The verdict first: treat every free tier as a loan, not a grant. Nothing you build on one is owned by you — it’s extended to you, on terms that can be rewritten, capped, converted to credits, or withdrawn entirely. This week’s tracker from AgentDeals lists 29 documented changes across Q1–Q3 2026: plans removed, limits reduced, free access converted into credit pools, and entire products deprecated. The pattern is that free tiers are financing — vendors subsidize adoption while you’re cheap to serve, and stop subsidizing you when you’re not.
One caveat up front, stated explicitly because it shapes how you should use everything below: the AgentDeals tracker is self-described as “Reviewed 2026-09-12, corrections outstanding.” Every item here is attributed per AgentDeals tracker with the vendor link AgentDeals cites. Some entries are still in correction. Treat each one as a lead to verify on the vendor page before you rewrite code around it.
How to Read the “Between X and Y” Dates
Five items in this report don’t have a single effective date. They have a range: a date window captured by comparing two Internet Archive snapshots of a pricing page. When you see “between 2026-07-17 and 2026-07-24,” it means the old wording was present on the earlier capture and the new wording on the later one — so the change happened somewhere inside that window, not on a specific day. Ranges appear for Basecamp, bonsai.io, Exa, codehooks.io, and Algolia, and they’re labeled as ranges in every table below.
Q3 2026: 14 Changes (Effective July–September)
| Vendor | Change | Effective date | Source | |—|—|—|—|—| | CockroachDB | REMOVED — free Basic plan (50M RUs, 10 GiB storage/month) withdrawn from new deployments | 2026-09-15 | CockroachDB | | Pipedream | DEPRECATED — new signups/subscriptions for Workflows stopped; Workflows and String being wound down | 2026-09-30 | Pipedream | | MiniMax | DEPRECATED — paid Music and Lyrics Generation APIs closed to new users; free music tier winding down | 2026-08-20 | MiniMax | | Basecamp | REDUCED — free plan cut from up to 20 users to 5; now one free project for personal use | range: 2026-08-16 to 2026-08-19 | Basecamp | | Google Content API for Shopping | DEPRECATED (sunset) — requests return errors | 2026-08-18 | Google Merchant API updates | | Algolia | REDUCED — Build plan replaced with a Free plan; plan limits not verified on this run | 2026-08-12 | Internet Archive snapshot of Algolia pricing, 2026-08-13 | | codehooks.io | REDUCED — free API limits cut to 1/sec and 500/day (previously 60/minute) | range: 2026-07-11 to 2026-08-28 | codehooks.io | | Phase Two | REMOVED — free shared realms shut down, announced 2026-06-30 with 30 days notice | 2026-07-30 | Phase Two | | Roboflow | REDUCED — public plan changed from “$60/mo free credits” to “15 credits / month” per Internet Archive captures | 2026-07-30 | Roboflow | | Cloudflare Workers AI | REDUCED — Kimi K2.6, Kimi K2.7 Code and GLM-5.2 removed from Workers Free; now require Workers Paid | 2026-07-28 | Cloudflare changelog | | Exa | REDUCED — free tier of up to 20,000 requests/month replaced with $10 of credits a month | range: 2026-07-17 to 2026-07-24 | Exa pricing | | Cerebras | REMOVED (converted) — free access became a time- and credit-bounded trial: $5 in credits after adding a verified phone | 2026-07-16 | Cerebras change log | | Pollinations.AI | REMOVED — free hourly-refilling Pollen balance ended | 2026-07-10 | Pollinations PR #11928 | | bonsai.io | REMOVED — no free tier; lowest plan is “Staging” at $15/month (1 GB storage, 256 MB memory) | range: 2026-03-12 to 2026-07-28 | bonsai.io pricing |
A note on Algolia: per AgentDeals tracker, the Build plan was replaced with a Free plan between the 2026-08-10 and 2026-08-13 pricing captures. The new Free plan’s limits were not verified, so none are stated here. Check Algolia’s pricing page yourself.
Q2 2026: 7 Changes (Effective April–June)
| Vendor | Change | Effective date | Source | |—|—|—|—|—| | Google Tenor API | SHUT DOWN — new API key sign-ups had already stopped 2026-01-13 | 2026-06-30 | Google Tenor support | | Appwrite Cloud | REDUCED — free projects paused for 90 days are now deleted with all resources (earlier rule: pausing after 7 days of inactivity, from 2026-02-20) | 2026-06-29 | Appwrite changelog | | Burnermail | REMOVED — public Free plan removed; upgrade required before creating a burner mail | 2026-06-27 | Burnermail blog | | Google Gemini Code Assist (individuals) | REMOVED | 2026-06-18 | Gemini Code Assist deprecations | | fivenines.io | REMOVED — free plan (5 monitors, 1 team member, 1 month retention) removed | 2026-05-15 | fivenines.io | | Amplitude | REDUCED — free Starter plan cut from up to 10M to up to 2M events/month (earlier cut 2026-02-14: 50K to 10K MTUs) | 2026-04-27 | Amplitude pricing, archived 2026-04-27 | | Qwen Code (Alibaba Cloud) | REMOVED — free Qwen OAuth tier discontinued; new requests rejected | 2026-04-15 | Qwen Code docs |
Q1 2026: 8 Changes (Effective January–March)
| Vendor | Change | Effective date | Source | |—|—|—|—|—| | HCP Terraform | RESTRUCTURED — legacy free plan ended; free tier now capped at 500 managed resources | 2026-03-31 | HashiCorp Terraform pricing | | Postman | RESTRICTED — free plan is single-user only; team collaboration needs the Team plan at $19/user/month | 2026-03-01 | Postman pricing | | Xata Lite | RETIRED — 15 GB free serverless plan retired | 2026-02-28 | Xata Lite | | Koyeb | REMOVED — free Starter plan withdrawn from new users after the Mistral AI acquisition announcement (2026-02-17) | 2026-02-26 | Koyeb blog | | Brave Search API | REDUCED — free plan (2,000 queries/month) became $5 of free credit a month, about 1,000 requests at $5/1,000; attribution required | 2026-02-12 | Brave Search API blog | | Firebase Cloud Storage | REDUCED — requires the pay-as-you-go Blaze plan | 2026-02-03 | Firebase Storage docs | | MinIO | OSS repo archived; free option is now AIStor Free (one node, commercial licence) | 2026-02-12 | MinIO commit 7aac2a2 | | Google Programmable Search | REDUCED — free full-web search discontinued; free tier limited to 50 domains per engine | 2026-01-22 | Programmable Search docs |
Comparison Table: Cut vs. Reduced vs. Converted to Credits
Three shapes of bad news recur, and each demands a different response.
| Shape | What actually happened | Dossier example | What it means for your build |
|---|---|---|---|
| Removed / shut down | The free option is gone for new users or gone entirely | CockroachDB’s free Basic plan withdrawn for new deployments (2026-09-15); Google Tenor API shut down (2026-06-30); Xata Lite retired (2026-02-28) | Budget for a paid plan or migrate — there is no holding pattern |
| Reduced | The tier survives, the ceiling drops | Amplitude’s free Starter cut from up to 10M to up to 2M events/month (2026-04-27); Google Programmable Search limited to 50 domains per engine (2026-01-22) | Recompute your usage against the new cap; trim or accept throttling |
| Converted to credits | A generous allowance becomes a metered wallet | Exa: up to 20,000 requests/month → $10 of credits a month (range 2026-07-17 to 2026-07-24); Brave Search API: 2,000 queries/month → $5 of free credit (2026-02-12); Cerebras: free access → $5 credit trial (2026-07-16) | Your costs now scale with call price, not flat allowance — model spend before volume grows |
Migration Paths for the Five Most Urgent Items
These are suggestions to verify on the vendor pages, not guarantees. Each link is the primary source; confirm current terms before you move data.
- CockroachDB (2026-09-15). New deployments no longer get the free Basic plan. If you’re starting out, verify what remains available on CockroachDB’s pricing page before provisioning anything. Note: the existing StacksFree CockroachDB guide still describes the 50M RU free tier as current and is now outdated — do not follow it as written.
- Appwrite Cloud (2026-06-29). Projects paused for 90 days are deleted with all resources. The migration is really a habit change: check the Appwrite changelog, then set a calendar reminder or an activity heartbeat so no project sits dormant for 90 days.
- Pipedream (2026-09-30). Workflows and String are being wound down and new signups stopped. Read Pipedream’s Workflows docs for the wind-down terms, export your workflow definitions, and confirm where they can run next.
- MiniMax (2026-08-20). Paid Music and Lyrics Generation APIs are closed to new users and the free music tier is winding down. See MiniMax’s pricing guide for what remains open to existing accounts, and confirm whether your use case can move to other endpoints or another provider entirely.
- Firebase Cloud Storage (2026-02-03). Storage now requires the pay-as-you-go Blaze plan. Review Firebase Storage docs for the activation path, and price your actual usage before flipping it on — “pay-as-you-go” means exactly that.
Reported, Unconfirmed
Everything in this section is a claim, not a fact. Each was surfaced by aggregators or community posts and did not survive a check on the vendor page. The vendor-page checks cited here were run on 2026-10-09 and 2026-10-11.
- Gemini app free-tier cut to Flash-Lite on 2026-10-09 — reported, unconfirmed. Aggregator claims from freeainews, tech-insider and the-decoder. Not confirmed. The vendor page checked 2026-10-09 UTC (Gemini API pricing) lists free-tier pricing per model as “Free of charge.”
- June 2026 Gemini API limit changes, including a Gemini 2.0 Flash removal — reported, unconfirmed. Sources conflict on dates: the removal is given as June 1, June 12 and June 30 by different aggregators. That conflict alone is reason not to act on it. Do not treat any of those dates as fact.
- Anthropic “credit pool” free-tier change dated June 15, 2026 — reported, unconfirmed. Appears only in aggregators. The official Anthropic pricing page, fetched 2026-10-11, lists Free with Sonnet and Haiku access.
- OpenAI “$15 trial credit / 2M tokens” — reported, unconfirmed. Claimed by freeainews but not found on OpenAI’s API pricing docs.
On the verified side of the Gemini page: free-tier pricing is listed per model as free of charge; paid rates step up on 2027-01-01 for several Gemini 3.x models ($0.75→$1.50 input per 1M for one Gemini 3.x Flash row; $1.35→$2.70 for another); and Grounding with Google Search is 5,000 free requests/month shared across Gemini 3+ models, then $14/1,000.
Counter-Trend: Not Everything Moved Down
Per AgentDeals tracker, there is a counter-trend of expansions and new free tiers alongside the cuts. Cloudflare is described by the tracker as part of that counter-trend, and GitHub Copilot is listed as having “went free” — a free-tier expansion. Neither was verified item-by-item on this run, so no numbers are attached to either claim here. Qualitatively: the market is not monolithically retracting, which is exactly why per-vendor checking beats narrative.
The Survival Checklist
Four warning patterns account for most of the 29 items. Watch for these in every changelog you follow:
- Acquisition announcements. Koyeb withdrew its free Starter plan from new users after the Mistral AI acquisition announcement (2026-02-17), with the removal effective 2026-02-26. When a vendor gets acquired, read the pricing page that week.
- 30-day-notice shutdowns. Phase Two announced its free shared realms shutdown on 2026-06-30 and it took effect 2026-07-30. Announcements with a notice period are your migration window — treat the announcement date as day one.
- Pause-to-deletion. Appwrite’s earlier rule paused projects after 7 days of inactivity (from 2026-02-20); the 2026-06-29 change deletes projects paused for 90 days along with all their resources. Dormancy is a deletion trigger.
- Credit conversions. Exa, Brave Search API and Cerebras all moved from flat allowances to dollar-denominated credits. Watch the word “credits” — it means your headroom is now priced, not counted.
FAQ
1. What’s the difference between “per AgentDeals tracker” and “confirmed on the vendor page”? “Per AgentDeals tracker” means the item was read from the AgentDeals Free Tier Tracker, which is self-described as “Reviewed 2026-09-12, corrections outstanding,” and that the vendor link shown is the one the tracker cites. Confirmation means the same change was found directly on that vendor’s pricing or changelog page. Items in the “reported, unconfirmed” section failed that second step.
2. Why do some effective dates show a range? Because they come from comparing two Internet Archive captures. The change happened between the earlier and later snapshot; narrowing it to one day would be an assumption. Basecamp, bonsai.io, Exa, codehooks.io and Algolia all carry ranges.
3. Does a “reduced” tier mean I should migrate immediately? Not necessarily. A reduction lowers your ceiling; it doesn’t erase the tier. Recompute your usage against the new cap first. A “removed” or “deprecated” change is the one that forces action.
4. What should I do about the outdated StacksFree CockroachDB guide? It still describes the 50M RU free tier as current, which predates the 2026-09-15 removal for new deployments. Treat it as historical, and verify against CockroachDB’s pricing page.
5. Are the Gemini, Anthropic and OpenAI aggregator reports usable? No. Each is labeled reported, unconfirmed: the Gemini Flash-Lite cut and the June 2026 limit claims (with conflicting June 1/12/30 dates), Anthropic’s “credit pool,” and OpenAI’s “$15 trial credit.” The 2026-10-09 and 2026-10-11 vendor-page checks did not support them.
How This Guide Was Built
Primary source: the AgentDeals free tier tracker, with each item attributed per AgentDeals tracker alongside the vendor link the tracker cites. Supporting sources are vendor pricing pages, vendor changelogs and Internet Archive captures — chosen over aggregators precisely because aggregators produced the four unconfirmed claims above. Where a capture range was the only evidence, the date is reported as a range.
This review is based on official documentation, pricing pages, and community reports — we did not run the tools hands-on. Effective dates, plan names, limits and dollar figures appear only where the dossier documents them; where a fact wasn’t verified (such as Algolia’s new Free plan limits), it is omitted rather than estimated.