AWS Free Tier - Up to $200 Credits (2025+)
Source: https://aws.amazon.com/free
Description
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+ 1 New AWS customers (accounts created after July 15, 2025) receive up to $200 in credits: $100 on signup plus $100 earned by completing 5 onboarding tasks ($20 each). You choose between a Free plan (zero-charge guarantee, 6 months) or a Paid plan (pay-as-you-go after credits). Credit card required but you will not be charged on the Free plan even if credits run out -- AWS simply closes the account. Includes access to 200+ services including Amazon Bedrock AI models.
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+ 7 1. Go to aws.amazon.com/free and click "Create an AWS Account"
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+ 8 2. Enter your email address and choose an AWS account name
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+ 9 3. Choose your plan: Free or Paid (you can upgrade later, but cannot downgrade)
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+ 10 4. Enter billing information -- a valid credit or debit card is required. AWS places a temporary $1 USD hold (released in 3-5 days) to verify your identity
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+ 11 5. Identity verification -- receive a code via SMS or voice call
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+ 12 6. Account activation takes 30-60 minutes (email confirmation sent)
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+ 13 7. Log into the AWS Management Console and find the "Explore AWS" widget to start onboarding tasks
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+ 14
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+ 15 Important:
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+ 16 • The card must be new to AWS -- it cannot have been used for another AWS account
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+ 17 • Some banks may ask for additional verification for online payments
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+ 18 • Prepaid cards may not work
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+ 19 • One free tier per person/account
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+ 26 Applied immediately to your account upon signup, regardless of which plan you choose.
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+ 27
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+ 29
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+ 30 Complete these 5 guided activities in the AWS Console to earn $20 per task:
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+ 31
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+ 32 TaskWhat You DoCredit
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+ 33 Amazon EC2Launch an EC2 instance and terminate it$20
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+ 34 Amazon RDSConfigure and launch an RDS database$20
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+ 35 AWS LambdaBuild a simple web app with a Lambda function URL$20
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+ 36 Amazon BedrockSubmit a prompt in the Bedrock text playground$20
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+ 37 AWS BudgetsSet a budget alert for cost monitoring$20
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+ 38
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+ 39 Track progress in the "Explore AWS" widget in the Console. Each task takes 5-15 minutes.
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+ 40
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+ 41 Credit expiration: All credits (both $100 batches) expire 12 months from account creation, regardless of plan.
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+ 47 Free PlanPaid Plan
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+ 48 Cost guaranteeZero charges, everPay-as-you-go after credits
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+ 49 Duration6 months or until credits exhaustedIndefinite
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+ 50 Services200+ services (some enterprise services restricted)All 200+ services
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+ 51 What happens at expiryAccount closed, 90-day data retentionContinues with standard billing
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+ 52 Credits$200 max, expire at 12 months$200 max, expire at 12 months
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+ 53 Can upgrade?Yes, anytimeN/A
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+ 54 Can downgrade?N/ANo, cannot go back to Free
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+ 55
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+ 56 Recommendation for builders: Start with the Free plan. You can upgrade anytime and keep your remaining credits (valid up to 12 months from signup).
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+ 62 • Old model (pre-July 15): 12-month free trial with per-service usage limits (e.g., 750 hrs/month EC2 t2.micro). No upfront credits. Pay-as-you-go if you exceed limits.
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+ 63 • New model (post-July 15): Credit-based system ($200 total). Free plan with zero-charge guarantee. Account auto-closes instead of billing you.
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+ 64 • Legacy accounts created before July 15, 2025 remain on the old 12-month trial model -- they do not get the $200 credits.
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+ 65 • The 12-month free trial for new accounts has been discontinued.
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+ 73 Bedrock is not in the Always Free tier. Usage is billed per token and deducted from your $200 credits. Available models include:
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+ 74
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+ 75 • Anthropic Claude (Claude Opus 4.5, Claude Sonnet 4.5, Claude Haiku 4.5, Claude Sonnet 4, Claude 3.5 Haiku)
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+ 76 • Meta Llama (Llama 4 Maverick, Llama 4 Scout, Llama 3.3 70B, Llama 3.2, Llama 3.1)
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+ 77 • Mistral AI (Mistral Large 3, Pixtral Large, Magistral Small, Ministral, Voxtral)
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+ 78 • Amazon Nova (Nova Premier, Nova Pro, Nova Lite, Nova Micro, Nova Sonic, Nova Canvas, Nova Reel)
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+ 79 • Amazon Titan (Text, Embeddings, Image)
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+ 80 • DeepSeek (DeepSeek-R1, DeepSeek-V3.1)
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+ 81 • Qwen (Qwen3 235B, Qwen3 Coder, Qwen3 VL)
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+ 82 • Cohere (Command R+, Command R, Embed v4)
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+ 83 • Stability AI (Stable Diffusion 3.5 Large, Stable Image Ultra/Core)
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+ 84 • OpenAI (GPT-OSS 120B, GPT-OSS 20B)
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+ 86 Best model variety is in us-east-1 (N. Virginia) and us-west-2 (Oregon).
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+ 87
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+ 89
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+ 90 ServiceFree Tier TypeLimitsDuration
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+ 91 Amazon SageMaker12-month (legacy accounts) / Credits (new)250 hrs t2.micro/month for training12 months
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+ 92 SageMaker Studio LabAlways FreeJupyter ML environment (CPU/GPU), no AWS account neededIndefinite
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+ 93 Amazon Rekognition ImageCredits-based (new)~1,000 images/month equivalentUntil credits run out
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+ 94 Amazon Rekognition VideoCredits-based (new)~60 min video analysis/month equivalentUntil credits run out
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+ 95 Amazon ComprehendCredits-based (new)50,000 units of text per API equivalentUntil credits run out
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+ 96 Amazon PollyCredits-based (new)~5M characters/month equivalentUntil credits run out
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+ 97 Amazon TranscribeCredits-based (new)~60 min/month equivalentUntil credits run out
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+ 98 Amazon TranslateCredits-based (new)~2M characters/month equivalentUntil credits run out
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+ 99
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+ 100 Note: For new accounts (post-July 2025), the old per-service 12-month limits are replaced by the unified $200 credit pool. Your credits cover any eligible service usage.
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+ 106 These have permanent monthly limits that don't consume credits and persist for the life of the account:
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+ 107
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+ 108 ServiceMonthly Free Limit
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+ 109 AWS Lambda1M requests, 400K GB-seconds
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+ 110 Amazon DynamoDB25 GB storage, 25 RCU/WCU
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+ 111 Amazon S35 GB Standard storage
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+ 112 Amazon CloudFront1 TB data out, 10M requests
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+ 113 Amazon SNS1M publishes
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+ 114 Amazon SQS1M requests
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+ 115 Amazon CloudWatch10 custom metrics, 10 alarms
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+ 116 AWS Step Functions4,000 state transitions
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+ 117 Amazon API Gateway1M REST API calls
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+ 118 AWS CodeBuild100 build-minutes
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+ 119 AWS CodePipeline1 active pipeline
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+ 125 1. Organizations trap: If your account joins an AWS Organization or sets up AWS Control Tower, your Free Tier credits expire immediately and your account is auto-upgraded to Paid. Do not join an Organization during your free period.
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+ 126 2. No downgrade: Once you upgrade from Free to Paid, you cannot go back. Choose carefully.
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+ 127 3. Free plan account closure: When your 6-month free plan expires, AWS closes your account. You have 90 days to upgrade and recover data. After 90 days, everything is permanently deleted.
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+ 128 4. Paid plan auto-billing: On the Paid plan, once credits are exhausted, usage transitions seamlessly to standard billing with no warning gate. Set up Budgets immediately.
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+ 129 5. Restricted services on Free plan: Savings Plans, Reserved Instances, and certain AWS Marketplace offers are blocked on the Free plan to prevent accidental credit depletion.
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+ 130 6. Credit notifications: AWS sends alerts at 50%, 25%, and 10% credit remaining, plus at 15, 7, and 2 days before the 6-month expiry.
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+ 131 7. Aggregated usage in Organizations: If somehow in an Organization, free tier usage is aggregated across all member accounts.
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+ 137 • Do the Bedrock onboarding task first -- it takes 5 minutes (just send a prompt in the playground) and earns you $20 in credits while introducing you to foundation models.
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+ 138 • Do the Budgets task immediately -- it teaches you to set up cost alerts, which protects you from surprise bills if you ever upgrade. Also earns $20.
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+ 139 • Complete all 5 tasks on day one -- it takes under an hour and doubles your credits from $100 to $200.
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+ 140 • Start with the Free plan -- zero risk. Upgrade to Paid only when you're ready for production.
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+ 141 • Use us-east-1 or us-west-2 for AI workloads -- best model availability on Bedrock.
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+ 142 • SageMaker Studio Lab is free forever -- use it for ML experimentation without touching your credits.
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+ 143 • Check AWS Activate if you're a startup -- up to $100K in credits (up to $300K for AI startups in 2026).
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+ 144 • Check AWS Educate if you're a student -- additional $200 in credits for learning.
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+ 145 • Monitor credits in the AWS Billing and Cost Management console regularly.
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+ 146 • Terminate resources you're not using -- even on the Free plan, idle resources consume credits faster than you'd expect.
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+ 149
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+ 150 Sources:
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+ 151 • AWS Free Tier
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+ 152 • AWS Blog: Free Tier Update - Up to $200 in Credits
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+ 153 • AWS Free Tier Announcement (July 2025)
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+ 154 • AWS Free Tier FAQs
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+ 155 • AWS Registration FAQs
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+ 156 • AWS Billing: Free Tier Plans
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+ 157 • AWS Billing: Earning Additional Credits
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+ 158 • Amazon Bedrock Pricing
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+ 159 • AWS Free Tier 2025 Overview (DEV Community)
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+ 160 • AWS Free Tier GitHub Reference (costgoat)
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