Free Mintlify Pro for Startups and Open Source Projects

If you're building something right now, your list of priorities is probably longer than your day. There are users to talk to, the latest model release to evaluate, and product updates to ship, not to mention the dozen small fires smoldering in the background at all times. At Mintlify, we've always believed the best thing we can do for builders is take something off that list, so they can spend more of their time on the work only they can do.

Our founders pivoted seven times before they landed on Mintlify. They know exactly how many things are fighting for space in your head when you're building a company: the next raise, the first hire, the competition. Docs shouldn't have to be one of them.

The same goes for open source builders. The internet runs on their work, yet most of them are building with little time and even less budget. They deserve dev tools just as good as the ones well-funded companies pay for.

That's why we're pleased to feature two offers:

• Startups: select venture-backed startups get 6 months of Mintlify Pro for free. Companies in the current YC batch get 12 months.
• Open source: eligible non-commercial open source projects get Mintlify Pro free, forever.

Both programs are our founders' way of giving back to two communities close to their hearts: fellow founders still in the thick of it, and developers who build in the open.

Mintlify Startup Program: 6 months of Pro free

Mintlify enabled us to build B2B developer-grade docs in hours, not weeks. Agents continuously test our endpoints and MCPs to ensure everything works.

Danila Rudenka, Co-Founder & CEO, IHuus

The Mintlify Startup Program is for venture-backed companies that are just getting started. Eligible startups get 6 months of Mintlify Pro free. If you're in the current YC batch, you get 12 months, enough to carry you through launch.

That includes full access to the parts of Mintlify that do the most work for small teams:

• Automations that update your docs from the same pull requests as your code, so no launch waits on documentation (or goes live without it)
• The writing agent, which you can add to Slack and tag to update content
• The Assistant, which answers your users' questions from your docs 24/7, before they turn into support tickets
• Priority support and partnership resources from a team that's been in your shoes

Point Mintlify at your repo and you can have live docs in an afternoon. Teams like Dub have scaled support to 48,000+ customers this way, and Browserbase found docs visitors were up to 40x more likely to become pipeline. That's why a quarter of the last YC batch already runs on Mintlify.

To be eligible, your startup should:

• Have been founded within the past 2 years
• Have raised less than $2M
• Never have subscribed to a paid Mintlify plan

Mintlify OSS Program: Pro free forever

Our docs have been running on Mintlify since day one. If you're building open source and haven't tried Mintlify for docs, do it. Genuinely one of the best DX decisions I made early on.

Yash Pouranik, Backend Engineer, urBackend

Many of us at Mintlify maintain open source projects ourselves. We know the pattern: docs compete with features, bug reports, and your day job for the same few hours a week. And great docs are often the difference between a project that gets adopted and one that doesn't.

Through the Mintlify OSS Program, non-commercial open source projects get Mintlify Pro free, permanently. Not a trial, not a discount. That includes custom domains and branding, advanced analytics, an interactive API playground, and automations.

To qualify, your project should be:

• Open source under a recognized license (MIT, Apache 2.0, GPL, etc.)
• Not venture-backed or revenue-funded
• Not owned or primarily maintained by a for-profit company

If you're an independent maintainer or a community-driven project, this is for you.

Free to start, and your docs stay yours

Not eligible for either program? The Starter plan is free and includes a custom domain, the web editor, authentication, an MCP server, and the API playground, with up to 5 editor seats. AI features (the Assistant, writing agent, and automations) are part of Pro.

Either way, your docs are MDX files in your own Git repository, and Mintlify syncs from it. You own the source, it lives next to your code, and you can preview it locally for free with mint dev.

Already have docs on another platform? You can bring them over with an automated scraper, an export from your current platform, or a manual migration. The migration guide helps you pick the right path. After that, hosting, search, builds, and upgrades are handled for you.

What's included in Mintlify Pro

Both programs unlock the full Mintlify Pro plan. On top of everything in our free Starter plan (which includes a custom domain, web editor, authentication, MCP server, API playground, and more), Pro adds even more features. Highlights include:

What you get	Why it matters when you're small
Unlimited editor seats	Everyone who ships can fix the docs, not just whoever set them up
Writing agent	Tag it in Slack or the editor and it drafts the update for you
Automations	Docs update when your code does, so they never fall behind a release
Assistant	Answers users from your docs around the clock, before they file a ticket
Monthly AI credits	10,000 a month for startups and 5,000 for OSS projects, enough to run the writing agent, Assistant, and automations
Preview deployments	Review doc changes before they go live, the same way you review code
Platform and agent analytics	See what people and agents read, search for, and can't find
Webhooks, developer API, support integrations	Wire docs into the rest of your stack
AI translations, grammar checks, narration	Reach more users with less manual polish

In short: docs that keep themselves current, answer questions for you, and are ready for agents on day one. You can see a full feature breakdown on our pricing page.

Why agents make docs matter more

Docs used to be the thing you got to after launch: a few pages, a sidebar, a search bar. Rolling your own felt cheap, and if it was a little stale, your users would work around it.

That's no longer the case. Your docs now have a second audience: AI agents. For the first time this year, agent traffic to Mintlify-powered sites overtook human traffic, and the gap keeps growing.

Agents don't skim around a stale page the way people do. When a developer asks Claude Code or Cursor how to use your API, the agent reads your docs and writes whatever it finds straight into their codebase. If the parameter is wrong, the bug ships. If your docs are hard to navigate, the agent burns its users' tokens guessing at URLs that don't exist.

And agents are deciding which tools get picked. As one product manager put it in our 2026 State of Knowledge Report, agents choosing a tool are more likely to read your docs than your marketing site. For an early-stage startup or a young open source project, that's the whole game. Your docs are the first impression, for people and for the agents working on their behalf.

So a docs site now needs a lot more than pages and a sidebar:

• An MCP server and llms.txt so agents can find and pull the right page
• Clean markdown versions of every page
• An API playground people can try before they open a terminal
• A way to stay current as fast as you ship

None of that is a weekend project. And when you're a three-person startup or a solo developer, it's one more job competing for bandwidth you don't have. Something has to give: either the docs fall behind, or they pull focus from the product you're actually trying to build.

Docs are where knowledge infrastructure starts

Docs are just the first surface where a company's knowledge has to be ready for agents. Over time, the same thing happens to your changelog, help center, community, support answers, and everything else that explains how your product works.

Most companies are already behind on this. In our 2026 State of Knowledge Report, more than half of respondents say their company knowledge lives across five or more surfaces.

But just 7% have made every one of those surfaces readable by an agent.

The teams pulling ahead treat knowledge as infrastructure: one system that's agent-accessible by default and keeps itself current.

Startups and open source projects have an advantage here. You don't have years of scattered wikis, four publishing tools, and nobody who owns the problem. If you put your docs on a platform built for agents from day one, with updates that happen in the same pull request as your code, you're laying the foundation everything else gets built on later.

Frequently Asked Questions

What happens when my 6 months end?

Your plan continues on Pro at the standard rate on our pricing page, billed to the card on your account. To keep Pro, make sure a payment method is on file before your free period ends. If you'd rather not pay, switch to the free Starter plan. It still includes a custom domain, the web editor, an MCP server, and the API playground, so your docs stay live.

Do I need a credit card to apply?

No. Applying is a 5-minute form, and you don't need a card to redeem the offer either. You only add one if you decide to stay on Pro after your free period.

Can I apply from the Starter plan?

Yes. The Startup Program is open to companies that have never subscribed to a paid Mintlify plan, so Starter accounts qualify.

How long does approval take?

Our team reviews every application by hand, and most get a decision within 1 to 2 business days. If you're approved, we email you a code to apply at checkout.

Does 12 months apply to past YC batches?

No. The 12-month offer is for companies in the current YC batch. Founders from past batches get 6 months of Pro free, the same as the standard Startup Program, and apply through the same form.

Can open-core projects qualify for OSS?

No. The OSS Program is for projects that aren't venture-backed or revenue-funded and aren't owned or primarily maintained by a for-profit company. If your project is backed by an early-stage startup, look at the Startup Program instead.

What counts as "venture-backed"?

You don't need a priced round. What matters is that your company is less than 2 years old and has raised less than $2M in total, whether from angels, pre-seed funds, or accelerators. Apply with your company email (not a free email domain) and a live product we can look at.

How to apply

The companies and projects that win over the next few years won't be the ones who built the most infrastructure themselves. They'll be the ones who spent that time on the product, and made sure the people and agents looking for it could find exactly what they needed.

Let us take docs off your plate.

• Building a startup? Apply for the Startup Program
• Maintaining an open source project? Apply for the OSS Program
• Not eligible, or just want to try it? Start for free

Questions? Reach our founders directly at founders@mintlify.com.