The Grafana Labs Startup Program gives early-stage companies up to $100,000 in Grafana Cloud credits, plus 24x7 support and a lasting discount once the credits end. Grafana Labs announced it at ObservabilityCON in September 2024, and on 1 November 2026 we found the official programme post still inviting applications, with the application form open.
What you get
The credits apply to any Grafana Cloud service, not just dashboards. Grafana lists these as covered:
- Managed backends for metrics, logs and traces
- Performance testing and profiling
- Incident response and management
- Frontend and application observability
- Synthetic monitoring
The credit lasts 12 months, or until your next funding round, whichever comes first. Grafana’s announcement uses that wording, so a startup that raises a new round early may see the credit period end sooner than a year.
Accepted startups also receive:
| Benefit | Detail |
|---|---|
| Support | 24x7 Grafana support |
| Plugins | All Enterprise data source plugins |
| Integrations help | Access to Grafana’s integrations team to plan a plugin or solution for the Grafana Cloud ecosystem |
| Post-credit pricing | A guaranteed 20% off list prices once credits run out or the 12 months end |
The 20% discount is the part many credit programmes lack. Grafana adds that further discounts are available based on consumption.
What “up to” means here
Grafana does not publish how it sizes each grant, so $100,000 is a ceiling. A small team sending modest volumes of metrics and logs is unlikely to need the full amount in a year anyway. What matters more is that the credit applies across the whole Grafana Cloud stack, so you can run metrics, logs, traces and profiles in one place without picking which signal to pay for first.
Who qualifies
Grafana keeps the criteria loose:
- Who can apply: all new customers, including Grafana Cloud Free users, plus existing open-source Grafana users who want a fully managed setup.
- Funding and size: ideally less than $10 million raised and fewer than 25 employees. Grafana says startups outside those limits should still apply.
- Decision: admission is at Grafana Labs’ sole discretion. There is no published scoring or referral requirement.
The real condition is the commitment that comes with acceptance. You agree to be a reference customer, and Grafana may ask you to join marketing activities such as guest blogs or speaking at events. The application form states that startups in the programme are expected to take part in co-marketing, such as a joint blog or webinar, during their 12 months.
How to apply
- Read the Grafana Labs Startup Program post and follow its application link.
- Complete the short form. Grafana describes it as four questions that take under two minutes. The current form asks for your name, work email, company and website, total funding received, whether you already have a Grafana Cloud account and whether your email is linked to it, and what you use for observability today.
- Confirm you accept the co-marketing expectation.
- Wait for Grafana Labs to contact you. It does not publish a response time.
Things to check before you apply
- The funding round clause. If you are about to close a round, the 12-month window may be cut short. Time your application with that in mind.
- Co-marketing is part of the deal. Make sure your team is comfortable being named as a Grafana customer and doing at least a blog or webinar.
- Use the email linked to your account. The form checks whether your application email matches your Grafana Cloud account, so apply with the same address to avoid delays.
- The programme page is a 2024 blog post. Grafana Labs has not published a separate terms page, so the details here come from the launch post and the live form. Confirm the exact credit amount and terms in writing once you are accepted.
- Up to $100,000. Grafana sets the amount, and it may be lower than the maximum.
How it compares
Up to $100,000 for a year matches the top end of observability credits for startups, and unlike some programmes Grafana does not require a referral from an investor or accelerator. The guaranteed 20% discount after credits is useful for budgeting your second year. The trade-off is the reference customer and co-marketing obligation, which a self-serve offer such as Sentry’s does not ask for.
