The MonkCast The New AWS Free Tier (with Bowen Wang)
Aug 14, 2025
Bowen Wang, Principal Product Marketing Manager at AWS, discusses the revamped AWS Free Tier program aimed at newcomers. He shares details on how users can access a zero-cost environment for up to six months and receive up to $200 in sign-up credits. The conversation highlights the program's goals to enhance accessibility for developers and students, ensuring they can experiment freely with AWS services. Bowen emphasizes the benefits of the new credit-based system, which encourages learning without the fear of surprise billing.
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Zero-Cost Six-Month Free Account
- AWS launched a credit-based Free Tier that gives new customers $100 on sign-up and another $100 for activating essential services.
- The program creates a zero-cost learning environment for up to six months while credits cover eligible usage.
Explore More Instance Types Safely
- Use the free-tier credits to explore broader EC2 and RDS instance types and other resource options when prototyping.
- AWS will automatically apply credits to eligible service usage so you can test architectures without surprise cost.
Set Up Budgets Before Upgrading
- Activate AWS Budgets while in the free account to learn spend monitoring and receive incentives.
- Form good budgeting habits before upgrading so you understand alerts and limits as usage grows.