SambaNova Developer Tier - $5 Free Credits
Source: https://cloud.sambanova.ai/plans
Description
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+ 1 SambaNova Cloud gives every new developer $5 in free credits (roughly 30 million tokens on Llama 3.1 8B) to explore their ultra-fast inference platform. SambaNova runs open-source models like DeepSeek, Llama, and Qwen on custom RDU hardware, delivering inference speeds up to 10x faster than GPU-based providers. The Developer Tier offers 50% higher rate limits on 70B/405B models and doubled rate limits on Llama 8B compared to the Free Tier. After credits run out, it switches to pay-as-you-go billing. No approval process, no waitlist.
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+ 6
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+ 7 1. Go to cloud.sambanova.ai
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+ 8 2. Click "Get Started" or "Sign Up"
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+ 9 3. Create an account using your email address (or sign in if you already have one)
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+ 10 4. Verify your email if prompted
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+ 11 5. You land on the dashboard with $5 in free credits already applied
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+ 12 6. Go to API Keys and click "Create new key" — save it immediately, as it cannot be viewed again
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+ 13 7. To unlock Developer Tier rate limits, go to Plans > Billing and add a payment method (credit card via Stripe)
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+ 14 8. Start calling models using the OpenAI-compatible API endpoint
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+ 15
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+ 16 Important:
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+ 17 • Without a payment method, you stay on the Free Tier with lower rate limits and a 200,000 tokens-per-day cap
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+ 18 • Adding a payment method upgrades you to the Developer Tier with significantly higher rate limits
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+ 19 • You can generate and use up to 25 API keys per account
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+ 20 • The API is OpenAI-compatible — just swap the base URL and API key in any OpenAI SDK
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+ 25
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+ 26 FeatureFree TierDeveloper Tier
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+ 27 CostFree (no payment method)$5 free credit + pay-as-you-go
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+ 28 Payment methodNot requiredRequired (credit card via Stripe)
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+ 29 ModelsAll Production & PreviewAll Production & Preview
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+ 30 RPM (70B models)40240 (6x higher)
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+ 31 RPM (8B models)401,440 (36x higher)
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+ 32 RPM (DeepSeek-R1)2060 (3x higher)
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+ 33 RPD40 per model6,000–288,000 per model
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+ 34 TPD (tokens/day)200,000 per modelNo daily token cap
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+ 35 SupportCommunityCommunity (email + forums)
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+ 36
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+ 37 The Free Tier is extremely restrictive at just 40 requests per day. The Developer Tier is where real building happens.
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+ 44
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+ 45 ModelContextInput PriceOutput Price
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+ 46 Meta-Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct16K$0.01/M tokens$0.02/M tokens
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+ 47 Meta-Llama-3.3-70B-Instruct128K$0.06/M tokens$0.12/M tokens
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+ 48 DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Llama-70B128K$0.07/M tokens$0.14/M tokens
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+ 49 DeepSeek-V3.1128K$0.015/M tokens$0.075/M tokens
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+ 50 DeepSeek-V3-0324128K$0.30/M tokens$0.45/M tokens
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+ 51 DeepSeek-R1-0528128K$0.50/M tokens$0.70/M tokens
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+ 52
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+ 54
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+ 55 ModelContextInput PriceOutput Price
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+ 56 Llama-4-Maverick-17B-128E-Instruct128K$0.063/M tokens$0.18/M tokens
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+ 57 gpt-oss-120b128K$0.022/M tokens$0.059/M tokens
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+ 58 Qwen3-32B8K$0.04/M tokens$0.08/M tokens
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+ 59 Qwen3-235B—$0.04/M tokens$0.08/M tokens
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+ 60 Whisper-Large-v3 (audio)—$10/hour—
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+ 61 E5-Mistral-7B-Instruct (embeddings)4K$0.013/M tokensFree
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+ 62 Llama-3.3-Swallow-70B-Instruct-v0.416K——
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+ 63
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+ 64 SambaNova is a Llama 4 launch partner — Maverick is available in the playground and via API.
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+ 69
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+ 71
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+ 72 ModelRPMRPD
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+ 73 Meta-Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct1,440288,000
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+ 74 Meta-Llama-3.3-70B-Instruct24048,000
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+ 75 DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Llama-70B24048,000
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+ 76 DeepSeek-V3-03246012,000
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+ 77 DeepSeek-V3.16012,000
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+ 78 DeepSeek-R16012,000
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+ 79
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+ 81
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+ 82 ModelRPMRPD
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+ 83 Whisper-Large-v345090,000
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+ 84 Llama-4-Maverick-17B-128E6012,000
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+ 85 gpt-oss-120b6012,000
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+ 86 E5-Mistral-7B-Instruct6012,000
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+ 87 Llama-3.3-Swallow-70B6012,000
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+ 88 Qwen3-32B306,000
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+ 89
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+ 91
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+ 93
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+ 94 With $5 in credits, here is roughly what you can expect:
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+ 95
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+ 96 ModelApprox. Tokens (input)
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+ 97 Llama 3.1 8B~500M tokens ($0.01/M)
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+ 98 Llama 3.3 70B~83M tokens ($0.06/M)
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+ 99 DeepSeek-V3.1~333M tokens ($0.015/M)
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+ 100 DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Llama-70B~71M tokens ($0.07/M)
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+ 101 DeepSeek-R1-0528~10M tokens ($0.50/M)
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+ 102
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+ 103 The cheapest models give you hundreds of millions of tokens — enough for serious prototyping.
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+ 104
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+ 106
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+ 108
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+ 109 There is some inconsistency between official sources:
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+ 110 • The blog post (July 2025 launch) states credits expire in 3 months
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+ 111 • The plans page currently states credits expire in 30 days
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+ 112
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+ 113 The policy may have been updated since launch. Check the plans page for the current expiration window when you sign up. Either way, set a reminder — unused credits disappear.
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+ 118
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+ 119 1. If you have a payment method on file: You switch to pay-as-you-go billing. Usage is tracked per model and billed monthly via Stripe
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+ 120 2. If you have no payment method: You fall back to the Free Tier with severely limited rate limits (40 RPD, 200K TPD per model)
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+ 121 3. No automatic charges will surprise you if you never added a payment method
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+ 122
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+ 124
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+ 126
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+ 127 SambaNova uses an OpenAI-compatible API, so switching from OpenAI or other providers is trivial:
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+ 128
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129
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+ 130 from openai import OpenAI
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+ 131
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+ 132 client = OpenAI(
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api_key="YOUR_SAMBANOVA_API_KEY",
api_key="YOUR_SAMBANOVA_API_KEY", No comments on this line yet.
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base_url="https://api.sambanova.ai/v1"
base_url="https://api.sambanova.ai/v1" No comments on this line yet.
+ 135 )
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+ 136
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+ 137 response = client.chat.completions.create(
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model="Meta-Llama-3.3-70B-Instruct",
model="Meta-Llama-3.3-70B-Instruct", No comments on this line yet.
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messages=[{"role": "user", "content": "Hello!"}]
messages=[{"role": "user", "content": "Hello!"}] No comments on this line yet.
+ 140 )
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+ 142
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+ 143 Works with the OpenAI Python SDK, JavaScript SDK, LiteLLM, and any OpenAI-compatible client.
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+ 144
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+ 146
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+ 148
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+ 149 • Speed advantage — SambaNova runs on custom RDU chips, not GPUs. Expect inference speeds of 100+ tokens/second on large models and 600+ tokens/second on small models like Llama 8B. This is the main reason to choose SambaNova over competitors
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+ 150 • AWS Marketplace — you can also subscribe via AWS Marketplace and pay through your AWS bill instead of Stripe
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+ 151 • Community credits — join the SambaNova Developer Community and participate in the leaderboard. Top 10 contributors each month earn $10 in additional credits
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+ 152 • No free tier anymore — SambaNova has confirmed they have no plans to maintain a permanent free tier. The Free Tier (no payment method) still works but with very low limits (40 RPD). The Developer Tier with $5 credit is the new default
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+ 153 • Preview models can be removed at any time without notice — do not build production workflows on them
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+ 154 • Enterprise Tier — if you need custom rate limits, dedicated nodes, or bring-your-own-checkpoints (BYOC), contact SambaNova sales
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+ 155
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156
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+ 157
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+ 158 Sources:
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+ 159 • SambaNova Cloud Plans
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+ 160 • SambaNova Developer Tier Blog Post
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+ 161 • SambaNova Rate Limits Documentation
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+ 162 • SambaNova Supported Models
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+ 163 • SambaNova Cloud Pricing
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+ 164 • SambaNova Quickstart Guide
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+ 165 • SambaNova on AWS Marketplace
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+ 166 • SambaNova Community Discussion on Free Tier
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