UpCloud free trial: $500 / €500 for 30 days

As of 2026-09-02, the boost500 promotion is no longer shown on the default signup page: visiting signup.upcloud.com offers the 7-day standard trial and a “Have a promo code?” field. The boost500 code itself still works. Activating it shows “Try UpCloud with €500”, a choice of $500 or €500 in credits valid for your first 30 days, and a footnote that is new since the last check: “GPU servers are excluded from the promotion”. A valid credit card is required to verify the account, with a 0 or 1 €/$ temporary authorisation per the docs; the trial itself requires no payment.

Screenshot: UpCloud signup flow, trial activation step

Last checked: 2026-08-24

The promotion’s mechanics at a glance:

The screenshot above shows the promotion as it was displayed by default on 2026-08-24; since then it has moved behind the promo code field. This is a promo-dependent offer: boost500 is a code on the signup flow, not the documented baseline, so I recheck its status weekly. The promo campaign row in the facts table above says whether it is still active.

Why UpCloud says both 7 days and 30 days

UpCloud’s free-trial docs still describe a standard trial that is 7 days and quota-limited rather than a dollar pot: servers capped at 2 cores and 4 GB of memory, no Windows servers, and a locked firewall with limited ports. The same docs state that “certain promotions may offer longer trial periods” and that “you may get different options for your trial depending on current promotions and other offers”. The $500 / €500, 30-day trial on the signup flow is exactly that: a promotion layered on top of the documented baseline, not a correction of it.

That layering is why circulating descriptions of UpCloud’s trial disagree: 7 days, 30 days, no fixed credit amount, and $500 / €500 are all in print somewhere. This page treats the 30-day promotion as the offer you can currently claim, and the 7-day standard trial as the baseline the documentation guarantees. If the promotion ends, this entry falls back to the baseline.

The promotion’s terms

The signup flow states the working rules: verify with a valid credit card, no payment required for the trial, and upgrading with a minimum payment of 10 in your account currency ($10 on the dollar-denominated flow) keeps your trial resources running. The free-trial docs match on that figure: a minimum one-time deposit of 10 in your chosen currency, before or during the trial. If the trial ends without at least the minimum payment, services deployed during the trial are removed, though the account itself stays active. The trial must be started within 365 days of registration.

On GPU servers the promotion is now explicit: the boost500 banner states “GPU servers are excluded from the promotion”, seen 2026-09-02. The standard-trial products table is likewise explicit about its own layer, listing GPU Servers, Private Cloud, and Windows servers as not available, and the bonus-credits docs add that bonus credits awarded by promo codes currently require manual activation by support to deploy GPU products. So neither layer offers GPU time: excluded on the promotion, not available on the standard trial. Those docs also carry a generic rule that promotional credits are valid for 60 days after signup, while the signup flow scopes this offer to the first 30 days; I publish the offer surface’s own 30 days.

Separately, the referral program grants €25 / $25 to a referred signup and €50 / $50 to the referrer. That is a distinct mechanism with its own terms, not part of this promotion.

Startup program status

UpCloud has referenced a startup program, but as of 2026-08-21 the program page is unreachable, returning 403 or 404 errors, so no amount can be verified. Nothing about it appears here until an official page states figures.

What I have done with it

Not tested yet. This page reports only what the official signup flow and docs state.

Choose UpCloud if a month and a real $500 / €500 budget answer your evaluation questions; skip it if you need guaranteed GPU time, since the standard trial lists GPU servers as not available and the promotional pages state nothing about GPU either way. For other dollar-denominated grants, see Scaleway free credits or Civo free credits; for providers with no grant at all, see the Hetzner entry. Every grant I track is on the credits index.