Up to $500,000 in AWS Activate YC credits is on the table. It’s one of the biggest “AWS free credits” packages available, and it’s split between about $200K in general cloud and about $300K earmarked for AI compute (Trainium/Inferentia, Amazon Bedrock, and reserved NVIDIA H100 capacity).
YC founders building an AI product, small engineering teams trying to keep runway intact, and ML engineers who need real training/inference capacity can all get meaningful value here. This isn’t a cute free tier. It can cover months (sometimes longer) of production cloud spend if you’re disciplined.
This guide covers AWS Activate YC eligibility, the exact redemption flow, what the credits actually pay for, the restrictions people trip over, and a few practical ways to stretch the balance.
Program at a Glance
| Provider | AWS |
| Credit Amount | Up to $500,000 (cloud + AI silicon) |
| Duration | 2 years from activation |
| Eligibility | Active/recent YC batch company meeting AWS rules |
| Credit Card Required? | Yes, on file (no charge within credits) |
| Difficulty | Advanced; YC-only plus review (about 7–10 days) |
| Best For | YC AI startups, Bedrock apps, training/inference workloads |
| Official Page | AWS Program Page |
What You Actually Get
AWS Activate for Y Combinator is a YC partnership package worth up to $500,000 in AWS credits. The bundle is typically split into about $200,000 in general AWS credits (usable across eligible services like EC2, Lambda, S3, RDS, DynamoDB, networking, analytics, and developer tools) plus about $300,000 in AI-focused credits tied to Trainium and Inferentia instances, Amazon Bedrock model usage (including third-party foundation models), and reserved NVIDIA H100 GPU capacity. AWS notes the exact split can vary by batch because it’s negotiated between AWS and YC. The $500K figure was explicitly confirmed for the W24 cohort.
In practical terms, this is enough budget to run a real stack: production APIs on EC2/ECS/EKS, a data layer (S3 + RDS/DynamoDB), and a serious amount of LLM inference through Bedrock. If you’re training, the dedicated Trainium/Inferentia portion matters because it’s designed to nudge you toward lower-cost AI silicon (which can be a good deal, as long as your models are compatible).
Who Qualifies (and Who Doesn’t)
This AWS Activate YC package is not a public “sign up and get credits” offer. You qualify because you’re in an active (or very recent) Y Combinator batch and you meet AWS Activate’s startup requirements, including age/stage limits and account verification details.
- You must be an active Y Combinator batch company (W24 onward is confirmed for the $500K level).
- Your company needs to be less than 10 years old.
- Pre-Series B (or self-funded) is required for this package.
- An AWS account with a credit card on file is mandatory, even if you plan to stay within credits.
- You’ll need a functioning company website and a business email domain that matches it.
- You cannot have previously received AWS Activate Portfolio credits of equal or greater value.
If you’re YC Startup School, an older YC alumni batch, or you only applied to YC and didn’t get in, this specific package isn’t for you. Those teams can still look at the standard AWS Activate Portfolio tier (up to $200K) instead.
How to Sign Up
Plan for a short application plus about a week of review time.
- Get accepted into Y Combinator, because the credit package is distributed through YC’s partnership with AWS (not the public Activate flow).
- Receive your Organization ID (Org ID) from YC during onboarding; YC is an AWS Activate Provider and will share the Org ID and any promo codes.
- Create or sign in to your AWS account at aws.amazon.com, and add a credit card on file (you won’t be charged unless you exceed credits).
- Go to AWS Activate and click Apply Now.
- Create an AWS Builder ID using your business email that matches your startup’s domain (personal Gmail/Yahoo is a common rejection reason).
- Select the Portfolio Package and enter the Org ID provided by Y Combinator.
- Complete your startup profile with company name, website, description, stage, and your AWS Account ID.
- Submit the application; processing typically takes about 7–10 business days.
- Once approved, credits appear automatically in the AWS Billing Console under Billing > Credits.
Two gotchas show up constantly. First, use the business email domain that matches your company site. Second, apply early in the batch because the 2-year clock starts when the credits are granted, not when you start spending.
What the Credits Cover
The credits are redeemable across 200+ eligible AWS services, which means you can cover a full startup stack (compute, storage, databases, networking, analytics, and ML). The AI portion is especially valuable because it includes Amazon Bedrock usage and AI compute options like Trainium/Inferentia and reserved NVIDIA H100 capacity.
| Service / Feature | What It Does | Included? |
|---|---|---|
| Amazon Bedrock | Foundation model APIs (incl. third-party models). | ✓ |
| Amazon EC2 (incl. GPU) | Virtual machines, including P5 (H100) and Capacity Blocks. | ✓ |
| SageMaker | Build/train/deploy ML models and pipelines. | ✓ |
| Trainium / Inferentia | trn1/trn2 for training, inf1/inf2 for inference via Neuron. | ✓ |
Notable exclusions are real, and they’re where budgeting gets weird. AWS Marketplace purchases aren’t covered (except third-party Bedrock models), Route 53 domain registrations/transfers aren’t covered, and you also can’t use credits for upfront fees on Reserved Instances or Savings Plans.
Limitations to Know About
Every big credit package comes with rules. This one is generous, but it’s also strict about timing, eligibility, and what you can’t spend on.
- Credits are valid for 2 years from activation, and activation means when AWS applies them to your account.
- No extensions are allowed under any circumstances, according to the AWS Activate team.
- Credits are non-transferable and tied to your AWS account; you can’t move them to another account or consolidate them into a different billing org.
- You can’t choose which services consume credits first, because AWS applies them automatically (largest charges first, and the soonest-expiring credits first).
- Some spend categories are excluded, including AWS Professional Services and Training, AWS Managed Services, Amazon Mechanical Turk, and cryptocurrency mining workloads.
- If you’re betting on Trainium/Inferentia, you must use the AWS Neuron SDK, and not all model architectures are supported.
When credits run out, charges go straight onto the credit card on file. There’s no built-in “hard stop,” so you need to set up AWS Budgets and billing alerts if you don’t want a surprise invoice. If the credits expire, unused amounts are forfeited.
Have Unused AWS Credits?
It happens more than people admit. Startups get a huge credit grant, then change clouds, pivot away from training, or simply don’t burn through the balance before it expires. If you’re sitting on unused AWS credits you can’t realistically spend in time, AI Credit Mart lets you list unused credits so they don’t just evaporate at the end of the term.
Need More AWS Credits?
Once your free grant is gone, AWS bills fast, especially with GPUs and LLM inference. If you need to extend runway, AI Credit Mart lists discounted AWS credits from teams with surplus allocations. Discounts typically land around 30–70% below retail, so you can keep building without paying full price.
Tips for Getting the Most Out of Your Credits
- Apply immediately when you join the batch, because the 2-year window starts at credit activation, not at Demo Day.
- Set up AWS Budgets and billing alerts in the Billing Console, since overages charge your card with no warning.
- Use Cost Explorer to track burn rate and estimate when you’ll hit zero.
- Test Trainium/Inferentia compatibility early with the Neuron SDK before you commit serious roadmap to it.
- Remember you can stack other cloud programs in parallel (Google for Startups Cloud, Azure Founders Hub), which is useful if you want leverage or redundancy.
Frequently Asked Questions
Up to $500,000 total, typically split into about $200K for general AWS services and about $300K for AI silicon and AI usage (Trainium/Inferentia, Bedrock, and reserved H100 capacity). In real usage, that can fund a full AWS stack plus meaningful LLM inference or training, as long as you stay inside eligible services. The exact split may vary by YC batch because AWS and YC negotiate it.
Yes.
These Activate credits last 2 years from activation (when they’re applied to your AWS account). They cannot be extended, and unused credits are forfeited when they expire.
Yes. If you have AWS credits you won’t use before they expire, you can list them on AI Credit Mart and sell them at up to 70% of face value. Companies regularly list surplus credits from startup programs and enterprise agreements.
AI Credit Mart has discounted AWS credits available from companies with surplus allocations. Prices are typically 30-70% below retail.
They’re forfeited, and you can’t get an extension.
Yes. AWS Activate credits can be used on all models available through Amazon Bedrock, including third-party foundation models from providers like Anthropic, Meta, Mistral AI, Cohere, AI21 Labs, and others listed by AWS. Frankly, this is one of the biggest upgrades versus older rules, because before April 2024 AWS credits couldn’t be used for third-party Bedrock models.
No, AWS Marketplace purchases are not covered (except third-party Bedrock models).
If you’re in a qualifying YC batch, AWS Activate YC is a monster credit grant that can fund real infrastructure and serious AI spend for two years. Apply early, watch your billing like a hawk, and if you end up with surplus credits you can’t burn, you’ve got options.
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