Up to $200 in AWS free credits is available for new AWS customers: $100 when you sign up, plus another $100 if you finish five quick onboarding tasks. If you’re searching “how to get AWS credits,” this is the current Free Tier setup for accounts created after July 15, 2025.
Solo developers prototyping a backend, startup teams trying to stretch runway, and researchers testing Bedrock models without committing to a big bill all benefit here. The best part is the “Free plan” option, which makes the whole thing basically risk-free.
This guide covers eligibility, the exact signup steps, what services the credits can (and can’t) be used on, and a few practical ways to make the $200 go further.
Program at a Glance
| Provider | AWS |
| Credit Amount | Up to $200 ($100 signup + $100 tasks) |
| Duration | Credits expire 12 months from account creation |
| Eligibility | New AWS accounts created after July 15, 2025 |
| Credit Card Required? | Yes; $1 temporary hold for verification |
| Difficulty | Moderate; signup plus 5 console onboarding tasks |
| Best For | Bedrock trials, small apps, learning AWS basics |
| Official Page | AWS Program Page |
What You Actually Get
This AWS Free Tier offer is credit-based for new accounts: $100 lands immediately after signup, and you can earn five more $20 chunks by completing AWS Console onboarding tasks. The credit pool can be used across eligible AWS services (AWS states “200+ services”), and it includes access to Amazon Bedrock for foundation model usage that gets billed per token. You also choose between two account plans: a Free plan with a zero-charge guarantee for about 6 months, or a Paid plan that turns into standard pay-as-you-go billing after credits are used up.
In real terms, $200 is enough for a serious hands-on evaluation. You can build a small demo app (API, functions, storage, logs), test a handful of Bedrock prompts across multiple model families, and still have budget left to explore things like databases or queues. It won’t fund a production system for long, but it’s one of the cleaner “try it for real” offers because the Free plan can’t accidentally roll into charges.
Who Qualifies (and Who Doesn’t)
AWS is pretty explicit about who this is for: new AWS customers on new accounts created after July 15, 2025. If you meet that, you can receive up to $200 total (signup credit plus task credits), and you can choose the Free plan or the Paid plan at signup.
- Your AWS account must be created after July 15, 2025 to get the $200 credit-based offer.
- A valid credit or debit card is required, and AWS places a temporary $1 hold that is released in about a few days.
- The payment card must be new to AWS, meaning it cannot have been used on another AWS account.
- You can only have one Free Tier offer per person/account, so don’t expect to repeat it with the same identity.
If your account was created before July 15, 2025, you stay on the legacy 12-month trial model and you do not get the new $200 credits. Also, if your card has already been used for AWS before, you can get blocked during registration.
How to Sign Up
Expect the signup to take under an hour mainly because of account activation time.
- Go to aws.amazon.com/free and click “Create an AWS Account.”
- Enter your email address and choose an AWS account name.
- Choose your plan: Free or Paid (you can upgrade later, but you cannot downgrade).
- Enter billing information with a valid credit or debit card; AWS places a temporary $1 USD hold (released in about 3–5 days) to verify identity.
- Complete identity verification by receiving a code via SMS or voice call.
- Wait for account activation (typically about 30–60 minutes) and watch for the email confirmation.
- Log into the AWS Management Console and find the “Explore AWS” widget to start the onboarding tasks.
Your $100 signup credit is applied upon signup. The additional $100 shows up as you complete onboarding tasks (track it in the “Explore AWS” widget), and each task usually takes only a few minutes. One more gotcha: some prepaid cards may not work, and some banks add extra verification for online payments.
What the Credits Cover
Your $200 credit pool is unified, which means eligible usage across AWS services is deducted from the same bucket instead of separate per-service free quotas. For AI specifically, Amazon Bedrock usage is credits-based for new accounts (it is not in the Always Free tier), so prompts and playground tests can be paid for using these credits. On top of that, AWS still has “Always Free” services with permanent monthly limits that do not consume credits.
| Service / Feature | What It Does | Included? |
|---|---|---|
| Signup + onboarding credits | $100 at signup plus $20 per onboarding task | ✓ |
| Amazon Bedrock | Foundation model access (billed per token) | ✓ |
| Always Free highlights | Monthly free limits for services like Lambda, S3, DynamoDB | ✓ |
| Savings Plans / Reserved Instances / some Marketplace | Discount programs and certain Marketplace offers | Partial |
Notable exclusion that trips people up: Bedrock is not part of Always Free, so it will consume your credits. Also, on the Free plan, AWS blocks Savings Plans, Reserved Instances, and certain AWS Marketplace offers.
Limitations to Know About
Every free-credit program has fine print. AWS’s version is fairly reasonable, but a couple items can end your free ride early if you ignore them.
- All credits expire 12 months from account creation, even if you still have balance left.
- If your account joins an AWS Organization or you set up AWS Control Tower, Free Tier credits expire immediately and the account is auto-upgraded to Paid.
- Once you upgrade from the Free plan to the Paid plan, you cannot downgrade back to the Free plan.
- On the Free plan, some services and purchasing options are restricted (including Savings Plans, Reserved Instances, and some AWS Marketplace offers).
When credits run out, what happens depends on your plan. On the Free plan, you will not be charged; AWS simply closes the account, and you get about 90 days of data retention to upgrade and recover data before deletion. On the Paid plan, credits running out just transitions you into standard billing with no built-in “stop,” so setting up AWS Budgets early is not optional.
Have Unused AWS Credits?
AWS credits often go unused. Honestly, it happens a lot with startup packages and enterprise agreements: you get a big allocation, then priorities shift and the clock keeps ticking. If you’re sitting on AWS credits you won’t burn before they expire, AI Credit Mart lets you list unused credits so they don’t die on the vine. It’s a practical way to recover value instead of watching an expiration date win.
Need More AWS Credits?
Once your $200 is gone, AWS can get expensive fast, especially if you’re iterating on AI features. You don’t necessarily have to pay retail, though. AI Credit Mart has discounted AWS credits from teams that can’t use their full allocations, and pricing typically lands about 30–70% below list. If you’re trying to extend runway, that difference matters.
Tips for Getting the Most Out of Your Credits
- Complete all five onboarding tasks on day one; it takes under an hour and doubles your credits from $100 to $200.
- Do the Amazon Bedrock onboarding task first because it’s quick (send a prompt in the playground) and it unlocks a useful mental model of how Bedrock billing works.
- Do the AWS Budgets task immediately and keep the alerts turned on, especially if you ever plan to upgrade to the Paid plan.
- Start with the Free plan for zero risk, then upgrade only when you’re ready for production and monitoring is in place.
- For Bedrock model variety, use us-east-1 (N. Virginia) or us-west-2 (Oregon) since AWS notes the best availability in those regions.
- Use SageMaker Studio Lab for experimentation when you can, because it’s free forever and doesn’t require an AWS account.
- Terminate resources you’re not using; idle services can chew through credits faster than you’d expect.
Frequently Asked Questions
Up to $200 total: $100 is applied at signup, and you can earn another $100 by completing five onboarding tasks worth $20 each. You can spend the credits across eligible AWS usage, including Amazon Bedrock prompts (which are billed per token and deducted from your credits). Practically, it’s enough to build a small demo stack and run a meaningful Bedrock evaluation across multiple model families. It’s not meant to cover long-running production workloads, so treat it like a 12-month evaluation budget with a 6-month “no-billing” safety mode if you pick the Free plan.
Yes. AWS requires a valid credit or debit card and places a temporary $1 hold (released in about 3–5 days).
All credits expire 12 months from account creation, regardless of plan.
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.
The credits stop applying to usage after the 12-month expiration, so any continued usage depends on your plan. On the Paid plan, usage continues and you pay standard rates once credits are gone. On the Free plan, AWS does not charge you; when the Free plan period ends (about 6 months, or earlier if credits are exhausted), AWS closes the account and keeps data for about 90 days so you can upgrade and recover it.
You earn $20 each for launching and terminating an Amazon EC2 instance, configuring and launching an Amazon RDS database, building a simple web app with an AWS Lambda function URL, submitting a prompt in the Amazon Bedrock text playground, and setting a budget alert in AWS Budgets. You track completion in the “Explore AWS” widget in the AWS Console.
For most builders, start with the Free plan. AWS’s zero-charge guarantee means you won’t be billed, even if you burn through credits, and the downside is simply that the account is closed when the Free plan period ends. You can upgrade to Paid later and keep whatever credits remain (they still expire 12 months from signup). Be careful, though: once you upgrade you can’t downgrade back, and the Paid plan will bill you automatically after credits are exhausted, so set up Budgets before you flip that switch.
$200 in AWS credits is a legit way to test real AWS services (including Bedrock) without committing to a long bill. Claim it, finish the onboarding tasks, and if you ever end up with surplus AWS credits later, you can sell them instead of letting them expire.
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