Q: What is the AWS Free Tier?

The AWS Free Tier provides customers the ability to explore and try out AWS services free of charge up to specified limits for each service. The Free Tier is comprised of three different types of offerings, a 12-month Free Tier, an Always Free offer, and short term trials. Services with a 12-month Free Tier allow customers to use the product for free up to specified limits for one year from the date the account was created. Services with an Always Free offer allow customers to use the product for free up to specified limits as long as they are an AWS customer. Services with a short term trial are free to use for a specified period of time or up to a one-time limit depending on the service selected. Details on the limits and services provided for free are detailed in each card on the Free Tier page. If your application use exceeds the free tier limits, you simply pay standard, pay-as-you-go service rates (see each service page for full pricing details). Restrictions apply; see offer terms for more details.

Q: When does the AWS Free Tier expire?

Services with a 12-month Free Tier allow customers to use the product for free up to specified limits for one year from the date the account was created. Services with an Always Free offer allow you to use the product for free up to specified limits as long as you have a valid AWS account. Services with a short term trial are free to use for a specified period of time or up to a one-time limit depending on the service selected. When your free tier expires or if your application use exceeds the free tier limits, you simply pay standard, pay-as-you-go service rates (see each service page for full pricing details). Restrictions apply; see offer terms for more details.

Q: What do I need to do to qualify for the AWS Free Tier?

The AWS Free Tier is available to all types of customers – students, entrepreneurs, small businesses, and Fortune 500 companies are all welcome to sign up. If you are linked to an Organization (under AWS Organizations), only one account within the organization can benefit from the Free Tier offers. To calculate the Organization’s use of AWS Services under any Offers, we will aggregate the usage across all accounts in the Organization. You will be charged standard rates for use of AWS Services if we determine that you are not eligible for the Free Tier or have exceeded the limits for a particular service.

Q: Are there any limitations to how I use the AWS free usage tier?

AWS’s free usage tier is not limited to specific use cases. This offering provides new AWS customers with free usage tiers for certain AWS services to help you get started. If you have a new idea that you’d like to launch or if you have an existing application you want to run in the cloud, this is a great way to get started for free. Some ideas include, but are not limited to, hosting low traffic websites or blogs, social media applications, development and test projects, proof of concepts, and more. See how other customers are using AWS today in our case study section.

Q: If we sign-up for Consolidated Billing, can we get the AWS Free Tier for each account?

No, customers that use Consolidated Billing to consolidate payment across multiple accounts will only have access to one Free Tier per Organization.

Q: If I don’t use all of my free usage per month will it roll over to the next month?

No, the AWS Free Tier is applied to your monthly usage. It will expire on the 1st day of each month, and does not accumulate.

Q: If I go over the Free Tier limit in a given month, how much will I have to pay?

If your usage exceeds the monthly free tier limits, you simply pay standard, pay-as-you-go AWS service rates. See the AWS Pricing page for full pricing details.

Q: How do I know how much I’ve used and if I’ve gone over the free usage tiers?

You can see current and past usage activity by service and region by logging into your account and going to the Billing & Cost Management Dashboard. From there you can manage your costs and usage using AWS Budgets, visualize your cost drivers and usage trends via Cost Explorer, and dive deeper into your costs using the Cost and Usage Reports. To learn more about how to control your AWS costs, check out the Control your AWS costs 10-Minute Tutorial.

Q: I’m eligible for the free usage tier, but I received a charge. Why?

The AWS Free Tier is available to new AWS accounts. The free tier applies to certain participating AWS services up to a specific maximum amount of usage each month. Applicable services and usage limits are defined at aws.amazon.com/free. When an account goes over the free tier limit, the standard AWS service rates will be billed to your credit card.

If you have not exceeded the limits of the free tier, you may have been charged for other AWS services that are not covered under the free tier. Some examples include: if you are running an Amazon EC2 t2.small instance rather than a t2.micro instance, or if you are using a service not included in the offer, such as Amazon Aurora. To review your AWS usage activity, log into your Billing & Cost Management Dashboard.

Q: Can I use the AWS Free Tier in any region?

The AWS Free Tier applies to participating services across our global regions. Your free usage under the AWS Free Tier is calculated each month across all regions and automatically applied to your bill. For example, you will receive 750 Amazon EC2 Linux Micro Instance hours for free across all of the regions you use, not 750 hours per region. Unused monthly usage will not roll over to future months. The AWS Free Tier is now available in the China (ZHY) and China (BJS) regions as well. The AWS Free Tier is not available in the AWS GovCloud (US) regions, with the exception of Lambda for AWS GovCloud (US).

Q: Where can I find information on using Amazon EC2 Microsoft Windows Server Micro Instances as part of AWS Free Tier?

Please see AWS Free Tier with Windows FAQ.

Q: Where can I find information on using Amazon RDS Micro Instances as part of AWS Free Tier?

Please see AWS Free Tier with Amazon RDS.

Q: Does an AWS customer have access to 750 instance hours each of the Linux and Windows t2.micro instances under the AWS Free Tier?

Yes. A customer with access to the AWS Free Tier can use up to 750 instance hours each of t2.micro instances running Linux and Windows. Usage of the Linux and Windows t2.micro instances are counted independently.

Q: Does the AWS Free Tier include Amazon S3 Reduced Redundancy Storage (RRS)?

No, the AWS Free Tier does not include Amazon S3 RRS storage. The AWS Free Tier includes 5 GB of Amazon S3 standard storage, which offers the highest Amazon S3 durability.

Q: What size EC2 instances are available for free? EC2 t2.micro instances are not available in the region I want to use. Is there another option available for free?

The EC2 instance sizes available as part of the free tier depends on the region you choose to provision your resources. Some regions like the Middle East (Bahrain) region and the EU (Stockholm) region do not offer t2.micro instances. In cases like these, AWS offers the same 750 hour usage on t3.micro instances as they do for t2.micro instances in other regions. Check the console in the region you plan to provision your resources or use the describe-instance-types API to determine which one is free tier in any specific region.

Q: Where can I find more information on using Amazon Redshift as part of AWS Free Tier?

Please see the Amazon Redshift Free Trial page for more details.