Wanna try Linode for free? In the post, I have covered all steps to claim a free $100 credit for your startup, SaaS, and website.
Linode (now renamed Akamai) is a quite popular cloud platform that provides a range of cloud products, such as VPS, dedicated servers, and block storage, at affordable prices.
No matter if you’re a blogger, student, developer, or business owner, you can try it and see if it meets your needs.
However, you can also explore 9 more VPSs that offer free monthly trials and collectively $700 credit.
and you can also explore some of best OpenClaw VPS with installation guide and Paperclip VPS with installation guide.
Now let’s dive into the tutorial.
Linode Startup Free Credits 
How Do I Claim Linode (Akamai)’s Free Cloud Trial?
Signing up with Linode is relatively easy. Just prepare your phone number and one payment method out of Google Play, Paypal, or Credit Card that authenticates the genuine users. Now get into the simple tutorial with a few steps.
Sign up now for Linode (Akamai) Free Trial and get →
Coupon code: auto-applied in the button below.
Be very careful with Linode Free Trial: Many redditors and YouTube viewers have reported lately that Linode has set a credit card as a requirement for the free trial offer. After canceling the account, they keep charging users’ credit cards. So we recommend Kamatera instead; otherwise, use it at your own risk.
Wanna test Linode (now Akamai) cloud for free? This guide walks you through claiming your $100 credit valid for 60 days — ideal for SaaS, startups, developers, bloggers, or even Minecraft server lovers.
You’ll unlock up to 20 VPS instances, 20 TB transfer, 100+ one-click apps, and premium features like Cloud Firewall, NodeBalancer, and server cloning. Just note: 💳 Credit card or PayPal is required (some users report post-cancellation charges, so tread carefully).
🔥 Alternatives like Kamatera offer safer billing policies.
✅ Best For: Hosting sites, launching web apps, installing VPNs, testing AI workloads.
❌ Avoid if you want no CC signup — try Kamatera or Vultr instead.
1. Visit above link
2. Click on the email button.
3. Enter your email, username, and password.
4. Now confirm your email in your inbox.
5. Verify your phone number
6. Select a payment method and complete the payment setup
7. Enter your name and address.
8. Agree to the master services agreement
9. Click Create Account
Congratulations! Your account has been created with a free $100. You can check it out in the billing section.
Akamai Has Acquired Linode
Akamai has acquired Linode and rename the brand to Akamai, except domain “linode.com” on March 21, 2022.
The deals brings together Linode’s Infrastructure-as-a-Service solutions with
Akamai’s market-leading security and content delivery services to provide a
Comprehensive platform for building, running and security applications.
However, launching and managing server’s experience are intact.
What is Included in the Trial?
You will get the following items:
What Can You Do During the Linode-Free Tier Period?
Linode offers various products for start-ups, websites, AI, data analysis, streaming content, SAAS, and e-commerce. You can set up a base for these.
Linode Plan Pricing
While your trial period ends. You will be charged according to the plan that you have opted for.
They offer their plans in five major categories to fulfill almost all kinds of cloud customers, including bloggers, businessmen, scientists, gamers, etc.
Shared CPU Plan: The plan has been launched for beginners like bloggers and web admins. The higher plan of the group packs huge resources that are apt for a SaaS and medium-level e-commerce website.
| RAM | CPU | Storage | Bandwidth | Price |
| 1 GB | 1 Core | 25 GB SSD | 1 TB | $5/mo |
| 2 GB | 1 Core | 50 GB SSD | 2 TB | $10/mo |
| 4 GB | 2 Cores | 80 GB SSD | 4 TB | $20/mo |
| 8 GB | 4 Cores | 160 GB SSD | 5 TB | $40/mo |
| 16 GB | 6 Cores | 320 GB SSD | 8 TB | $80/mo |
| 32 GB | 8 Cores | 640 GB SSD | 16 TB | $160/mo |
| 64 GB | 16 Cores | 1280 GB SSD | 20 TB | $320/mo |
| 96 GB | 20 Cores | 1920 GB SSD | 20 TB | $480/mo |
| 128 GB | 24 Cores | 2560 GB SSD | 20 TB | $640/mo |
| 192 GB | 32 Cores | 3840 GB SSD | 20 TB | $960/mo |
Dedicated CPU Plan: The plan is designed to serve high CPU-intensive workloads that require 100% sustained CPU usage, like high-traffic websites, video rendering, machine learning, and data processing. You can run game servers like Minecraft and Team Fortress
| RAM | CPU | Storage | Bandwidth | Price |
| 4 GB | 2 Core | 80 GB SSD | 4 TB | $30/mo |
| 8 GB | 4 Core | 160 GB SSD | 5 TB | $60/mo |
| 16 GB | 8 Cores | 320 GB SSD | 6 TB | $120/mo |
| 32 GB | 16 Cores | 640 GB SSD | 7 TB | $240/mo |
| 64 GB | 32 Cores | 1280 GB SSD | 8 TB | $480/mo |
| 96 GB | 48 Cores | 1920 GB SSD | 9 TB | $720/mo |
| 128 GB | 50 Cores | 2500 GB SSD | 10 TB | $960/mo |
| 256 GB | 56 Cores | 5000 GB SSD | 11 TB | $1920/mo |
| 512 GB | 64 Cores | 7200 GB SSD | 12 TB | $3840/mo |
Premium Plan: It is like a dedicated CPU plan. The only difference is that it adds the latest generation of AMD EPYC for consistent high performance.
It is ideal for enterprise-grade, business-critical, and latency-sensitive applications. As of now, the plan is only available in the USA and France.
| RAM | CPU | Storage | Bandwidth | Price |
| 4 GB | 2 Core | 80 GB SSD | 4 TB | $43/mo |
| 8 GB | 4 Core | 160 GB SSD | 5 TB | $86/mo |
| 16 GB | 8 Cores | 320 GB SSD | 6 TB | $173/mo |
| 32 GB | 16 Cores | 640 GB SSD | 7 TB | $346/mo |
| 64 GB | 32 Cores | 1280 GB SSD | 8 TB | $691/mo |
| 96 GB | 48 Cores | 1920 GB SSD | 9 TB | $1037/mo |
| 128 GB | 50 Cores | 2500 GB SSD | 10 TB | $1382/mo |
| 256 GB | 56 Cores | 5000 GB SSD | 11 TB | $2765/mo |
| 512 GB | 64 Cores | 7200 GB SSD | 12 TB | $5530/mo |
High Memory Plan: The plan provides dedicated CPU instance resources with high memory capabilities, which are suitable for caching systems, high-performance databases, and in-memory data processing.
| RAM | CPU | Storage | Bandwidth | Price |
| 24 GB | 2 Core | 20 GB SSD | 5 TB | $60/mo |
| 48 GB | 2 Core | 40 GB SSD | 6 TB | $120/mo |
| 90 GB | 4 Cores | 90 GB SSD | 7 TB | $240/mo |
| 150 GB | 8 Cores | 200 GB SSD | 8 TB | $480/mo |
| 300 GB | 16 Cores | 340 GB SSD | 9 TB | $960/mo |
GPU Plan: The plan is GPU-optimized virtual machines accelerated by the NVIDIA Quadro RTX 6000, harnessing the power of CUDA, tensor, and core to execute complex processing, deep learning, and ray tracing workloads.
The plan is recommended for machine learning, AI, big data processing, video encoding, and graphic processing.
| RAM | CPU | Storage | Bandwidth | GPU Cards | Price |
| 32 GB | 8 Core | 640 GB SSD | 16 TB | 1 | $1000/mo |
| 64 GB | 16 Core | 1280 GB SSD | 20 TB | 2 | $2000/mo |
| 96 GB | 20 Cores | 1920 GB SSD | 20 TB | 3 | $3000/mo |
| 128 GB | 24 Cores | 2560 GB SSD | 20 TB | 4 | $4000/mo |
Data Centers
Like resources Linode is rich in the availability of data centers across the world. They have 14 data centers
in the USA, Canada, Germany, France, the UK, India, Singapore, Australia, and Japan.
- Newark
- Washington, DC
- Toronto
- Chicago
- Atlanta
- Dallas
- Fremont
- Frankfurt
- Peris
- London
- Mumbai
- Tokyo
- Singapore
- Sydney
Conclusion
Linode, the No. 1 IaaS provider on G2, has a slew of tools for beginners and developers, including Git, SSH, one-click apps, an uncluttered dashboard, a cloud firewall, and 24×7 support.
Even some features, such as 1-click server migration to another data center and server cloning, are not available on their main competitor, Kamatera.
Furthermore, you can use their cloud resource for 30 days with a free $100 credit.
FAQ
Q1. Does Linode (Akamai) have a permanently free tier like AWS or Google Cloud?
No, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Akamai does not offer a permanent free tier. What you get is a $100 credit valid for 60 days, that’s it. Once the credit runs out or the 60 days are up, whichever comes first, your linked payment method kicks in. If you need a forever-free nano instance to tinker with, look at Oracle Cloud instead. But if you want real infrastructure to actually test something meaningful, $100 on Linode will take you further than AWS’s free tier ever will.
Q2. Is the $100 credit enough to run a real website during the trial?
More than enough. The entry level Shared CPU plan costs just $5 a month, which means your $100 credit could theoretically run that instance for nearly two years if the trial had no expiry. In 60 days, you can comfortably host a WordPress site, set up a cloud firewall, configure a NodeBalancer, and still have credit left over to clone your server or experiment with Kubernetes. For bloggers and small business owners, the trial practically sells itself.
Q3. Which Linode plan should a first timer pick during the trial?
Start with the 2 GB Shared CPU plan at $10 a month. The 1 GB Nanode is fine for a static site but it will struggle the moment you add a database or install a CMS like WordPress or Drupal. The 2 GB plan gives you a comfortable buffer, 50 GB SSD storage, and 2 TB of transfer. At that rate, your $100 credit runs for 10 months worth of value in a 60 day window, so you have plenty of room to test without burning through credit fast.
Q4. What makes Akamai (Linode) different from DigitalOcean on the infrastructure side?
The biggest practical difference is the Dedicated CPU and Premium plan lineup. Linode’s Dedicated CPU plans start at $30 a month for 4 GB RAM and 2 cores, which is noticeably cheaper than comparable plans on DigitalOcean. On top of that, Linode’s Premium plan runs on the latest generation AMD EPYC processors, which is a meaningful advantage for latency sensitive or enterprise grade workloads. And with Akamai’s acquisition in 2022, Linode now sits on top of one of the world’s largest CDN and edge networks, which no pure cloud competitor can match. The downside is a thinner managed services catalog compared to DO, so if you need one click databases or native serverless functions, Linode is not the strongest choice.
Q5. Are there any billing risks I should know about before signing up?
Yes, and this is worth taking seriously. A growing number of users on Reddit and YouTube have reported that Linode continued charging their credit cards even after they cancelled their accounts. On top of that, a credit card is now apparently required in most regions. PayPal and Google Pay may work for some users but it is inconsistent. The safest move is to set a calendar reminder for day 55 of your trial, audit every active instance in your dashboard, and shut down anything you are not keeping before the billing cycle flips. Do not assume cancelling the account alone stops the charges. Shut down the instances first, then cancel.
Ravi Kumar is a Server Performance Analyst with over 4 years of experience benchmarking cloud infrastructure. He has optimized and stress-tested over 150+ websites, digging deep into uptime, disk latency, and CPU performance. Whether you’re looking for a free trial or a high-performance production server, Ravi uses real-world data to help you find the perfect host.
Just got into blogging and the whole website thing can be a lot. Linode’s trial feels like a gentle start, especially with the free credits. Hope it’s as user-friendly as it sounds cause tech stuff is not my jam. Wish me luck!
On this whole Linode plan pricing thing, does anyone know if they have any hidden fees or gotchas? Been caught out before with services that seemed cheap at first. Just trying to stay smart about where I put my credit card info.
From my experience, Linode is pretty transparent with their pricing. No surprises so far, but always read the fine print!
Was reading about Linode’s free credits and just wondering, what’s the catch? Like, it sounds good and all, but what do they get out of giving away free service? Just curious if there’s something I’m missing here.
linode for gaming servers, anyone tried? need something stable but not expensive. their trial might be a good start, but not sure. anyone got thoughts?
I’ve been following Linode for a while, and this trial offer is pretty exciting. It’s a great way for devs and tech enthusiasts to get hands-on without the initial financial commitment. And those data center options? Super promising for latency improvements.
I’ve bounced between a few cloud services for my work, staying mobile. Linode’s trial could be a good test run. Just hoping it’s as good as it seems and doesn’t limit too much. Anyone got personal experience with their service?
So with Linode, do you reckon it’s a good choice for someone on a tight budget? Like, after the trial, does it stay affordable or skyrockets? Trying to figure out if it’s worth getting into. Thanks!
I’ve seen a lot of these cloud services saying ‘free’ this and ‘free’ that but when it comes down to it, you’re paying one way or another. How’s Linode any different, or is it just another trap to get my details and then hit me with hidden fees?
linode’s free credit thing sounds like a sweet deal! always hearing good stuff about cloud benefits. can’t wait to try out my app on a real server. this could be the start of something big!
hey, so i’m kinda new to this whole cloud thing, like, what am i suppose to do during the free trial? just wondering how to make the most out of it without messing something up. any tips would be great lol
Wow, those Linode data centers sound like they’re everywhere! Starting a biz with global reach, so this’s super important to me. Gonna dive deeper into their plans. Thanks for the info, really helps!
In the context of Linode’s pricing plan, how does it genuinely compare with the competition on a cost-benefit analysis? Many cloud services pitch similar offers, but there’s often a lack of transparency concerning the long-term value. Keen for a more detailed breakdown.
Free trials are just a tactic to get you hooked, aren’t they? Linode sounds no different. Bet there’s tiny print saying you owe your soul after 30 days. Lol, just skeptical about these cloud things. Prove me wrong?
Gotta say, every time I see ‘free trial’ I just think there’s a catch somewhere. Linode or not, there’s always a limit to what you get before they start charging. Wonder what’s the catch here, like limited data or super slow speeds? Anyone got the inside scoop?
so, linode’s giving free stuff? do they throw in a pizza too? could use one while cramming for exams and messing with coding lol
Questioning the worth of the Linode free trial period. Other clouds offer better or similar without needing to lock in a payment method upfront. How does Linode stand out here or is it just another cloud service trying to snag users? Open to hearing thoughts on this.
I’m really liking the sound of Linode’s plans and data centers locations. As a freelancer who needs reliable and wide-reaching server access, their package offers seem promising. Would love to see more details on their uptime guarantees if you have them, Ravi. Thanks for sharing!
yo, ravi kumar, so if i use paypal for linode’s thing, i still get the trial stuff? not too clear on that. trying to learn this cloud stuff for a project. thanks.
Tommy, pretty sure PayPal works man. Just gotta make sure it’s set up right is all. Linode’s pretty upfront about payment stuff.
Ravi, thanks for laying out the details on Linode’s cloud trial. Just launched my online store and been on the lookout for an affordable cloud service. This seems like a good spot to start without breaking the bank. Gonna give it a shot and see how it supports my website. Cheers!
hey ravi kumar, was readin about these linode free credits you talked about. sounds cool but kinda confused about how long the trial is? like, they giving it away for how long before they hit me with the charges? gotta plan my side project budget really smart, you know.