If you're building a Gen-AI startup, you've probably already seen the headlines. $100K here, $350K there. Every major cloud has a startup program and they all sound generous until you read the fine print. This is a breakdown of what those programs actually look like in practice: the caps, the catches, and the pricing cliffs nobody puts in the headline. And at the end, what we're offering at Rabata and why. What programs actually look like Every major cloud has a startup program. The numbers look generous on paper. AWS Activate offers up to $100K — but the $100K tier requires affiliation with an approved VC or accelerator. And **"up to" **is doing a lot of work in that sentence. In practice, AWS evaluates your stage, traction, and provider relationship and most early-stage teams walk away with $5K–$25K, not the headline number. Even then, AWS's own support forum acknowledges they have "internal requirements beyond what's publicly listed." Founders get rejected with no explanation.…