Oracle Cloud free trial: US$300

Oracle Cloud gives new accounts in select countries a US$300 trial credit valid for up to 30 days, plus a separate Always Free tier with no time limit. A credit card is required for identity verification and is not charged unless you upgrade; prepaid, virtual, and single-use cards are not accepted. Unused trial credit expires on day 30. All figures come from Oracle’s official Free Tier pages, checked on 2026-08-29.

Two separate programs

The $300 is a time-boxed trial. The Always Free tier is a different program that survives after the trial ends, and it is the reason Oracle’s free tier gets discussed at all. Always Free includes two AMD micro VMs, Ampere A1 Arm compute capped at no more than 2 OCPUs and 12 GB of memory in total across all A1 instances in the tenancy, 200 GB of block storage, two Autonomous Databases, and more. Popular guides still describe the Arm allowance as 4 OCPUs and 24 GB; the docs page states the lower total cap as of 2026-08-29. Even at 2 OCPUs and 12 GB, that Arm allowance is enough for a real always-on service, which no other hyperscaler matches at $0.

GPU status

Always Free has no GPU. For the trial, the FAQ says the credit applies to “any eligible OCI service”; GPU is not listed as included or excluded, and capacity limits apply. So I will not claim the $300 buys GPU time. Compare Azure, where the docs actively zero out GPU quota on trial, and Google Cloud, where GPUs require upgrading to paid first.

The fine print that bites

One account per person. Your home region is chosen at signup and is permanent, so pick where the capacity is before you commit; the docs state Always Free A1 instances can only be created in the home region. “Out of host capacity” errors are a common practical obstacle when launching Always Free shapes. The Free Tier carries no SLA, and idle Always Free compute instances can be reclaimed by Oracle. The docs add a harder rule on the Arm cap: provision more A1 than the Always Free allowance and all existing A1 instances are disabled, then deleted after 30 days, unless you upgrade to a paid account. After the trial ends there is a 30 day grace period before cleanup.

Payment wording

Oracle asks for a credit card specifically, for identity verification, and states you are not charged unless you upgrade to paid. The exclusion of prepaid, virtual, and single-use cards is official, so plan on a real card.

What I have done with it

Not tested yet. This page reports only what the official pages state.

Choose Oracle if you want a permanent $0 Arm box; skip it if your work needs GPUs or an SLA. For the other hyperscaler trials, see the AWS Free Tier credits and Azure free credits, or read how to choose between a VPS, GPU cloud, serverless, or a sandbox. Every grant I track is on the credits index.