August 2025 was a tough month for developer free tiers. With 4 negative changes versus 1 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
4
Negative -1 vs last month
1
Positive
0
Neutral
Changes by Type
Change Type
Count
Limits Reduced
2
New Free Tier
1
Pricing Restructured
1
Free Tier Removed
1
Biggest Losers
Vendors whose changes cost users more
Neon (1 negative change: pricing changed)
Neon moved its paid Launch and Scale plans to usage-based pricing with a $5 monthly minimum. The Free plan went from 0.5 GB of storage and 191.9 compute hours per account to 0.5 GB and 50 CU-hours per project, across up to 10 projects. Source ↗
Together AI (1 negative change: free tier removed)
Together AI stopped giving new accounts $1 of free credit and began requiring a $5 credit purchase. Its notice is titled "August 2025 Changes to Free Tier and Billing"; the docs sentence offering the credit went between 2025-08-18 and 2025-08-31 (Internet Archive captures). Source ↗
Coursera replaced its free audit option with a free preview of each course's first module. Coursera's announcement of 2025-08-08: "This new model replaces our audit experience and gives learners the ability to preview the first module of nearly every course on Coursera for free." Full course access and certificates need Coursera Plus or a subscription, with a 7-day free trial. Source ↗