Gamma.app's free plan is one of the most generous ways to try AI-generated presentations — but in 2026 it comes with three hard limits that surprise most new users: a lifetime credit cap, a "Made with Gamma" watermark on every export, and restricted branding controls. Here is exactly how each limit works, and what you can do about them without paying.
The 400-credit lifetime cap
Every new free account receives 400 AI credits. The important word is lifetime: unlike the earlier monthly model, credits do not refresh. Once they are gone, AI generation stops until you either earn more or upgrade.
What credits actually cost in practice:
- Generating a full presentation typically consumes around 40 credits
- Adding or regenerating individual cards costs roughly 5 credits each
- AI chat edits and image generation cost about 10 credits per action
In real use, most people exhaust 400 credits after roughly 10 full decks with edits, or 30–40 quick decks with no regeneration. If you rely on Gamma for weekly presentations, the free tier runs dry within a month or two.
The only free way to extend credits is Gamma's referral program: you earn bonus credits for each friend who signs up (capped — invites stop paying out after a handful of referrals). There is no other legitimate way to refill a free account.
The "Made with Gamma" watermark
The second limit is the one most people search for: every free-plan export carries a "Made with Gamma" badge. It appears in three places:
- Shared web links — a small badge in the corner of the live presentation
- PDF exports — printed onto every page, bottom-right, with a link to gamma.app
- PowerPoint exports — embedded on every slide via the slide master
On the web version, the badge is served by Gamma and cannot be touched. In the exported files, however, the watermark is a regular document object — an image with a hyperlink in PDFs, a linked shape on the slide master in PPTX files. Because it is stored as a separate element, it can be removed from files you own.
That is exactly what GammaRemover does: drop in your exported PDF or PPTX, and the watermark object is deleted in your browser — no upload, no signup, no quality loss. There are dedicated guides for removing the watermark from PDF and from PPTX.
Branding and customization limits
Beyond credits and the watermark, the free plan also restricts:
- Custom fonts — free decks use Gamma's font set
- Brand kit — no custom logo or brand colors applied automatically
- Advanced export settings — fewer options for page size and format control
For most students and casual users these matter far less than the watermark. For client work, they are usually the tipping point toward a paid plan or a different tool.
What upgrading changes (and what it doesn't)
Gamma's paid plans (Plus, and higher tiers for teams) remove the watermark from new exports and lift the credit ceiling. Two things catch people off guard:
- Upgrading does not clean files you already exported — you need to re-export each deck
- Decks created under a free workspace may keep their badge behavior until copied into the paid workspace
If the watermark is your only reason to upgrade, run the numbers first: a paid plan costs on the order of $120 per year, while removing the badge from your own exported files is free. Our Gamma Free vs Pro comparison breaks down when paying is actually worth it.
Free-plan survival checklist
To get the most out of Gamma's free tier in 2026:
- Draft your content before generating. A well-prepared prompt burns 40 credits once; iterating by trial and error burns hundreds.
- Edit text manually instead of regenerating. Manual edits are free; every AI regeneration costs credits.
- Export once, clean the watermark locally. Use GammaRemover on the exported PDF or PPTX — it runs entirely in your browser, so client decks and unpublished work never leave your device.
- Keep your originals. Always retain the raw export alongside the cleaned copy.
The free plan remains an excellent way to produce a handful of polished decks — as long as you treat credits as the scarce resource they are, and handle the watermark at the file level instead of paying monthly for it.