Free stuff for founders

There is lots of support for startups once they have raised or started generating revenue. Free cloud credits, discounted software, accelerators. But most founders are not at that stage. They are far more scrappy, balancing credit cards, full-time jobs, childcare and a load of other things, and the freebies are often out of reach for the people who would benefit most.

So this page collects the free things I think every founder should know about before they raise anything. Everything here was checked against the official page on the date above. When something dies, it moves to the graveyard at the end of the page rather than quietly lying to you.

UK

• Santander Work Café. Free coworking space and fast wifi inside Santander's Work Cafés, and you do not need to bank with them. A handful of cities so far, including Leeds, Milton Keynes, Oxford and London. santander.co.uk/workcafe
• NatWest Accelerator. Fully funded accelerator membership, with access to coworking hubs in 13 cities, coaching, masterclasses and events. Any business can apply. natwest.com/accelerator
• King's Trust Enterprise programme. A free start-a-business programme for 18 to 30 year olds, with grants of £100 to £5,000, start-up loans, and a matched mentor for three years after launch. kingstrust.org.uk
• British Library Business & IP Centre. With a free Reader Pass you get the commercial market research databases consultancies pay thousands for, including Mintel, IBISWorld and Statista, plus free one-to-ones with intellectual property specialists. Over 70 centres across the UK, with the full database list at St Pancras. bl.uk/bipc
• Mettle. NatWest's free business account, which includes FreeAgent accounting software worth at least £150 a year. You need to make one transaction a month to keep FreeAgent free. mettle.co.uk
• Starling and Monzo. Business banking with no monthly fees from either. Starling includes free invoicing, and Monzo's free Lite plan covers the basics. starlingbank.com·monzo.com
• Digital Boost. Free, unlimited one-to-one mentoring calls with around 5,000 volunteer experts, plus free workshops. Open to any small organisation at any stage. digitalboost.org.uk
• HMRC webinars and email courses. Free live webinars, recorded videos and email courses for the newly self-employed, covering Self Assessment, expenses, record keeping and Making Tax Digital. gov.uk
• OpenLearn. Free business courses from the Open University. 146 of them in the money and business category at the last count, from entrepreneurship to leadership. open.edu/openlearn
• The IPO and PatLib centres. A free one-hour business and intellectual property session at 25 PatLib centres across the UK, plus free seminars and a support line. gov.uk
• R&D tax relief. The merged scheme pays a 20% expenditure credit on qualifying R&D, and loss-making R&D-intensive SMEs can get back up to roughly 27p per pound of qualifying spend. Claimed through your Corporation Tax return, and HMRC scrutiny is real, so keep records. gov.uk
• Employment Allowance. Up to £10,500 a year off your employer's National Insurance bill. Single-director companies with no other staff on payroll cannot claim. gov.uk
• SEIS advance assurance. HMRC's pre-approval that your round should qualify for SEIS, which gives your investors 50% income tax relief on up to £250,000 raised. Most angels ask for it, and it costs nothing but time. gov.uk
• Help to Grow: Management. A 12-week mini MBA delivered by UK business schools, 90% government funded, so you pay £750. For businesses with 5 to 249 employees. smallbusinesscharter.org
• UnLtd awards. Cash awards for social entrepreneurs. Up to £8,000 to start and up to £18,000 to scale, with a support manager, mentoring and legal advice attached. Application windows apply. unltd.org.uk/awards
• Innovate UK competition finder. The live list of open innovation grant competitions. The well known Smart Grants programme is paused, so start from the live finder rather than old blog posts. apply-for-innovation-funding.service.gov.uk
• The gov.uk finance and support finder. The government's searchable directory of more than 100 live schemes, filterable by stage, sector, region and support type. gov.uk
• Made Smarter. For manufacturing and engineering SMEs in England. Free advice from digital specialists, a free transformation workshop, and match-funded grants of up to £20,000. madesmarter.uk
• Enterprise Nation. Free membership tier with events, e-learning and local meet-ups for small business owners. enterprisenation.com

US

• Capital One Cafés. Free walk-in workspace with wifi at more than 60 locations, whether you bank with Capital One or not. capitalone.com/local
• Your EIN, from the IRS. Your Employer Identification Number comes free from the IRS in minutes. Plenty of websites charge hundreds of dollars for the same form, and the IRS's own page says you never have to pay. irs.gov/ein
• Your library card. Big systems like LA County and Brooklyn include free LinkedIn Learning and commercial market research databases with a free library card. It varies by system, so check yours. lacountylibrary.org/learn
• Cooley GO. Free legal document generators from a top startup law firm. Delaware incorporation packages, SAFEs, NDAs, and advisor agreements. Not a substitute for a lawyer, but the right starting point. cooleygo.com/documents
• Y Combinator's SAFE documents. The standard seed fundraising instrument itself, free to download with the user guide. ycombinator.com/documents
• SBIR and STTR, America's Seed Fund. Federal R&D funding of up to roughly $323,000 at Phase I and $2.15m at Phase II, and the government takes no equity. For US small businesses doing real research and development. sbir.gov
• SCORE. Free, ongoing one-to-one mentoring from experienced executives, plus free courses and webinars. The largest volunteer business mentor network in the country. score.org
• Small Business Development Centers. Free professional business consulting from nearly 1,000 centers, most hosted at universities. Business planning, access to capital, marketing and exporting. americassbdc.org
• Women's Business Centers, Veterans Business Outreach Centers and Boots to Business. The SBA's free counselling and training networks for women founders, veterans and military spouses. sba.gov/local-assistance
• Grants.gov. The free searchable hub for every federal grant opportunity. Federal grants fund programmes and R&D rather than general start-up costs, but this is where to look. grants.gov
• SBA Learning Platform. Free online courses from the SBA on starting, pivoting and growing a business. sba.gov
• The Amber Grant. Three $10,000 grants for women-owned businesses every month, and monthly winners become eligible for three $50,000 year-end grants. There is a $15 application fee. ambergrantsforwomen.com
• Verizon Small Business Digital Ready. Free business courses and coaching, and completing any two unlocks an application for a $10,000 grant, awarded monthly through 2026. digitalready.verizonwireless.com
• gBETA. A free, equity-free seven-week accelerator run in cities across the US, with coaching, mentorship and investor exposure. Around five companies per cohort, so it is competitive. gener8tor.com/gbeta
• Novo and Bluevine. Free business checking from either. No monthly fees, and Bluevine's standard plan pays interest if the account is active. novo.co·bluevine.com
• Wave. Free invoicing, estimates and bookkeeping on the starter plan. Payment processing and bank feeds are where they charge. waveapps.com
• Google Voice. A free second phone number on the personal tier, with almost all calls to the US and Canada free. support.google.com
• 1 Million Cups. Free weekly founder meetups in over 100 communities, run by the Kauffman Foundation. Present your business, get feedback, meet people building near you. 1millioncups.com
• Hello Alice. A free account matches you to live grant and accelerator programmes. The grants are competitions with real odds, but the matching costs nothing. helloalice.com/grants

Works anywhere

• Y Combinator's Startup School. A free online course on starting a startup, taught by YC partners, plus the world's largest co-founder matching platform. startupschool.org
• Google Business Profile. A free listing on Google Search and Maps for businesses that serve customers in person or in a service area. support.google.com
• Meta Blueprint. Free self-guided marketing courses across Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. facebook.com/business/learn
• NVIDIA Inception. Free membership for startups under ten years old. Technical courses, preferred pricing and partner offers, with no fees, no equity and no cohort deadlines. nvidia.com/startups
• Secret and F6S. Deal marketplaces whose free tiers aggregate many of the offers on this page and thousands more. Worth a free account before you pay full price for any software. joinsecret.com·f6s.com

Once you have raised

The famous startup credits, AWS and Google Cloud and Azure and the rest, are real and worth six figures combined, but almost all of the headline numbers are gated behind a partner VC or an accelerator. They have their own page, with the gate stated on every line rather than the biggest number quoted: startup credits.

The graveyard

Programmes that still appear in round-up articles but no longer exist. Checked so you can stop looking for them.

• FedEx Small Business Grant Contest ended after its 2024 run.
• Comcast RISE wound down, with no 2026 round.
• Fast Break for Small Business the LegalZoom and NBA grant closed for the final time in 2024.
• Innovate UK Smart Grants paused since January 2025. Use the live competition finder above instead.
• Tide's free company formation now costs £14.99.
• The free WeWork day pass never existed. Day passes start at £25 plus VAT in the UK and $39 in the US.

Questions people ask