AI Perks curates and provides access to exclusive discounts, credits, and deals on AI tools, cloud services, and APIs to help startups and developers save money.
How Do You Get Free Together AI Credits in 2026?
Together AI gives new users free credits at sign-up and offers up to $50,000 through their startup credit program. Together AI is the leading platform for running open-source AI models as APIs - giving you access to Llama, DeepSeek, Qwen, Mixtral, and 200+ other models without managing your own infrastructure.
Open-source models on Together AI cost a fraction of proprietary APIs like GPT-4o or Claude. Combined with free credits from AI Perks, you can run production AI workloads at zero cost.
AI Perks curates and provides access to exclusive discounts, credits, and deals on AI tools, cloud services, and APIs to help startups and developers save money.
What Does Together AI Cost in 2026?
Together AI offers pay-per-token pricing for 200+ open-source models. Prices vary dramatically by model size and capability - from under $0.10 to over $3.00 per million tokens.
| Model | Input (per 1M tokens) | Output (per 1M tokens) | Best For |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mistral Small 3 | $0.10 | $0.30 | Cheapest quality option |
| Llama 4 Maverick | $0.27 | $0.85 | Best open-source value |
| DeepSeek-V3.1 | $0.60 | $1.70 | Coding and reasoning |
| Llama 3.1 70B | $0.88 | $0.88 | Balanced performance |
| Qwen2.5 72B | $1.20 | $1.20 | Multilingual tasks |
| Qwen3-Coder-480B | $2.00 | $2.00 | Large-scale coding |
| DeepSeek-R1 | $3.00 | $7.00 | Advanced reasoning |
| Llama 3.1 405B | $3.50 | $3.50 | Maximum quality |
The value proposition is clear. Llama 4 Maverick at $0.27/$0.85 delivers GPT-4-class performance at 10x lower cost than GPT-4o. DeepSeek-V3.1 at $0.60/$1.70 competes with GPT-4.1 on coding tasks at a fraction of the price.
Together AI also offers GPU cloud access starting at $2.20/hour per H100 for custom deployments, fine-tuning from $0.48/hour for smaller models, and embedding models from just $0.01/1M tokens.
AI Perks curates and provides access to exclusive discounts, credits, and deals on AI tools, cloud services, and APIs to help startups and developers save money.
How Does the Together AI Startup Credit Program Work?
Together AI's startup credit program provides $15,000 to $50,000 in free platform credits based on your company stage and profile. It is one of the most generous startup credit programs in the open-source AI space.
The program targets AI-native startups building with open-source models. Credit amounts scale with your company stage - earlier-stage startups receive the base tier, while more established companies with greater compute needs can access the highest credit amounts.
Beyond credits, the program includes benefits like:
- Engineering support - Dedicated hours for optimization and integration
- Technical resources - Benchmarking frameworks and best practice guides
- Community access - Networking with other AI startups in Together AI's developer community
- Go-to-market support - Access to Together AI's 800,000+ developer audience
Credits apply to serverless inference, dedicated endpoints, fine-tuning, and instant clusters. This makes the program valuable for startups at every stage of their AI development lifecycle.
Details on eligibility, credit tiers, and application strategies are available through AI Perks.
AI Perks curates and provides access to exclusive discounts, credits, and deals on AI tools, cloud services, and APIs to help startups and developers save money.
Why Choose Together AI Over OpenAI or Anthropic?
Together AI gives you open-source flexibility with cloud API convenience. You get the best of both worlds - the cost savings and control of open-source models with the simplicity of a managed API.
| Factor | Together AI | OpenAI | Anthropic |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cheapest model | $0.10/1M (Mistral Small) | $0.10/1M (GPT-4.1 Nano) | $0.80/1M (Haiku 3.5) |
| Model count | 200+ models | ~15 models | ~5 models |
| Open-source | Yes (run anywhere) | No (API-locked) | No (API-locked) |
| Fine-tuning | Yes (from $0.48/hr) | Yes (limited models) | No |
| GPU cloud | Yes ($2.20/hr H100) | No | No |
| Self-hosting option | Yes (same models) | No | No |
| Max startup credits | $50,000 | $2,500 direct | $25,000 direct |
Where Together AI wins:
- 200+ model choices - Test Llama, DeepSeek, Qwen, Mixtral, and more from a single platform
- No vendor lock-in - Every model runs locally too, so you can switch providers anytime
- Fine-tuning - Customize models on your own data starting at $0.48/hour
- GPU cloud - Deploy dedicated instances when you need guaranteed throughput
Where Together AI falls short:
- No proprietary frontier models - Cannot access GPT-5, Claude Opus, or Gemini Ultra
- Less polish - SDK and documentation are less mature than OpenAI's
- Variable quality - Open-source models range from excellent to mediocre
For developers who want maximum flexibility, cost efficiency, and freedom from vendor lock-in, Together AI is the strongest choice. Stack credits from AI Perks across both Together AI and proprietary providers for the best of all worlds.
AI Perks curates and provides access to exclusive discounts, credits, and deals on AI tools, cloud services, and APIs to help startups and developers save money.
What Open-Source Models Should You Use on Together AI?
With 200+ models available, choosing the right one matters. Here are the top picks for common use cases:
Best Overall: Llama 4 Maverick ($0.27/$0.85) - Meta's latest delivers strong performance across tasks at excellent pricing. This is the default choice for most general-purpose workloads.
Best for Coding: DeepSeek-V3.1 ($0.60/$1.70) - Competes with GPT-4.1 on code generation at a fraction of the cost. DeepSeek-R1 ($3.00/$7.00) for complex reasoning tasks that require chain-of-thought processing.
Best Budget: Mistral Small 3 ($0.10/$0.30) - The cheapest quality option on the platform, suitable for most standard tasks where cost matters more than frontier performance.
Best Multilingual: Qwen2.5 72B ($1.20/$1.20) - Alibaba's model excels at non-English languages, especially Chinese, Japanese, and Korean.
Best for Scale: Llama 3.1 405B ($3.50/$3.50) - The largest open-source model, matching flagship proprietary models on many benchmarks. Use this when you need maximum quality from an open-source model.
AI Perks curates and provides access to exclusive discounts, credits, and deals on AI tools, cloud services, and APIs to help startups and developers save money.
How Do You Get Started With Together AI?
Step 1: Get Your Free Credits
Subscribe to AI Perks and follow the guides to claim Together AI credits and credits from other providers. Stack them for maximum runway.
Step 2: Create a Together AI Account
Sign up at Together AI and claim your free sign-up credits. Generate an API key from the dashboard to start making API calls.
Step 3: Choose Your Model
Start with Llama 4 Maverick for general tasks or DeepSeek-V3.1 for coding. Test multiple models - that is the advantage of Together AI's 200+ model catalog.
Step 4: Apply for the Startup Credit Program
If you are building an AI product, apply for the startup credit program for up to $50,000 in additional credits plus engineering support and community access.
Step 5: Stack With Other Providers
Use Together AI for open-source models and stack with OpenAI/Anthropic credits for proprietary models. This combination gives you access to both open-source flexibility and proprietary frontier performance.
AI Perks curates and provides access to exclusive discounts, credits, and deals on AI tools, cloud services, and APIs to help startups and developers save money.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much free Together AI credit can I get?
New users receive free credits at sign-up, and the startup credit program provides $15,000 to $50,000 based on your company stage and profile. Combined with cloud platform credits and programs from AI Perks, total free credits can exceed $50,000.
What models are available on Together AI?
Together AI hosts 200+ open-source models including Llama 4 (Meta), DeepSeek (V3.1 and R1), Qwen (Alibaba), Mixtral (Mistral), and Stable Diffusion for image generation. Models span text generation, coding, vision, image generation, audio, and embeddings across every major open-source family.
Is Together AI cheaper than OpenAI?
For equivalent quality, yes. Llama 4 Maverick on Together AI costs $0.27/$0.85 per million tokens compared to GPT-4o at $2.50/$10.00 - roughly 10x cheaper. The trade-off is that open-source models may not match GPT-5 or Claude Opus on frontier reasoning tasks.
Can I fine-tune models on Together AI?
Yes, Together AI offers fine-tuning starting at $0.48/hour for models up to 16B parameters and $2.90/hour for 70B+ models. You can fine-tune Llama, Mistral, and other open-source models on your own data for specialized use cases that require domain-specific performance.
What is the Together AI startup credit program?
The startup credit program provides $15,000 to $50,000 in platform credits based on your company stage, plus engineering support and community access. It targets AI-native startups building with open-source models. AI Perks provides application guides and strategies for maximizing your credit allocation.
Can I self-host models I find on Together AI?
Yes, every open-source model on Together AI can be downloaded and run on your own hardware. Together AI's value is convenience - you get instant API access without managing GPUs. If your needs grow beyond credits, you can always switch to self-hosting the exact same models with no retraining required.
AI Perks curates and provides access to exclusive discounts, credits, and deals on AI tools, cloud services, and APIs to help startups and developers save money.
200+ AI Models. $50,000 in Free Credits.
Together AI combines the cost efficiency of open-source AI with the convenience of managed APIs. Whether you are testing models or running production workloads, free credits make the cost zero.
With AI Perks, you get:
- Access to $5,000-$175,000+ in free AI API credits across all providers
- Guides for Together AI, OpenAI, Anthropic, AWS, and every credit program
- Stacking strategies to combine open-source and proprietary AI credits
- 200+ additional startup perks beyond AI credits
Open-source AI at zero cost. Start building today.
200+ AI models. Up to $50,000 free. Get your credits at getaiperks.com.
