"AWS is free for the first year" is a half-truth, and half-truths are the ones that cost money. The Free Tier gives you a certain amount of usage of some services, with monthly caps and for a limited time; anything beyond that is charged, immediately, without asking. On top of that, AWS has changed the model for new accounts, so what you read in a tutorial from three years ago may not apply to you. This guide explains how it works, how to know which case you are in and how to use it without getting an unexpected bill.
Before you start: what each thing means
- Free Tier
- The usage AWS does not charge new accounts for, with caps and a time limit.
- Monthly cap
- The free amount of each service per month (machine hours, GB stored, requests). Anything over the cap is charged.
- Credits
- In the new model, instead of free usage per service, AWS gives you a balance that is deducted from the bill until it runs out or expires.
- Always free
- Some services have a small amount free forever, not just the first year (for example, part of Lambda and DynamoDB).
- Eligible instance
- The machine size that falls within the Free Tier (the micro ones). A bigger machine is charged in full from the first minute.
- Budgets
- The AWS budgeting service, which warns you by email. Essential with a new account.
Two models, depending on when you opened the account
Older accounts have the classic model: for 12 months from opening, a free monthly amount of certain services (hours of a micro EC2 machine, hours of a micro RDS database, a few GB in S3, etc.); when the year is up, everything starts being charged. Accounts opened from mid-2025 onwards have a new model based on credits: AWS grants a balance when you open the account (and a bit more when you complete certain tasks), that balance is deducted from what you consume and, when it runs out or the period ends, charging begins. The new model also has a "free plan" that limits what you can create so you do not overspend, and a "paid plan" with no limits.
Which one are you on? Billing, Free Tier (or "Credits" in the menu): the screen tells you and shows how much you have used or how much credit is left. Do not trust what tutorials say: look at your own account.
What surprises people on the first bill
- Two micro machines running. The hours cap is for one machine full time. Two machines use twice the hours and the second one is charged.
- A machine that is not micro. If you chose "small" or "medium" when creating it because micro seemed too little, it is not in the Free Tier.
- The public IP. AWS charges public IPv4 addresses by the hour; the Free Tier includes a limited amount and only under certain conditions. An unused Elastic IP is always charged.
- The disk after terminating the machine. If the disk was not deleted with the machine, it is still there and still counting.
- The Multi-AZ RDS database. If you chose the "Production" template when creating it, Multi-AZ was enabled and that is not free.
- Data transfer. There are a few GB of outbound traffic free per month; one video or one large backup downloaded uses them up.
- Services that are not in the Free Tier and that a tutorial made you turn on: a NAT gateway, a load balancer, Secrets Manager.
Where to see how much you have used
Billing, Free Tier: a table with each service, its monthly cap, current usage and the end-of-month forecast, colour-coded by how close you are. Check it mid-month. In the credits model, the credits screen shows the remaining balance and the expiry date; Cost Explorer shows what has been consumed.
The three things to do on day one
- Turn on Free Tier alerts. In Billing, Billing preferences, tick "Receive Free Tier usage alerts" with your email. AWS warns you when you approach 85% of any cap.
- Create a budget for monthly cost with a small figure (5 or 10 dollars) and an email alert (guide in this section). If something goes beyond what is free, you find out that day, not at the end of the month.
- Protect the account with two-factor on the root user and a separate user. A new account stolen to mine cryptocurrency generates bills of thousands of euros, and the Free Tier does not cover them.
When it ends
Put the end date in your calendar (12 months from opening, or the expiry of the credits). A month before, decide what you want to keep and what to delete, and check how much what you keep will cost with the AWS pricing calculator or by estimating it in Cost Explorer with your real usage data. Whatever you do not want to pay for, delete it following the guide on "stop paying for AWS": the things that get forgotten are the same.
What can go wrong
I have been charged and I thought I was in the Free Tier
Open Bills and look at which service and which usage type. It is almost always one from the list above. If it was an honest mistake and the account is new, you can open a billing support case explaining it: AWS sometimes makes a courtesy adjustment the first time.
The Free Tier table does not appear
Your account is on the credits model or has already passed the one-year mark. In both cases, Cost Explorer and Budgets are the tools.
Is the Free Tier worth it for a business?
For learning and testing, yes. For a real service, plan from the start with normal prices: the free part does not last long and an architecture built "so it fits in the Free Tier" is usually the wrong one for production.
In Simplio
In Simplio you see from day one what each machine, database or bucket would cost at normal prices, so there is no surprise when the free part ends, and a per-user budget warns before creating something that goes over the cap. The Costs screen shows what has been billed and the end-of-month forecast for each account, and emails you if spend strays from the usual.
The same task, in AWS and in Simplio
| In the AWS console | In Simplio | |
|---|---|---|
| Knowing what it will cost you when the free part ends | AWS calculator, service by service | Estimated cost of each object on the Costs screen, from day one |
| Avoiding creating something that is charged | Reading the small print on every form | Per-user budget: Simplio warns before creating something that exceeds the cap |
| Finding out about an unexpected expense | Free Tier alerts and Budgets, if you set them up | Email alert on an unusual change in spend, with nothing to configure |