Quick Answer
Many top AI tools offer strong student perks, including free or discounted access to Google AI Pro, Perplexity Pro, Notion AI, Microsoft 365, Otter AI, Canva, Figma, Adobe Creative Cloud Pro, Azure, Unreal Engine, and GitHub, helping students save money while still using powerful study, design, and development tools.
A student’s life demands money planning and budgeting on a whole new level. With expenses skyrocketing by the day, it’s getting difficult to afford a little bit of everything. Among the usuals like food, clothes, groceries, and other supplies, an emerging category that’s about to eat a big chunk of your budget is AI tools, which are slowly becoming quintessential in every student’s life. Most tools, if not all, rely on a monthly subscription model, so you ought to dedicate a portion of your budget every month towards them.
But fret not, most AI tools realize this admirably well and offer alluring student discounts. After all, students usually make up the most extensive customer base for many well-known AI tools on the market, so an attractive student discount makes perfect sense. In fact, some of them waive off all the charges as long as you sign up with a student email ID. The discounts are well worth the minuscule hassle of signing up using your student ID. This article outlines some of our favorite AI tools offering student discounts that you can’t afford to miss.
Before we proceed, we must inform you that this article is inspired by u/Valuable_Simple3860’s post in the r/ChatGPT subreddit. Feel free to check it out for your reference. That said, let’s get going!
ool | What It Does | Student Benefit | Key Extras |
|---|---|---|---|
Google AI Pro (Gemini) | AI assistant with image, video, animation generators, coding agent, filmmaking tools | 1 year free via SheerID; India Jio users get 2 years free | 2TB cloud storage, expanded limits, NotebookLM, Google app integration |
Perplexity Pro | Research-focused AI assistant with citations, uploads, follow-ups | 1 year free for students & educators; referral rewards; renewal at $4.99 | Unlimited searches & uploads, Perplexity Research & Academic, advanced models |
Notion AI | Notes, docs, project mgmt, templates, team collaboration | Free Plus Plan with edu email; orgs get unlimited members | 30-day version history, unlimited uploads, workflow tools |
Microsoft 365 | Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook + Copilot | 1-year free; 50% off afterward; K-12 gets free web apps | 1TB OneDrive storage, optional desktop apps for $2.50/mo |
Otter AI | AI meeting notes, transcription, summaries | Discounted Pro plans ($13.59/mo or $79.99/yr) | 1,200 min transcription, AI chat, advanced search, integrations |
Canva | Drag-and-drop design suite with AI features | Free for K-12; free for partner universities | 25+ AI tools, premium assets, background remover, brand kit |
Figma | UI/UX design, prototyping, collaboration | Free Education Plan (Pro tier) | Unlimited files, FigJam, shared libraries, AI-assisted drafts |
Adobe Creative Cloud Pro | Photoshop, Premiere Pro, Illustrator, Firefly AI, more | $24.99 first year; discounted renewals | 4,000 gen credits, full suite access, Fonts, 100GB storage |
Microsoft Azure | Cloud computing, AI tools, ML training, app hosting | $100 credits per year + free services | Visual Studio, SQL Server Dev, VMs without license cost |
Unreal Engine | AAA game dev and 3D creation engine | Fully free for all students & educators | Source code access, cinematic tools, UEFN for Fortnite creation |
GitHub | Code hosting, version control, project collaboration | Free GitHub Pro + Student Developer Pack | 180 Codespaces hours, partner tools (Notion, Azure, Arduino, etc.) |
Table of Contents
AI Agents with Student Discounts
Google AI Pro (Google Gemini)
No one is a stranger to Google and its AI assistant Gemini. Thanks to its widespread availability via Android phones, Gemini is well-trained and among the most reliable AI assistants out there. It also includes all the bells and whistles of a modern AI assistant, including image, animation, and video generators (Nano Banana, Whisk, and Veo), coding agent (Jules), filmmaker (Flow), and more. And this isn’t just about Gemini Pro, as the Google AI Pro suite includes a truckload of other benefits, such as increased cloud storage and access to exclusive features.
As part of this promotion, eligible students can verify their identities with SheerID to claim a full year of Google AI Pro’s subscription, valued at $199.99, for free. The benefits include 2TB of cloud storage, expanded Gemini capabilities with increased limits and tokens, integration of Gemini with other Google apps, such as Docs and Gmail, and access to NotebookLM, among others. Our Indian readers using a Jio mobile SIM card can avail two full years of Google’s AI Pro subscription for free, making the deal even sweeter.
Perplexity Pro
Perplexity has quickly secured its place among the top AI agents within months of its launch. It is particularly well-known for its deep research capabilities, as it is usually quite thorough in its results and allows follow-up questions. Like other AI agents, such as Google’s Gemini and OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Perplexity can handle your day-to-day queries and requests equally well. Although it can generate images and videos well, it doesn’t have its own generation agents; instead, it relies on Veo, Sora, DALL-E, and others. It is otherwise a well-regarded AI agent.
The offer includes a full year’s access to Perplexity’s Pro tier for eligible students and educators. Perplexity Pro enables unlimited searches, unlimited image and file uploads, 10x citations in answers, access to advanced AI models available in Perplexity, exclusive access to Perplexity Research, Perplexity Academic, and image and video generators, plus more. Students are also eligible to earn by referring others and receive a whole month of Perplexity Pro for free, on top of the existing student discount, for every successful referral, capped at 24 months. After expiration, students can retain their access by paying just $4.99 per month, which already includes a 75% discount. Our Indian readers using an Airtel mobile SIM card can avail a full year of Perplexity Pro subscription for free.
Productivity Tools with Student Discounts
Notion AI
Next up is the highly renowned all-in-one AI-powered digital workspace software, Notion AI. It’s a must-have software for those who like keeping things organized and uncluttered. It houses the most common things that you regularly use: notes, project management, documents, spreadsheets, flowcharts, plus more, and merges them into a single platform for easy and integrated access. Notion is highly regarded for its note-taking, to-do list-making, study scheduling, and other planning-related tasks, which it excels at. It has pre-built templates, which indeed enhance the ease of use. Notion also enables team collaboration, so you and your colleagues can work together seamlessly.
As a part of the student benefit, you can gain access to Notion’s Plus Plan for free, as long as you have a valid educational email address. The benefit can be availed not only by students and educators, but also by student organizations, which is a big plus for college clubs and societies looking to streamline their workflow. While features like unlimited uploads, guest access up to 100 people in a workspace, and editing history for any page going back 30 days are common to both variants, the Plus Plan for student organizations allows adding unlimited members per workspace, which is only capped to a single member for the individual student/educator plan.
Microsoft 365
Microsoft 365, formerly known as Microsoft Office 365, needs no introduction whatsoever. It includes arguably the most used set of apps required for a student’s life: Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, Excel, OneNote, and Outlook. They are extensively used for word processing, presentations, spreadsheets, note-taking, and email services, respectively, from the house of Microsoft. Additionally, Microsoft 365 includes other services such as cloud storage via Microsoft OneDrive and access to Microsoft’s AI service, Copilot, which is similar to Google’s Gemini and OpenAI’s ChatGPT. As a student, you ought to have Microsoft 365, period.
Microsoft generously gives a 1-year free trial of Microsoft 365 to all eligible university and college students. Furthermore, they can avail of a 50% discount going forward, which is a very good deal, if you ask us. Not to mention, the plan includes 1TB of free cloud storage, along with native Copilot integration in Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Outlook, and OneNote. If you’re a K-12 student, Microsoft provides free access to the web version of its core apps instead. You can opt for the tier offering downloadable desktop apps (PC and Mac) for $2.50 per month.
Microsoft 365 for College Students
Otter AI
Apart from classes and lectures, a student’s life is equally riddled with dozens of meetings. If you find yourself trapped in a similar problem, which turns even worse when you can’t keep track of your meeting notes or important takeaways of every meeting, Otter AI can be of great help. It’s an AI meeting tool that takes notes, transcribes with up to 95% accuracy, generates summaries, and answers follow-up questions, all without manual intervention. It’s a must-have tool for frequent meeting attenders, as it integrates well with most meeting platforms, like Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, Zoom, and more. It also offers integration with other popular services, such as Slack, Asana, Google Calendar, and more.
Unlike other AI-powered tools that grant free access, Otter AI follows a discount model by offering its monthly and yearly Pro plans at discounted rates of $13.59/month and $79.99, respectively. The Pro tier grants up to 1,200 minutes of monthly meeting and recording transcription limit, unlimited conversation history, custom playback speeds, 50 monthly queries for Otter AI Chat, more export formats, advanced search by speakers, date range, and more, among other benefits.
Otter AI Discount Program for Students and Teachers
Design and Creativity Tools with Student Discounts
Canva
If you are a creative person who appreciates putting extra effort into making things look beautiful, you cannot compliment Canva more. Canva is an all-in-one creative suite that lets you create and design documents, presentations, social media posts, spreadsheets, and more, from scratch. It is well-known for its ease of use, as it utilizes the drag-and-drop functionality to the fullest, thereby simplifying the design process. Above all, Canva’s selection of templates, graphics, design elements, fonts, and other catalogues is second to none, which is why many budding designers trust Canva. It also has AI capabilities to generate designs, templates, graphics, and more.
Canva’s student discount is geared more towards school-going K-12 students, as they and their teachers can enjoy Canva’s full suite of premium features through Canva Education. If your university or college has partnered with Canva, you can enjoy the premium features of Canva for free. With this, you get access to 25+ AI features, premium graphics and templates, stock images, videos, and music tracks, and exclusive tools like a background remover and an image resizer. The K-12 education plan also includes a brand kit.
Figma
Figma is another highly regarded cloud-based design tool preferred for UI/UX design. If you are a computer science student, Figma can be an excellent asset for frontend development, including inspecting design elements, generating CSS code, exporting assets, and transitioning from design to code seamlessly. Beginners need not worry, as Figma is a beginner-friendly platform for learning and developing the highly sought-after skill of UI/UX design for websites and apps. Figma is also quite suitable for teams, as members can collaborate and contribute in real time, and even brainstorm ideas using FigJam. Figma features AI that can help generate designs from text prompts, produce initial drafts, refine drafts, and more.
Unlike Canva, which primarily limits free access to K-12 students and teachers, Figma has opened its Education Plan, essentially the same as the Figma Professional Plan, to all levels of students from K-12 to University, and educators. The benefits include creating unlimited files and projects, access to FigJam for enhanced peer collaboration, shared libraries, AI features, and more. Do note that some advanced features, like Figma Make and Figma Sites, are exclusive to higher education students and those in bootcamps.
Adobe Creative Cloud Pro
Adobe Creative Cloud Pro is a collection of popular Adobe tools you may already know, including Photoshop, Premiere Pro, Illustrator, After Effects, and more. These are professional-grade software tools used by designers and creative people around the globe for video and photo editing, graphic design, animation, painting, and more. The collection also includes several more popular tools, such as Adobe Acrobat Pro for all things PDF, 100 GB of cloud storage, Adobe Fonts, Adobe Lightroom, Behance, and more. Adobe Firefly, Adobe’s AI solution for generating images, videos, designs, and more from text prompts, is also included.
Although not free, Adobe offers its Creative Cloud Pro subscription at a discounted rate of $24.99 for the first year, followed by $39.99 for subsequent renewals. In fact, the price has dropped to just $19.98 for the first year for Black Friday, making it even better. The subscription also includes 4,000 monthly generative credits for video and audio, unlimited access to AI images and vectors, and discounts on Adobe Certified Professional certifications. It’s pricey but worth every penny for those who use it.
Adobe Creative Cloud Pro for Students
Development and Tech Tools with Student Discounts
Microsoft Azure
Students, especially those studying computer science, will benefit greatly from Microsoft Azure. It’s a cloud-computing platform that offers modern cloud services such as building and hosting web apps, cloud storage, cloud computing, running AI tools, and more. If you’re looking to explore the world of machine learning, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, training machine models, data analytics, and more, Microsoft Azure is the perfect platform to begin with. Other use cases include creating serverless functions, collaborating on development tools, learning tools like MySQL, and more. Microsoft Azure is highly recommended for increasing industry relevance and becoming job-ready.
With such a professional tool, you obviously can’t expect Microsoft to give it away for free, but you do get $100 worth of free credits for a whole year as an eligible student. You can use the credits for the majority of Azure’s products, on top of its free services. You also get access to Microsoft Visual Studio, Azure DevOps Server, SQL Server Developer, and more. Furthermore, you can also deploy virtual machines running Windows 10 and 11 without any extra license fee. Microsoft Azure also offers learning resources for students.
Unreal Engine
Unreal Engine is a Godsend for game developers and 3D creators, as it’s used everywhere from films and TV shows to the fashion and automotive sectors, architectural applications, and more. It’s famous for its insane realism and high-quality graphics. A few of its real-world applications include creating games across various genres, including multiplayer and AAA titles, with built-in features for physics, virtual production, and virtual environments for films and TV shows; generating realistic visualizations of architectural structures, automobiles, and product designs; and much more. Albeit a bit of overkill for students, it’s still an excellent tool for those exploring the world of 3D creation, made even easier by Unreal Engine’s AI companion, which can generate and debug code, explain concepts, and assist with model generation.
Unreal Engine is a paid software, but it’s available for free for all levels of students, teachers, and even indie developers, which is a very generous offer. It includes all the bells and whistles, including high-fidelity rendering, source code access, building tools, and learning resources. You also get access to Unreal Editor for Fortnite, which enables students to experiment and test their experiences directly within Fortnite, which is a practical way of learning Unreal Engine.
Unreal Engine for Students and Schools
GitHub
GitHub is the holy grail of code-centric cloud-based platforms, where coders and developers can organize their projects. In fact, a developer’s GitHub profile is a popular metric to judge them. It is essentially a repository hosting platform where you can store and share your projects, collaborate with others, and maintain a history of code revisions. GitHub is particularly famous for hosting a plethora of open-source projects. If you are new to GitHub, you can take the help of Microsoft Copilot, which is built into GitHub to provide assistance in writing code, answering your queries, working on code changes, and more. Given the rising popularity of coding, GitHub is truly a must-have tool.
As a part of GitHub Education, eligible students get access to GitHub Pro for free, whereas teachers get access to the GitHub Teams account for free. The Pro account includes benefits such as unlimited repositories, 180 Codespaces hours per month, 2 GB of Packages storage, 20 GB of Codespaces storage, and more. Above all, students can gain free access to the GitHub Student Developer Pack, which includes experience modules to learn new skills and tools, as well as bundled benefits with partner platforms such as Notion, Microsoft Azure, Arduino, Visual Studio Code, Stripe, and many more.
Spend Less, Learn More
A student’s life should be full of learning, not spending, which is why most well-regarded companies offer a student discount on their services. While the list is almost endless, the most relevant and sought-after AI-powered tools offering student discounts include Google AI Pro and Perplexity Pro for day-to-day AI needs; Microsoft 365 and Notion for productivity; Canva, Adobe Creative Cloud Pro, and Figma for creatives; and GitHub, Microsoft Azure, and Unreal Engine for development. Don’t miss out on these student discounts, and do let us know your recommendations in the comments below. Happy Saving!
