When Stream started in 2015, it was just two developers with a shoestring budget, shipping code and learning from early users. Free tiers and startup-friendly plans made it possible to get off the ground.
The Maker Account carries that same spirit forward. It gives qualifying teams free access to Stream's APIs—including Chat (2,000 MAU/month), Activity Feeds (125,000 API calls/month), Video (333,000 participant minutes/month), and AI Moderation ($100 in credits)—so side projects, new startups, and early-stage ventures can build with the same infrastructure that powers over a billion end users.
With hard limits in place, you'll never face surprise overages, and no credit card is required.
How to apply: Create a Stream account and fill out the brief secondary application form that follows. Note that you can start building immediately, even while your application processes. Your application will automatically activate a 30-day free trial (no credit card required) that will be converted to the Maker Account upon approval.
Getting Started With Stream
It's easy to start building with Stream. Whether you're adding chat, feeds, video, or moderation, you'll find SDKs, UI kits, and tutorials that make it fast to launch and easy to customize.
Under the hood, Stream's APIs are built with Go, RocksDB, and Raft, the same foundation that powers real-time communication experiences at scale. That means you get enterprise-grade reliability and performance, even when you're just starting out.
Chat
Stream Chat is production-ready out of the box, with eight SDKs for React, React Native, Flutter, Android, iOS, and more. Each SDK ships with both low-level API access and polished UI components so you can choose between rapid setup and full customization.
Here's how it looks by default:
For deeper customization, you can build with our high-fidelity UI kits for Sketch, Figma, and Adobe xD. These kits give you a flexible, prebuilt messaging interface. They're easy to theme, extend, and customize, so you can deliver polished experiences quickly.
Explore tutorials like:
Activity Feeds
Stream Feeds give you the building blocks for modern social experiences like timelines, notifications, and personalized "for-you" feeds. You can pull in activities from multiple sources and use ranking to surface the most relevant content for each user.
Beyond the basics, Feeds support a wide range of features out of the box:
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Reddit-style Comments API
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Activity search, filtering, and expiration
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Visibility levels for activities and feeds
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Polls, stories, and bookmarking
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Follow approval and fine-grained feed membership controls
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Querying for both activities and feeds
Video
Stream Video makes it simple to embed real-time video and audio experiences, from 1:1 calls to large livestreams. The SDKs handle hard problems for you, like adaptive bitrate, connection reliability, and low-latency streaming, so your users get a seamless experience even at scale.
You also get prebuilt UI components for faster setup, plus the flexibility to customize layouts, themes, and interactions.
AI Moderation
Stream's AI Moderation helps you protect your community by automatically detecting harmful or unwanted content. Powered by advanced models, it can identify over 40 types of content, including hate speech, harassment, and self-harm, in more than 30 languages, with support for text, images, and video.
You can configure how your app responds, from flagging to blocking or shadow-blocking, so moderation aligns with your community's needs.
Maker Account Requirements
The Maker Account is free to use indefinitely if you meet the following criteria:
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Fewer than 5 team members
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Less than $100k in funding raised
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Less than $10k in monthly revenue
By joining, you also agree to:
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A hard cap on usage; additional users cannot connect once you hit the limit
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Low-priority support
Please note that the number of Maker Accounts issued is limited to ensure we can properly serve every account.
Frequently Asked Questions
What's the catch? How will you make money?
There is no catch. We don't. In fact, we lose money on the Maker Account. We created it with Stream's beginning in mind and a desire to support early-stage makers.
Am I eligible?
You are eligible for a free Maker Account if your company has fewer than five team members, less than $100k in funding raised, and less than $10k in monthly revenue.Â
Are there limitations to what I can build?
Our regular terms apply. You can build anything from your own team chat app to a Twitch clone to customer support—whatever you feel like.
What are the usage caps on the Maker Account?
2,000 MAU/month for Chat, 125,000 API calls/month for Activity Feeds, 333,000 participant minutes/month for Video, and $100 in credits for AI Moderation.Â
How can I apply for a Maker Account?
Create a Stream account and complete a short secondary application form. You can start building right away. Your application activates a 30-day free trial (no credit card required) that converts to a Maker Account upon approval.