AWS Pricing & the Free Tier

The point: AWS bills by usage, which is flexible but can surprise beginners. Understanding the basics keeps your bill small (or zero) while you learn.

How pricing works

• Pay-as-you-go — pay only for what you use, by the second, hour, GB, or request
• No upfront cost for most services
• Cheaper with commitment — reserved or savings plans cut cost for steady workloads

The Free Tier

AWS offers a Free Tier so you can learn without spending:

• 12-month free — e.g. a small EC2 instance and S3 storage for the first year
• Always free — generous monthly limits on Lambda, DynamoDB, and more

Avoid surprise bills

• Set a billing alarm to email you if spending passes a threshold
• Stop or delete resources you are done with — idle servers still cost money
• Check the Billing dashboard regularly while learning

💡 Tip: the number one cause of unexpected bills is forgetting to shut something down. Make a habit of cleaning up.