Downgrade to Starter immediately after signup if the free tier is what you came for.

The card requirement

Koyeb’s FAQ is direct: “We require a credit card to prevent fraud and abuse.” The official word here is credit card, not payment method. Expect a $29 pre-authorization hold, account validation that can take up to 3 business days, and a card that must stay on file. Koyeb also has no spending-limits feature, so there is no cap you can set as a backstop.

The $5.50 credit no longer exists

Older posts mention a $5.50 monthly credit on Koyeb. The official FAQ states that credit has been discontinued; it was removed on 1 February 2024. Lists still citing it are out of date. What remains is the free Service and database described above, plus paid plans that bundle usage: Pro at $29 per month includes $10 of compute, Scale at $299 includes $100. A startup program advertises up to $30,000 in credits, by application only.

Koyeb is joining Mistral AI

On 2026-02-17, Koyeb announced it is joining Mistral AI. As of 2026-08-29 the banner sits on top of the official pricing and docs pages, and the announcement does not state any change to the free tier. The pricing FAQ, last updated 2026-05-27, still lists the free Service and free PostgreSQL terms quoted above, while the pricing page itself currently presents only the paid plans (Pro, Scale, Enterprise). So the free allowance survives in the docs but is not being advertised. Terms in an acquisition window can change with little notice, so mind the check date on this page.

No free GPU

Koyeb sells GPU instances, but the free Instance is not one of them. Official GPU rates start at $0.50 per hour for an RTX-4000-SFF-ADA and $0.70 per hour for an L4, billed money, not covered by any free allowance.

What I have done with it

Not tested yet. I have not run the free Service or been through the Pro downgrade flow myself, so this entry reports only what the official pages state.

Choose Koyeb if you want one small always-free service and will downgrade to Starter on day one. If the free PostgreSQL is the part you came for, weigh the 5 active hours against the Supabase free plan, which runs two free Postgres projects and pauses them after a week of inactivity instead of metering active hours. Skip it if you wanted free GPU compute: Modal gives $30 per month of serverless credit, and RunPod is the honest no-credit baseline for GPU rental. If what you actually need is a general VPS allowance, see the DigitalOcean free credits entry or the guide on choosing compute.