{"rid":"compute/zoho-catalyst","card":{"rid":"compute/zoho-catalyst","eid":"zoho","topic":"compute","slug":"zoho-catalyst","provider":"Zoho Catalyst","url":"https://catalyst.zoho.com/free-tier/","domain":"zoho.com","category":"serverless runtime","tier":null,"verdict":"qualifies-with-caveat","vorder":1,"grp":"usable","confidence":"documented","binding":"request-rate","identity_kind":"email","identity_basis":"stated","needs_card":0,"needs_phone":0,"needs_id":0,"needs_institution":0,"country":null,"crypto":null,"interfaces":"rest","egress_metered":null,"per_object_bytes":null,"retention_days":null,"verified_at":"2026-10-22T00:00:00.000Z","verified_basis":"live","checked_on":"2026-10-22","stale_on":"2026-11-21","n_evidence":4,"usd_month":null,"usd_per_tb_month":null,"summary":"A monthly allowance that renews forever: '25,000 GB-seconds' of Function execution, '900 GB-minutes' of AppSail container runtime, '2 GB-days' of Data Store ...","duplicate_of":null,"n_unknown":9},"record":{"topic":"compute","slug":"zoho-catalyst","provider":"Zoho Catalyst","url":"https://catalyst.zoho.com/free-tier/","category":"serverless runtime","free_tier":{"stated":"A monthly allowance that renews forever: '25,000 GB-seconds' of Function execution, '900 GB-minutes' of AppSail container runtime, '2 GB-days' of Data Store storage, '1,000,000' LLM input tokens and '500,000' LLM output tokens through QuickML, '1,800 CPU-seconds' of model training, '100,000' API Gateway requests and '300,000' Web Client Hosting requests. The page says: 'your free tier usage limits will be renewed every month forever'. Signing up also gives 'USD 250 in credits' as 'additional runway for 6 months'.","unit":"tokens","metered_on":"wall-clock","source_url":"https://catalyst.zoho.com/free-tier/","read_on":"2026-10-22","notes":"perpetual-monthly"},"per_object_cap":{"stated":"not applicable","bytes":null,"source_url":"https://catalyst.zoho.com/free-tier/","notes":null},"retention":{"stated":"not applicable","days":null,"source_url":"https://catalyst.zoho.com/free-tier/","notes":null},"egress":{"terms":"not stated","metered":false,"free_allowance":null,"price_per_tb":null,"source_url":"https://catalyst.zoho.com/free-tier/"},"interface":["rest"],"interface_detail":"inferred from the tooling the provider documents; not probed","tooling":"not stated","chaining":"The perpetual function allowance plus the 6-month USD 250 wallet is the useful pair: the credits can carry a burst build while the monthly free tier keeps a scheduled job alive after the credits end, and QuickML's 1M input tokens a month is a second, separate inference lane that survives the credit expiry.","limits":[{"kind":"request-rate","value":"The container lane is the real ceiling: 900 GB-minutes a month is 15 GB-hours, so one always-on 1 GiB AppSail container runs about 15 hours a month before the free tier is spent; the per-request counters (1,000 Cache GET, 1,000 queries) bind long before any byte quota does.","source":"https://catalyst.zoho.com/free-tier/"}],"limits_note":"The container lane is the real ceiling: 900 GB-minutes a month is 15 GB-hours, so one always-on 1 GiB AppSail container runs about 15 hours a month before the free tier is spent; the per-request counters (1,000 Cache GET, 1,000 queries) bind long before any byte quota does.","binding":"request-rate","binding_note":"The container lane is the real ceiling: 900 GB-minutes a month is 15 GB-hours, so one always-on 1 GiB AppSail container runs about 15 hours a month before the free tier is spent; the per-request counters (1,000 Cache GET, 1,000 queries) bind long before any byte quota does.","identity_cost":{"kind":"email","detail":null,"country":null},"reliability_note":"no reliability event recorded","confidence":"documented","evidence":[{"url":"https://catalyst.zoho.com/free-tier/","date":"2026-10-22","proved":"the pricing table row by row: 'Functions | Function execution | $0.000016 / GB-second | 25,000 GB-seconds', 'AppSail | Container runtime | $0.0013 / GB-minute | 900 GB-minutes', 'QuickML | LLM input tokens | $0.20 / million tokens | 1,000,000 tokens', 'Model training: CPU | $0.0004 / vCPU-second | 1,800 CPU-seconds', quoted"},{"url":"https://catalyst.zoho.com/free-tier/","date":"2026-10-22","proved":"the page description reads 'With a free tier that renews every month and $250 in credits to explore for your first six months'; the body reads 'your free tier usage limits will be renewed every month forever', quoted"},{"url":"https://docs.catalyst.zoho.com/en/deployment-and-billing/billing/free-tier/","date":"2026-10-22","proved":"'the free tier allowance is only available with the pay-as-you-go pricing model', the allowance is account-wide rather than per project, and 'The free tier allowance is refreshed monthly, and is not just a one-time benefit', quoted"},{"url":"https://docs.catalyst.zoho.com/en/deployment-and-billing/llms-full.md","date":"2026-10-22","proved":"'Catalyst offers 25k GB-seconds of Serverless Function requests, 2 GB storage in the Data Store, 1000 GET requests in Cache', quoted, matching the pricing table"}],"verdict":"qualifies-with-caveat","verified_at":"2026-10-22T00:00:00.000Z","notes":"India's strongest reachable free tier because the door is a Zoho account rather than an Aadhaar or a GST number, and nothing on the free-tier page asks for a card. The catch is arithmetic, not policy: GB-minute and GB-second billing means a 512 MiB container gets twice the wall-clock hours of a 1 GiB one, and the free tier is spent by concurrency, not by month. Not probed: whether an Indian or non-Indian signup is treated differently, and whether the pay-as-you-go model needs a card on file. Both would need a signup.","extras":{"wave2":{"class":"regional","free_tier_kind":"perpetual-monthly","shape":{"vcpu":null,"ram_gib":null,"gpu_class":null,"gpu_count":0}}}},"claims":[{"path":"$.free_tier.stated","kind":"free-quota","num":25000,"unit":"GB","per":null,"currency":null,"usd":null,"fx_date":null,"parse":"ok"},{"path":"$.limits[0].value","kind":"limit:request-rate","num":900,"unit":"GB","per":null,"currency":null,"usd":null,"fx_date":null,"parse":"ok"}],"unknown":[["$.egress.metered","egress-unknown"],["$.egress.terms","not-stated"],["$.identity_cost.detail","process"],["$.per_object_cap.notes","process"],["$.per_object_cap.stated","not-applicable"],["$.reliability_note","none-observed"],["$.retention.notes","process"],["$.retention.stated","not-applicable"],["$.tooling","not-stated"]],"history":[],"drift":[]}