Is a credit card required?

Most international providers require one; domestic providers often accept real-name verification plus a phone number. Check the signup page.

Will I be charged automatically after the credit runs out?

Usually it switches to pay-as-you-go; set budget alerts or disable the service in advance.

Using Cloud Provider Free Trials to Call LLM APIs

Overview

Many cloud providers (AWS, Google Cloud, Azure, Alibaba Cloud, Tencent Cloud and others) offer free trial credits to new accounts, and some of that credit can be used on their AI/LLM inference platforms.

Steps

Pick a provider with a free trial and register a new account.
Complete phone or payment verification (some require a card and may place a small hold).
In the console, find the AI/ML service and enable the model you need.
Create an API key or access credential and note the balance and expiry.
Send a test request with the official SDK or an OpenAI-compatible endpoint.

Caveats

Free credits typically last 30–90 days and expire unused.
Beyond the credit you pay as you go, so set budget alerts and usage caps.
Model availability varies by region; some models need separate access approval.

Use cases

Short-term validation, model comparison, and dev/test environments.

Using Cloud Provider Free Trials to Call LLM APIs — FreeToken