Basics · 5 min read ·
What is free-credit farming and why it hurts AI startups
Free-credit farming is when one person opens many accounts to collect free AI tokens or trial credits. Here is how it works and what it costs.
The short answer
Free-credit farming means one person or script creates many accounts to collect the free tokens, credits or trial compute a product gives each new user.
For classic SaaS a fake account costs almost nothing. For AI products every free account burns real model tokens, so each farmed account is money paid to a model provider.
How farmers operate
Common patterns: Gmail dots and plus tags (ana.petrovic@gmail.com and anapetrovic+2@gmail.com reach the same inbox), numbered address series, disposable email domains, cleared cookies on the same device, data-center or proxy IPs, and scripted onboarding that finishes in seconds.
Why it matters
Farmed accounts inflate signup metrics, distort conversion data and drain the budget meant for real users. Blocking too aggressively hurts honest developers, so decisions must be explainable.
See how much farming costs you
Upload past signup emails and Unfarm groups the repeat accounts with a clear reason for each.
Try Unfarm