Vast.ai free credits: None

Vast.ai gives you no free credit. The “Get Started for $5” wording on the site is a minimum deposit, money you pay in, not money Vast.ai gives you. The docs state it plainly: “The minimum deposit amount on Vast.ai is $5.” There is no free amount, so there is no expiry to track. You fund the account with a credit card via Stripe, BitPay, or Crypto.com, and autobilling works with a credit card only. Checked against the official docs on 2026-08-21.

The correction: “$5 free” vs “$5 minimum deposit”

Roundup posts circulate Vast.ai as “$5 free credits”. The official quickstart and billing docs describe the $5 as the minimum deposit to start renting. Those are opposite things: a deposit is your money converted to platform credit. The same deposit-mistaken-for-gift pattern shows up at TensorDock, so it is worth reading provider pages closely before counting on “free” GPU hours.

How funding actually works

Per the billing docs: you can add funds with a credit card (via Stripe), BitPay, or Crypto.com. Autobilling, where Vast.ai tops you up automatically, is credit-card only. Credits purchased by card are refundable; crypto deposits generally are not. Email verification is required before you can rent anything.

What happens at $0 balance

This is where Vast.ai bites people who expected free usage. Per the official docs: when your balance hits $0, instances stop, but storage keeps billing. If you have no card on file to cover it, your instances and data can be destroyed. And in the docs’ own words, “Instances showing in your account are never free, even if your balance is negative or zero.” Do not park data on Vast.ai on the assumption an empty account is a paused account.

What I have done with it

Not tested yet. I have not deposited or rented on Vast.ai myself, so this page reports only what the official pages state.

Choose Vast.ai if you want marketplace GPU pricing and you are ready to deposit at least $5 of your own money. Skip it if you are looking for a genuinely free start: the Modal free tier gives $30 per month of included compute, and Crusoe at least offers $5 of real credit, although only for serverless. The full list of tracked grants is on the credits index.