Amazon has made major changes to AWS accounts that came into effect today. If you are new to AWS do the benefits of signing up to a Free plan outweigh the disadvantages and risks?

Ever since the introduction of its paid-for cloud services Amazon has promoted its Free Tier as a way of exploring AWS services without cost commitments. Up until today new subscribers could enjoy 12 months free use of instance types and Amazon Machine Images (AMIs) marked as "Free Tier eligible". However there were (and still are) usage limits and subscribers to Free Tier who exceeded them were (and are) billed at the pay-as-you-go rates so it was possible to find yourself facing an unexpected bill for cloud service.

Amazon still continues to promote its Free Tier as a way for new customers, from students to business customers, to explore AWS services, but from today has moved from a time-based model to a credit-based system. From the newbie's point of view it is the $100 of AWS credits that is the incentive for opening an AWS account:

New customers receive up to USD $200 in AWS credits - USD $100 at sign up and USD $100 more as you explore foundational AWS services. You can access over 30 services with always free offers. Services with an Always Free offer allow you to use the product for free up to specified limits as long as you are an AWS customer. 

However, from today the maximum length of time for benefiting from the introductory incentives has halved with the small print stipulating:

Your free plan expires the earlier of (1) 6 months from the date you opened your AWS account, or (2) once you have exhausted your Free Tier credits.

At sign up, which requires credit card details even for the Free plan, the choice is between Free and Paid and the same benefits of up to $200 of credits with the credits being automatically applied to your bills. Whether you choose the Free or the Paid plan you have equal access to AWS "Always Free" services - like 1 million Lambda requests per month, 25GB DynamoDB storage, etc. with the same specified monthly limits, but while customers on the Paid Plan are eligible for any promotional credits and discounts that AWS might offer (e.g., through programs like AWS Activate for startups), those on the Free Plan are not. Moreover, users on the Free Plan users can only access a select subset of AWS services and features and are restricted from accessing high-usage services or offerings that would rapidly deplete the Free Tier credit amount there are no such restrictions when you opt for Paid.  

It is what happens at expiry that leads me to favor opting for a Paid Plan from the start. When your Free Plan expires (either after 6 months or once you've exhausted your Free Tier credits, whichever comes first), AWS automatically closes your account which means you will lose access to all your current resources and data stored within that AWS account. This isn't quite as draconian as it sounds as  AWS will retain your data for 90 days after your Free Plan expires and you can upgrade to a Paid Plan to reopen your account and restore access to your resources and data. However, if you do not upgrade your account within those 90 days, AWS will permanently erase your AWS account and all its content. This seems to me to be an unnecessary risk.   

The bottom line is that if you intend to be a long-term user of AWS services you may as well sign up for the Paid plan from the outset. You still benefit from $100 in credits for signing up,  have the same potential to earn up to $100 in bonus credits and the same access to AWS services with always free offers up to specified limits. And you plan will only stop when you decide to close it. 

More Information

Explore AWS services with AWS Free Tier

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