July 2025 was a tough month for developer free tiers. With 5 negative changes versus 0 positive, the trend continues toward tighter limits and eliminated offerings. Developers relying on free tiers should review their dependencies.
5
Total Changes same as last month
5
Negative same as last month
0
Positive
0
Neutral
Changes by Type
Change Type
Count
Free Tier Removed
3
Product Deprecated
1
Limits Reduced
1
Biggest Losers
Vendors whose changes cost users more
imgix (1 negative change: free tier removed)
Imgix replaced its self-service Free plan ($0, up to 1,000 origin images) with a 30-day trial of 100 credits when it moved to credit-based pricing on 2025-07-01. Source ↗
Kluster AI (1 negative change: product ends; its free plan ends with it)
kluster.ai shut down its inference, fine-tuning and dedicated deployment services on 2025-07-24, announced on 2025-07-17, which ended its free trial and $5 signup credits. Source ↗
Amazon SES (1 negative change: free tier removed)
AWS restructured its Free Tier into expiring credits, which removed the per-service SES allowance for new accounts. The SES pricing page, read 2026-08-27, offers only 'up to $200 in AWS Free Tier credits' with 'the free plan will be available for 6 months after account creation' and no perpetual sending allowance from any source. Source ↗
Storj (1 negative change: free tier removed)
Storj introduced a $5 minimum monthly usage fee for all accounts, announced 2025-05-30 and effective 2025-07-01, leaving a 30-day trial where the free tier used to be. The pricing page, read 2026-08-27, offers '25GB free storage for 30 days' with 'no credit card required' and applies the minimum fee once the trial ends, except for accounts paying in STORJ token. Source ↗
Appwrite limited its Free plan to two projects per organization, down from unlimited. It announced the limit on 2025-07-23, and organizations with more projects kept them until 2025-09-01. Source ↗