AI giants offer startups $500K in free credits to lock in users

OpenAI and Anthropic are handing Y Combinator startups as much as $500,000 each in free computing credits, fueling a subsidy war that could top $800 million this year.

OpenAI and Anthropic are offering Y Combinator startups as much as $500,000 each in free AI credits, igniting a subsidy war that could exceed $800 million annually as the model makers race to lock in future enterprise customers.

"The world of AI is being powered by OpenAI and Anthropic because they are giving startups the money to pay for it," Christopher Acker, co-founder of SuperPenguin, a firm that helps companies track AI spending, said.

OpenAI initially offered $2 million in token credits per YC startup in exchange for equity, then adjusted to $500,000 in free credits with an optional $1.5 million more for equity, according to people familiar with the matter. Anthropic matched with $500,000 in free credits, up from $30,000 previously. Google Cloud offers up to $500,000 in cloud credits plus early access to Gemini models and occasional access to DeepMind engineers, a Google spokesman said.

The offers are so rich that some founders say they can delay fundraising. The median U.S. seed round is $3 million, according to PitchBook — roughly the size of the combined credits some startups have received from multiple providers. With Y Combinator running four cohorts of about 200 companies each annually, OpenAI and Anthropic together could deploy up to $800 million in credits over the next year.

The Battle for Enterprise Lock-In

The subsidy push comes as both companies face pressure to improve margins ahead of expected initial public offerings. Anthropic's revenue surged late last year as Claude Code and Cowork software drove adoption of agentic AI tools that autonomously complete coding and research tasks. OpenAI regained ground after releasing GPT-5.4 in March, which matched many of Anthropic's capabilities, and has since deployed salespeople to sell its Codex tool with volume discounts.

The economics of the subsidies are striking. Subscribers to Anthropic's Claude Max plan at $200 a month can burn tokens worth $8,000 in API-equivalent usage, while OpenAI's ChatGPT Pro 20x plan at the same price can burn tokens worth $14,000, according to research from SemiAnalysis, an AI-infrastructure data and consulting firm.

Startups Play the Field

Founders are capitalizing on the competition. Touchmark, an AI startup accepted by Y Combinator in May, received $1 million in token credits from OpenAI and Anthropic before the accelerator's summer session even began. "It's hard to imagine productivity now without these deals," co-founder Ilia Bolgov said.

Hans Ibarra, co-founder of Dialogus, an AI-voice startup, said the token deals available to founders "directly correlate to the scale you can grow your product. If you're not getting this deal, you will need to raise money to buy those."

The dynamic creates an incentive for startups to use the most expensive models. "If I'm choosing between a really cheap Chinese model that I actually have to pay for, and a very expensive Anthropic model that I don't have to pay for, I'm going to pick the Anthropic model," Acker said. "I'm always going to pick the one for which I have free credits."

For investors, the subsidy war signals that OpenAI and Anthropic are prioritizing market share over near-term profitability, a strategy that could pressure margins ahead of their IPOs. Alphabet, whose Google Cloud offers competing credits, trades at 22x forward earnings. The $800 million in potential annual subsidies represents a fraction of the addressable market for enterprise AI, which Gartner projects will reach $150 billion by 2027.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.