The free tier
Every API Demeter runs has a free tier. You can use it right away, and you keep it by enrolling your project in the free-tier program. This page describes how that works, who the program is for, what the free tier covers, and how enrollment is reviewed.
How it works
- Use it now. Sign up, create a port on the Free tier, and use it. There is no credit card and nothing to wait for. A coding agent can get a Free testnet port with no account at all, and hand it to you to claim: see /auth.md.
- Enroll within 30 days. To keep Free, enroll the project in the free-tier program within 30 days of creating it. For a project an agent registered and you claimed, the 30 days start at the registration.
- If it is not enrolled, the project gets a notice, and its ports are suspended 14 days later. The project and its keys are kept, so enrolling it, or moving a port to a paid plan, brings it back.
- Or enroll first. Anyone can enroll before they start, with the enrollment form.
Who it is for
The free-tier program is for projects that make the Cardano ecosystem better and are not yet in a position to pay for infrastructure:
- 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. The Free tier's throughput is shown in the console next to your endpoints, and on each port's page in the docs. The published limits for the paid plans are on the pricing page.
How enrollment is reviewed
Enrollment is how you keep the free tier, not how you get it: your project uses Free while its enrollment is reviewed. A person reviews enrollments weekly. An enrollment runs for six months and is renewed on review, so a project that is still active and still fits the program keeps Free without enrolling from scratch. A lapsed or declined enrollment counts as not enrolled.
The form 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. Reselling it, sharing credentials outside your team, or pointing production traffic from a different product at a free endpoint is not what it is for.
If your usage outgrows what the free tier can carry, move the port to a paid plan in the console: your endpoints stay the same.
Enroll
Use the enrollment form. Tell us what you are building, link the repository, and we will come back to you after the next weekly review.