Free tier eligibility
Demeter sponsors free access for projects that make the Cardano ecosystem better and are not yet in a position to pay for infrastructure. This page describes who qualifies, what the free tier covers, and how enrollment is reviewed.
Who qualifies
Every application is read by a person, so this is a description of the kind of work we sponsor rather than a checklist to satisfy. If your project looks like one of these, it is worth applying:
- Open-source projects and public goods on Cardano
- Pre-revenue teams and funded proposals building in public
- Hackathon teams, workshops and university courses
- Tooling and SDK maintainers the ecosystem depends on
The common thread is that the work is public and the project is not yet earning from it. If you are shipping a commercial product that already has paying users, the paid plans start at $0 with no minimum fee, so there is nothing to commit to up front: see the rate card.
What the free tier covers
Every API Demeter runs, on every network:
- Blockfrost, the Blockfrost-compatible REST API
- Ogmios, JSON-RPC over WebSocket
- Kupo, the chain indexer for UTxOs, datums and scripts
- UTxO RPC, gRPC for chain sync, queries and submission
All four are available on mainnet, preprod and preview. There is no credit card and no trial clock: an approved project runs on the free tier for as long as it keeps qualifying.
Throughput is set when your enrollment is approved and shown in the console next to your endpoints. The published limits for the paid plans are on the pricing page.
How review works
Applications are reviewed weekly. Enrollments run for six months and are renewed on review, so a project that is still active and still qualifying keeps its access without reapplying from scratch.
The application asks for your project name, a repository URL, the network you need, roughly how many requests a month you expect, and a short description of what you are building. The repository link is the part that matters most: it is how we confirm the work is public.
Fair use
Free-tier access is subject to the same terms of service as every other plan. In practice the only thing we ask beyond those terms is that the capacity goes to the project you described. Reselling it, sharing credentials outside your team, or pointing production traffic from a different product at a sponsored endpoint ends the enrollment.
If your usage outgrows what the free tier can carry, we would rather move you to a paid plan than cut you off: tell us before it becomes a problem.
How to apply
Use the free-tier enrollment form. Tell us what you are building, link the repository, and we will come back to you after the next weekly review.
Apply for free access