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anthonypelle

Posted on • Edited on • Originally published at reclaim.ai

Top 20 Startup Deals - 2023 Discounts & Credits

When you're starting a business from scratch, every dollar counts. With 20.8% of US private sector businesses failing within the first year, startups must find ways to keep costs low while fueling productivity in their early stages of growth. Luckily, there are thousands of discounts and deals made just for savvy startups. 

So many choices! We understand if you're having difficulty deciding which startup discounts to pursue. So we've researched and reviewed the top 20 startup discounts to help entrepreneurs save money, optimize time, and scale faster in building a successful business.

Bonus, all these tools have deep support for integrations, so you'll have a fully connected ecosystem of tools for your startup team.

Marketing & Support

HubSpot - 30-90% discount

Hubspot is a leading marketing, sales, and customer service platform that startups love for its simplicity across a deep feature-set to support and nourish the entire customer experience journey. They offer everything your startup needs to kickstart your marketing strategy across website, email, social, ads, and more --- while also building out your sales and support systems in a fully connected database of leads and customers. HubSpot is an excellent choice for a scrappy startup, as you can save thousands of hours a year automating your GTM campaigns --- allowing you to scale fast with a small, savvy team.

It's also important to note that the HubSpot startup discount is tiered with the max discount available in the first year, and an ongoing discount for all following years so you can lock in a great price forever as your startup grows.

Eligibility 

  • 90% off year one: Up to $2 million raised, and associated with an approved VC, Incubator, or Accelerator partner. 50% off the second year, and 25% off ongoing.
  • 50% off year one: Up to $2 million raised, have not reached Series B stage, and associated with an approved partner organization. 25% off ongoing after the first year.
  • 30% off year one: Associated with an approved entrepreneurial organization. 15% off ongoing after the first year.

HubSpot startup deal

  • Discount: 30%-90% off your first year, ongoing discount following
  • Savings value: $30,000
  • HubSpot pricing: Free plan available, paid plans start at $18/month

Apply for the Hubspot for Startups Discount → 

Intercom - 95% discount

Intercom is a simple yet powerful customer service and support platform that's perfect for startups because it has all the essentials you need to scale. Their intuitive messaging system allows you to build out intelligent workflows to get in front of support tickets, and offer users smart recommendations based on their issues. You can even automate engagement in your website or app to share product announcements or tips via banners, chat, product tours, or checklists to drive deeper product adoption and improve satisfaction. Startups can easily build out help docs or a knowledge base so customers can find answers without ever having to speak with support. Their email platform can also be used for your early-stage marketing campaigns, saving you tons of money in your first couple of years with a single tool.

Eligibility

  • Up to $1M in funding
  • Less than 2 years old
  • Less than 5 employees
  • Less than 1,000 people reached per month
  • Currently not an Intercom customer

Intercom startup deal

  • Discount: 95% off for one year
  • Savings value: $14,400
  • Intercom pricing: Paid plans start at $74/month 

Apply for the Intercom Early Stage Program →

Zendesk - 6 months free 

Zendesk is a customer service and support platform that startups love for delivering exceptional customer experiences. It has a centralized system that allows your team to manage customer interactions across multiple channels so you can stay organized and fire off prompt responses. Their streamlined ticketing capabilities also makes it easy to prioritize and assign tickets for faster resolutions so you can keep improving customer satisfaction. Plus, helpful analytics and reporting features give you the power to make data-driven decisions and track the success of your support efforts. 

Eligibility

  • Brand-new Zendesk subscriber
  • Fewer than 50 employees
  • Raised up to Series A in venture funding

Zendesk startup deal

  • Discount: 6 months free
  • Savings value: $65,000
  • Zendesk pricing: Paid plans start at $49/month

Apply for the Zendesk for Startups Program →

Productivity & Project Management Discounts

Reclaim.ai - 20% discount

Reclaim.ai is a smart calendar app that automatically finds the best time for your startups meetings, tasks, habits, and breaks. This AI-powered calendar helps small startup teams save up to 40% of their time by automatically scheduling the perfect daily plan around your highest priorities -- reducing those wasted gaps in your calendar that create huge loss in context switching and decision fatigue. The smart events actually find the best time in your calendar around your existing events, using intelligent scheduling parameters for when you want to get stuff done or connect for a meeting. Your calendar also stays flexible for changes, so if something more important comes in, Reclaim automatically reschedules an event to the next best time. 

You can also connect your task list to automatically schedule time for your to-dos, and analyze how much you get done every week via calendar productivity stats. Their scheduling links are also really popular with startups, as you're able to create high-priority links to show max availability when you need to meet an investor, customer, or hot lead. Lastly, there's a ton of great work-life balance features like automated breaks, personal calendar sync, and scheduling hours to help prevent burnout in your startup team.

Eligibility

  • Minimum 5 user seats in Reclaim.
  • Under 100 employees.
  • Raised less than $10M.
  • Founded less than 5 years ago.

Reclaim startup deal

  • Discount: 20% off any plan for 3 years
  • Savings value: $2,160
  • Reclaim pricing: Free plan available, paid plans start at $8/month

Apply for Reclaim Startup Discount

Notion - 6 months free 

Notion is a productivity, note-taking, and collaboration tool for creating and managing your projects, tasks, notes, and databases under a single platform. It's basically a super-charged Google Drive that also includes your project management app. Startups gravitate towards Notion because it offers countless features to keep your team organized and on track using customizable databases, task management tools, collaborative note-taking capabilities, and more. 

As every early-stage startup knows, there's a lot of internal documentation to get in order. Notion has tons of templates to help you build out your corporate and HR documents, including employee onboarding and offboarding procedures, performance reviews, and benefits information. Product teams can easily create a product roadmap, set and track goals, and develop a product strategy. And founders can develop and organize their investor materials for a clean, polished portfolio of all the information existing and prospective investors need to see on the company's performance and future. The possibilities are endless and can be tailored to fit the startup's specific needs. 

Eligibility

  • New Notion customer
  • Have fewer than 50 employees 
  • Raised less than$10Min funding from an accredited investor

Notion startup deal

  • Discount: 6 months free
  • Savings value: $6,000
  • Notion pricing: Free plan available, paid plans start at $8/month

Apply for Notion for Startups

GanttPRO - $3,000 credit

GanttPRO is a project management app that helps teams plan, schedule, and manage their projects using (as you can probably imagine) Gantt chart tools. Gantt charts are ideal for startups looking to stay on top of their product roadmap, as they provide a bird's eye view of the roadmap to track progress towards specific deliverables and milestones. Despite this, they can be a bit of a pain to develop, especially if you haven't ever done so before. Luckily, GanttPRO offers a variety of templates, so you don't have to waste precious time designing a chart by hand. 

Beyond this, it's super user-friendly and easy to use in general, which is great if you're just starting out and don't have a ton of experience with project management software. GanttPRO has many other features that can be super helpful for startups, such as custom workflows, assigning tasks to team members, and even tracking your team's progress in real-time. And, of course, everything is cloud-based, so you can access your projects from anywhere at any time.

Eligibility

  • Must be a startup, accelerator, or incubator 
  • Less than 3 years old
  • Have a public company website and a unique company email domain.
  • Less than 30 employees.
  • Haven't undergone a change of control, initial public offering, or funding round
  • New GanttPRO customer

GanttPRO startup deal

  • Discount/savings value: $3,000 in free credit for GanttPRO plans
  • GanttPRO pricing: Paid plans start at $7.99/month

Apply for GanttPRO Startup Program

Dropbox - 40-90% discount

Dropbox is a cloud-based storage and collaboration tool that allows you to access your files from anywhere. Even if you aren't super tech savvy (which we know many of you startup experts are), Dropbox is very user-friendly and easy to use. Sharing files, signing important documents, and collaborating with team members is very straightforward, especially if you're working with a remote startup team. They offer tons of features startups love for managing and protecting their critical data, like easy sharing, syncing across devices, and permissions and access control. This flexibility makes it easy to complete tasks like sharing pitch decks and signing term sheets while ensuring only authorized team members can view sensitive data.

Eligibility

  • Must be associated with any investor, accelerator, or startup community that participates in the DocSend Partner Program

Dropbox startup deal

  • Discount: 40%-90% off Dropbox, DocSend, or Dropbox Sign in the first year
  • Savings value: $2,000 - $5,000
  • Dropbox pricing: Free plan available, paid plans start at $18/month

Apply for Dropbox for Startups

Cloud Provider Discounts

AWS Activate - $100,000 credit

AWS (Amazon Web Services) is the most comprehensive and widely used cloud-based computing platform offering a wide range of services to help you manage your startups applications, data, and infrastructure. If you're launching a new startup app, you'll need a trustworthy cloud provider. AWS makes it easy to deploy your app, develop and test in sandbox environments, set up disaster recovery, store and process your data, and manage your IT infrastructure. 

It's not only super affordable, but fast, scalable, reliable, and secure --- so you can focus on growing your business and not worrying about downtime for your app. You can scale and customize your resources, pay only for what you use, and access various tools and services to help you optimize your operations. AWS also offers a wide range of managed services, such as database management, machine learning, and media services, to help you focus on developing your app while leaving the operational tasks to the experts.

Eligibility

  • Bootstrapped, self-funded, or funded startup 
  • Raised up to Series A funding round 
  • Founded within the last 10 years
  • Have a functioning website or public profile

AWS Activate startup deal

  • Discount: Up to $100,000 in AWS Activate credits
  • AWS pricing: Pricing starting at $0.0058 per hour

Apply for AWS Activate

Google Cloud - $200,000 in costs covered

Google Cloud is another heavyweight in the cloud computing game many startups turn to for building, deploying, and scaling applications and services in the cloud. If you need a cloud partner to launch and host your app, accelerate your growth, and streamline operations, Google Cloud's computing, storage, databases, networking, AI, machine learning, and analytics is an awesome choice for your infrastructure. And if you're working with a limited startup budget, Google Cloud's flexible pricing and pay-as-you-go model can be particularly advantageous for getting the most bang for your buck. It also includes access to managed service providers, who offer expert assistance with monitoring, managing, and optimizing your infrastructure and applications so you can focus on your core business and reduce time to market.

Eligibility

  • Received startup equity funding from pre-seed to Series A (if Series A, raised within the last 12 months) by an institutional investor or common Web3 funding sources
  • Founded within the last 10 years
  • Not yet received more than $4,000 in Google Cloud credits

Google Cloud startup deal

  • Discount/savings value: Up to $200,000 ($350,000 for AI startups) of Google Cloud and Firebase costs covered over 2 years
  • Google Cloud pricing: Pricing starting at $0.041924 per hour

Apply for Google Cloud for Startups

DigitalOcean - 12 months of credit

As a startup, you need a cloud infrastructure provider that is simple, easy to use, and provides a user-friendly platform for deploying and scaling applications, and DigitalOcean might be the perfect fit. With its cloud computing platform, you can quickly spin up virtual machines called "Droplets" and choose from various configurations to meet your computing requirements. Startups, especially in the earliest stages, want to spend the majority of their time focusing on the product -- worrying about infrastructure management is such a chore. But DigitalOcean will do it for you! They also offer additional services such as managed databases and Kubernetes services for container orchestration, which can help streamline your operations and reduce costs.

Eligibility

  • Affiliated with an approved accelerator, incubator, or VC firm
  • No previous DigitalOcean promotional credits
  • Raised a Series A or less
  • Company website and an email address associated with the company website
  • Proof demonstrating affiliation with an approved partner organization
  • Create a registered DigitalOcean team account with a business/company email (not a personal email account)
  • New DigitalOcean customer

DigitalOcean startup deal

  • Discount: 12 months of infrastructure credit
  • Savings value: $100,000
  • DigitalOcean pricing: Free plans available, paid plans start at $4/month

Apply for Digital Ocean Hatch

IBM Cloud - $18,000 credit

IBM Cloud is a cloud computing platform offered by (you guessed it) IBM. Startups can easily access a range of cloud computing, storage, and networking resources to help you build, deploy, and manage your applications, including databases, artificial intelligence, machine learning, Internet of Things (IoT), analytics, blockchain, and more. IBM Cloud is also highly customizable, allowing you to tailor your environment to your specific needs, which can ultimately help scale your business while keeping costs low. IBM Cloud also offers a range of security features that can help you protect your data and applications from cyber threats, like malware attacks, phishing scams, ransomware, and DDoS attacks.

Eligibility

  • Less than $15 million in revenue in the last 12 months
  • Privately held 
  • Less than 10 years old
  • New customer of IBM Cloud
  • Verifiable entity with a website and dedicated email server

IBM Cloud startup deal

  • Discount: $3,000 in free credits per month for 6 months
  • Savings value: $18,000
  • IBM Cloud pricing: Pricingstartsat $0.089 per hour

Apply for IBM Cloud for Startups

Developer Tools

GitHub - 20 free seats

GitHub is a web-based software development platform that allows you to store, manage, and collaborate on your code in one place. One of the best things about GitHub is its version control system, which makes it easy to track code changes and revert to previous versions if needed. This feature can be incredibly valuable for startups, allowing you to experiment with new features and functionalities without worrying about breaking your existing codebase. GitHub is also pretty famous for its robust community of developers who frequently contribute to open-source projects, which can help you save time and resources as you build your own software.

Eligibility

  • Received outside funding (up to Series A)
  • New to GitHub Enterprise
  • No previous credits for GitHub Enterprise

GitHub startup deal

  • Discount: 20 seats of GitHub Enterprise free for 12 months
  • Savings value: $5,000
  • GitHub pricing: Free plan available, paid plans start at $4/month

Apply for GitHub for Startups

Algolia - $10,000 in credit

Algolia is a powerful search and discovery platform that can help your startup deliver fast, relevant search results to your users. You can easily customize your search experience and improve user engagement with Algolia across multiple platforms, including web, mobile, and desktop, and easily integrate your existing infrastructure. And, for all those data-driven startups out there, Algolia offers real-time indexing and analytics to track user behavior and improve your search performance over time. So, if you're developing a cutting-edge Saas or eCommerce app, you'd love Algolia's smart tools like natural language understanding, automatic query suggestions, neural hashing, and AI adaptive learning.

Eligibility

  • Less than 3 years old
  • Raised less than $5M in funding
  • Brand-new Algolia customer

Algolia startup deal

  • Discount/savings value: $10,000 in Algolia credit valid for 12 months
  • Algolia pricing: Free plan available, paid plans start at $0.50/search requests/month

Apply for Algolia Startup Program

Database Management

ScaleGrid - 50% discount

ScaleGrid is a fully managed database hosting platform that makes it super easy to deploy, manage, and scale databases on both public and private clouds. This can save you a ton of time and resources by automating database management tasks and easily scaling databases as your needs change. Plus, ScaleGrid supports a variety of popular databases, like MySQL, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Redis, and Cassandra, so you can find the right fit for your specific needs. 

It also is the only DBaaS (database-as-a-service) that gives you full admin access and the ability to install custom extensions, which allows you to tailor your database to fit your specific needs and scale as the company grows. You can also use their Bring Your Own Cloud (BYOC) plan to use your own AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, or Oracle Cloud free startup credits to save even more on your database management costs.

  Eligibility

  • Less than $1,500,000 in revenue
  • Less than $1,500,000 in funding
  • New to ScaleGrid

ScaleGrid startup deal

  • Discount: 50% off for one year
  • Savings value: $50,000
  • ScaleGrid pricing: Paid plans start at $25/month

Apply for the ScaleGrid Startup Program →

Aiven - $100,000 credit

Aiven is a cloud technology platform that provides a wide range of open-source data technologies as a service. With their mix of managed open-source services like Kafka, PostgreSQL, Elasticsearch, and Cassandra, Aiven can help your startup build and maintain scalable, reliable, and secure cloud infrastructure, allowing you to focus on your core business (fun and cool) without worrying about managing complex systems (boring!). Not only that, startups can easily take advantage of their automated backups, monitoring, and scaling services. Finally, with their expertise and support, you can rest assured that your company and user data is in good hands.

Eligibility

  • Affiliated with an approved network partner (VC, accelerator, incubator, or co-working space)
  • Less than 7 years old
  • Startup funding no greater than Series B
  • Have a company website and associated email address

Aiven startup deal

  • Discount/savings value: Up to $100,000 credit
  • Aiven pricing: Pricing startingat$0.103/hour

Apply for Aiven Cluster Startup Program

Security

Auth0 - 12 months free 

Auth0 is a user authentication and authorization platform that helps companies securely manage user identities and access. This platform provides a seamless login experience for your users across multiple applications and devices while ensuring top-notch security measures are in place to protect sensitive data. We don't need to tell you how important keeping customer data secure is for the success of your startup. But with Auth0, you can easily implement enterprise-grade SSO login, handle complex identity needs, prevent fraudulent activity, meet compliance requirements, and secure communication between your users and your platform, all while providing a seamless user experience.

Eligibility

  • Venture-backed with less than $5M in funding
  • Less than $1M in annual recurring revenue
  • Less than two years old

Auth0 startup deal

  • Discount: 12 months free
  • Savings value: $20,000
  • Auth0 pricing: Free plan available, paid plans start at $23/month

Apply for Auth0 for Startups

Analytics

Amplitude - 12 months free

Amplitude is a powerful analytics tool that can be a game-changer for startups. They say data is the new oil, both are highly lucrative commodities, but also useless in their crude forms. Until it is refined and processed, data is as useful as gross, black goo. Well, Amplitude is the oil refinery in this analogy. It takes all that sludge of raw data and turns it into deep insights into user behavior, which can help you make informed decisions about product development and marketing. With Amplitude, you can track key metrics like engagement, retention, and conversion rates and get detailed information about how users interact with your product. This data can help you identify areas for improvement and optimize your user experience.

  Eligibility

  • Received less than $5 million in funding
  • Fewer than 20 employees

Amplitude startup deal

  • Discount: 12 months free subscription to the product intelligence platform and access to the Amplitude community
  • Savings value: $40,000
  • Amplitude pricing: Free plan available, paid plans start at $995/month

Apply for Amplitude Startup Scholarship Program

Twilio Segment - $25,000 credit

Twilio Segment is a customer data platform that helps businesses collect, clean, and control customer data. Imagine if your startup could integrate all customer data sources in one place and unify them into a single view of the customer. In the hectic day-to-day hustle of startup life, it's easy to end up with data all over the place. With insights living in disparate platforms, it should be no surprise if juicy bits slip through the cracks. Twilio Segment is a tool designed to prevent that from happening. With its comprehensive view of customer data, startups can make informed decisions and easily understand their customers' behavior, preferences, and needs.

Eligibility

  • Incorporated less than 2 years ago
  • Raised no more than $5MM in total funding

Twilio Segment startup deal

  • Discount/savings value: $25,000 in Segment credits
  • Twilio Segment pricing: Free plan available, paid plans start at $120/month

Apply for Segment Startup Program

Mixpanel - $50,000 credit

Mixpanel is a powerful tool for startups that need to track user behavior to drive product improvements. See how users interact with your app or website by creating custom events and funnels to identify where visitors get stuck or drop off to optimize a more immersive experience. Mixpanel's powerful analytics and segmentation tools also allow you to dive deep into your data to understand your users on a granular level to make more informed decisions about your product and marketing strategies.

 Eligibility

  • Startup must have been founded less than 5 years ago
  • Raised $8M or less in funding
  • Must be a brand-new Mixpanel customer

Mixpanel startup deal

  • Discount/savings value: $50,000 in credit
  • Mixpanel pricing: Free plan available, paid plans start at $20/month

Apply for Mixpanel for Startups

Posthog - $50,000 credit

Posthog is a fantastic tool for startups as it offers a self-hosted product analytics platform that is entirely open-source. Easily track and analyze user behavior on your website or app to make informed decisions about your product and user experience. Posthog is also highly customizable and scalable --- their pay-per-use model with billing limits allows you to control your spending and access a wide range of features, such as user funnels, graphs and trends, correlation analysis, lifecycle cohorts, and more. With its simple and easy-to-use interface, Posthog empowers startups to gain valuable user insights, optimize conversion rates, and ultimately grow their business. 

Eligibility

  • Less than 2 years old
  • Up to $5m in funding 

Posthog startup deal

  • Discount/savings value: $50,000 in free credits + access to additional features
  • Posthog pricing: Free plan available, paid plans start at $0.0003068/event

Apply for Posthog for Startups

Scale your startup with invaluable deals & discounts 🚀 

Startup discounts can be a game-changer for any new business. These discounts, from software and tools to services and resources, can help your startup save money and streamline your operations. Of course, this is nothing to sneeze at, considering the sheer difficulty in successfully scaling a startup business. However, with so many options available, it's worth taking the time to research and identify the discounts that best suit your startup needs. Doing so can stretch your budget further and give your startup the best chance at success. After all, every dollar counts, especially in the early stage. 

Did we miss any startup discounts that should be on this list? What are the most valuable tools at your company? Tweet us @reclaimai to let us know!

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