Buying AWS credits: the legitimate ways to pay less
Discounted AWS credits from strangers usually mean someone else's account. These are the routes AWS itself offers to cut your bill, and how to check a reseller.
Search for "buy AWS credits" and you'll find offers of promotional credit at a fraction of face value. Before paying for any of them, it helps to know two things: what you'd actually be buying, and what AWS itself offers to people who want to pay less.
What a "discounted AWS credit" usually is
AWS's Promotional Credit Terms say promotional credit may not be sold, licensed, rented or otherwise transferred, and that it has no cash value. AWS also gives you no way to move a credit from one account to another. So when someone offers you their AWS credits, they almost always mean one of these:
- You get access to their account. Your workloads run in an AWS account someone else owns and controls. They can see your resources, cut you off, or lose the account to AWS enforcement, and you'd have no recourse.
- They run your workload for you. The same thing, with an extra layer of trust.
- The account itself is being sold. That brings in its history, its liabilities and the original owner's ability to recover it.
All three put your data and uptime in someone else's hands, and the credits can disappear partway through. Our buyer risk checklist goes through each one. The short version: for anything that matters, the discount isn't worth it.
The routes AWS actually offers
Most teams looking for cheap AWS credits really want a cheaper AWS bill. AWS offers several ways to get one, and none of them involve trusting a stranger.
AWS Activate, if you're a startup
Activate is AWS's startup programme, and it is how most of the promotional credit in circulation was issued in the first place. Credits come either directly or through partner organisations such as accelerators, incubators and venture firms in the Activate network. If you're an early-stage company, ask your investors or accelerator whether they're an Activate provider before you look anywhere else. The credit is issued to your own account, which is the whole difference.
Savings Plans and Reserved Instances
If your usage is steady, committing to it is the largest discount most companies will ever see. Savings Plans trade a commitment to a consistent hourly spend over one or three years for lower rates across eligible compute. Reserved Instances do the same for specific services such as databases. Both are bought in your own account, through AWS, with published pricing.
Spot capacity
For work that can be interrupted, such as batch jobs, CI, rendering or some training runs, Spot Instances use spare EC2 capacity at a steep discount to on-demand prices. You have to design for interruption, and in return you pay much less.
Private pricing and enterprise agreements
Once spend reaches a meaningful level, AWS negotiates. Committed-spend agreements and private pricing are arranged through your AWS account team. If you're spending enough to be shopping for discounted credits, you may well be spending enough to have this conversation.
Buying through an authorised AWS partner
AWS runs a partner programme under which authorised resellers can bill AWS usage to their customers, sometimes bundled with support or management and sometimes with a discount. This is the legitimate version of "buying AWS through a third party". The difference is that the reseller has an agreement with AWS that allows it. Ask any reseller to name the AWS programme they operate under, and confirm it with AWS before you sign.
How to check any third-party AWS offer
- Whose account will the workload run in? If it isn't one you own, stop.
- Can they name their AWS partner status? A legitimate reseller can, and AWS can confirm it.
- Who holds root and billing access? It should be you, for your own account.
- What happens if access stops? Get the answer in writing before any money moves.
- Is the price explained? "Promotional credits at 50% off" has no legitimate explanation. A partner discount on a committed spend does.
Where WeBuyAPI fits
We're a human-reviewed introduction service, not a credit shop. When a buyer contacts us we look at what they actually need, and often the honest answer is one of the routes above rather than a seller's balance. Where a permitted arrangement does exist, we introduce the parties and say plainly what each side is taking on. If you'd like that review, tell us what you need and a person will reply within 24–48 hours.