Grafana for Startups - up to $100K in Grafana Cloud credits
Source: https://grafana.com/about/grafana-for-startups
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+ 1 Grafana Labs gives qualifying early-stage startups up to $100,000 in Grafana Cloud credits for 12 months (or until the next funding round, whichever comes first) plus 24/7 Grafana support and a guaranteed 20% discount off list prices on whatever you keep using after the credits run out. The credit pool covers the entire Grafana Cloud stack — managed Loki (logs), Tempo (traces), Mimir/Prometheus (metrics), k6 performance testing, Pyroscope profiling, Incident Response & Management (IRM), frontend & application observability, synthetic monitoring, and all Enterprise data source plugins.
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+ 3 This is one of the most generous observability startup deals on the market — you don't need VC backing, an accelerator referral, or a partner intro. A four-question form, ~2 minutes, and Grafana decides at its discretion.
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+ 9 Grafana lists two soft guidelines ("ideally"), not hard cutoffs:
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+ 10
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+ 11 • Less than $10M raised in funding (any stage)
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+ 12 • Fewer than 25 employees
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+ 13
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+ 14 You can still apply if you don't fit those numbers — Grafana explicitly says they'll consider applications outside the guidelines (typical for startups that have raised a bit more or grown headcount but haven't yet adopted a paid observability stack). You will not, however, get $100K if you're a 200-person Series C — credit size is at Grafana's discretion based on your stage.
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+ 15
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+ 16 Eligible customer profiles:
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+ 17
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+ 18 • Brand-new Grafana customers (no account yet)
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+ 19 • Existing Grafana Cloud Free users (you are not disqualified for being on the free tier)
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+ 20 • Existing self-hosted Grafana OSS users wanting to migrate to managed Cloud
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+ 21
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+ 22 Not eligible: companies already on a paid Grafana Cloud Pro/Advanced contract.
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+ 23
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+ 24 You will be expected to:
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+ 25 • Serve as a reference customer (logo, case study, quote)
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+ 26 • Possibly participate in co-marketing (guest blog, conference talk, podcast)
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+ 27
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+ 28 If you can't agree to either, this program isn't for you — go on the standard Grafana Cloud Free tier instead.
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+ 36 • Up to $100,000 in Grafana Cloud credits — actual amount is set by Grafana based on your projected usage and stage
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+ 37 • Valid for 12 months from acceptance, OR until your next funding round closes — whichever comes first. (If you raise a Series B halfway through, the credits stop early.)
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+ 38 • Credits apply to any Grafana Cloud SKU
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+ 39
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+ 41
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+ 42 PillarProduct
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+ 43 LogsGrafana Loki (managed)
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+ 44 MetricsGrafana Mimir + Prometheus (managed)
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+ 45 TracesGrafana Tempo (managed)
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+ 46 ProfilingGrafana Pyroscope (managed)
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+ 47 Performance TestingGrafana k6 Cloud
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+ 48 Incident ResponseGrafana IRM (incident response & management, the rebrand of Grafana Incident + OnCall)
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+ 49 Frontend / RUMGrafana Faro frontend observability
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+ 50 Application observabilityGrafana Application Observability (full APM)
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+ 51 Synthetic monitoringGrafana Synthetic Monitoring
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+ 52 PluginsAll Enterprise data source plugins (Splunk, Datadog, Snowflake, ServiceNow, Oracle, Salesforce, etc.)
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+ 53 AlertingGrafana Alerting (managed)
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+ 54 DashboardsGrafana Cloud (hosted)
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+ 55
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+ 57
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+ 58 • 24/7 Grafana support for the duration of the program (this is the same paid-tier SLA, not community Slack)
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+ 59 • Access to the Grafana Labs business development team for ecosystem integration help — useful if you're building a custom data source, an Enterprise plugin, or want a Grafana app for your product
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+ 63 • Guaranteed 20% off list prices when your credits run out — locked in even if you don't sign a long-term contract
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+ 64 • Additional volume / consumption-based discounts are negotiable on top
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+ 69
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+ 70 1. Go to grafana.com/about/grafana-for-startups (the canonical landing page; if it 404s, the application form is also linked from the launch blog post).
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+ 71 2. Click "Apply now" — this opens a Typeform with four questions:
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+ 72 • Company name + website
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+ 73 • Funding raised to date
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+ 74 • Headcount
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+ 75 • Brief description of what you'll use Grafana Cloud for
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+ 76 3. Submit. The form takes under 2 minutes to complete.
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+ 77 4. Wait for a response from Grafana's startup team. There's no published SLA — anecdotally 1–2 weeks for a yes/no.
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+ 78 5. If accepted: you'll receive an offer with the specific credit amount (it may be less than $100K depending on your projected usage), terms, and a contract to sign covering the reference-customer agreement.
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+ 79 6. Sign, and your existing Grafana Cloud account is upgraded — or a new one is provisioned.
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+ 80
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+ 81 Important caveats:
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+ 82 • Admission is at Grafana's sole discretion. They may say no even if you fit the guidelines, and yes even if you don't.
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+ 83 • The $100K is a ceiling, not a default. Most startups don't hit it. Plan your application around realistic usage, not the headline number.
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+ 84 • The credit clock starts at acceptance, not at first usage — if you wait 3 months to instrument your services, you've burned 3 months of the 12.
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+ 85 • Funding event terminates credits early — if you close a round during the program, the deal ends. Time your application accordingly.
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+ 86 • You don't need to be a US company. Program is global.
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+ 91
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+ 92 If you don't qualify or don't want to be a reference customer:
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+ 93
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+ 94 • Grafana Cloud Free tier — 10K series Prometheus metrics, 50 GB logs, 50 GB traces, 50 GB profiles, 500 VUh of k6, 3 active users, 14-day retention. Permanent, no contract. Most early-stage startups can run on this for months.
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+ 95 • Self-hosted Grafana OSS — entirely free, you operate it yourself. Higher TCO once you're past one or two engineers.
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+ 96 • Datadog for Startups ($30K–$100K, partner-referral required) and New Relic Startup are the closest competitors if Grafana says no.
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+ 97
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+ 98 Grafana's pitch is that the credits are big enough to onboard a real production workload without the partner-referral gating that Datadog/New Relic require.
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+ 103
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+ 104 No VC required, no partner referral required, no accelerator membership required — just a 4-question form. But it's discretionary approval (not auto-accept) and you must commit to being a reference. That puts it solidly at Rank 3, not Rank 2.
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+ 107
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+ 108 Sources:
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+ 109 • Grafana for Startups landing page
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+ 110 • Launch blog: Apply today for up to $100,000 in Grafana Cloud credits (Sept 2024)
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+ 111 • ObservabilityCON 2024 announcements
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+ 112 • Grafana Cloud product overview
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