AWS Free Tier 2025: How to Get $200 in Credits and What Changed?
Utkarsh Rastogi

Utkarsh Rastogi @awslearnerdaily

About: Cloud Developer | AWS Community Builder | I write about AI, serverless, DevOps & real-world cloud projects using AWS, Bedrock, LangChain & more to help others learn and build smarter solutions.

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Joined:
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AWS Free Tier 2025: How to Get $200 in Credits and What Changed?

Publish Date: Jul 19
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💡 On July 15, 2025, the new AWS Free Tier went live! Discover the best services, get up to $200 in free credits, and gain firsthand experience with the cloud—but with some new guidelines. Everything you need to know is right here 👇


🧭 What's Changed in AWS Free Tier (Post–July 15, 2025)?

Welcome to the updated Free Tier program if you're registering for AWS after July 15, 2025:

  • $200 in AWS credits 🎁
  • A 6-month Free Plan period ⏳
  • Account auto-expiry unless upgraded 🔒
  • 30+ always-free services ✅

Let’s dive into the key benefits, usage paths, and how to maximize all $200 like a pro 👇


🎯 Get Up to $200 Credits — In Action!

When you sign up for either Free or Paid Plan, you receive:

  • $100 credit instantly
  • 🏆 Up to $100 more by completing 5 beginner-friendly AWS activities (Each one gives $20)

🛠️ Activities to Earn Extra Credits:

AWS Service Activity
Amazon EC2 Launch & terminate an EC2 instance
Amazon RDS Learn to configure and deploy an RDS DB
AWS Lambda Build a basic web app using a Lambda function with a URL
Amazon Bedrock Submit a prompt using Bedrock Text Playground
AWS Budgets Set a cost budget that alerts you when you exceed it

👉 Start with AWS Budgets — it's fast and easy:

  1. Go to [Billing Console → Budgets].
  2. Choose Use a template (simplified)Monthly cost budget.
  3. Set your budget amount (e.g. $5 or $10).
  4. Save and confirm.

You’ll start getting alerts when your spending exceeds the budget, and $20 credits will appear on your [Credits page] within ~10 minutes.

After completing all 5 activities, you’ll unlock the full $200 in credits to explore AWS services or build your first cloud app!


📦 Free Plan vs. Paid Plan — Choose Wisely

Feature Free Plan Paid Plan
Initial Credits $100 $100
Extra Activity Credits
Account Duration 6 months or till credits used No limit
Access to Services Limited (30+ services) Full access
Auto Deletion Yes (after 90 days if not upgraded) No
Upgrade Option Available anytime Already upgraded

📬 Notifications and Expiry Timeline

  • 🔔 Credit Usage Alerts:
    • Email at 50%, 25%, and 10% remaining
  • 🕒 Plan Expiry Alerts:
    • 15, 7, and 2 days before your Free Plan ends
  • ❗ After 6 months:
    • You’ll get an email to upgrade to a Paid Plan
    • 90 days to upgrade and reopen account before it's deleted

✅ Always-Free Services (Both Plans)

These 30+ services remain always free:

Service Free Tier Limit
AWS Lambda 1M requests/month
Amazon S3 5 GB
DynamoDB 25 GB
CloudWatch 10 custom metrics
API Gateway 1M REST API calls/month

🔗 Full list: AWS Always Free


Legacy Accounts (Before July 15, 2025)

If your AWS account was created before July 15, 2025, you're still on the Legacy Free Tier:

  • 12-month trials (e.g. EC2, RDS, S3)
  • Always-Free Tier services
  • No credit program, but no service restrictions
  • No auto-deletion

💡 Pro Tip

If you're a student, startup, or cloud beginner:

  • Start with the Free Plan, complete all 5 activities
  • Upgrade before the 6-month window closes
  • Use your $200 credits smartly: build a small project, test services, learn cloud economics

👨‍💻 About Me

Hi! I'm Utkarsh, a Cloud Specialist & AWS Community Builder who loves turning complex AWS topics into fun chai-time stories

👉 Explore more


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