Sell unused AWS credits
AWS credits arrive through several different programmes, and they are not all the same asset. Before you try to sell a balance, it is worth knowing which kind you hold, because that determines both what a buyer can do with it and whether a transfer is permitted at all.
Free to submit, no asking price needed, and a written reply in 24–48 hours.
Which kind of AWS credit do you have?
These are issued under different terms, and the differences decide whether a sale is even possible.
- AWS Activate credits
- Granted through startup programmes and accelerators. Commonly the most restricted: many Activate grants exclude AWS Marketplace purchases, Reserved Instance upfront fees and Savings Plans commitments, which removes exactly the spend a large buyer would want to cover.
- Promotional credits
- Handed out at events, hackathons, migration programmes and via account teams. Governed by the AWS Promotional Credit Terms and Conditions, which is the document that actually restricts transfer and resale.
- Private pricing and EDP commitments
- A negotiated spend commitment is not a promotional credit, even though it shows up as a discount on your bill. These are contractual and cannot be handed to a third party. If your balance came out of an enterprise negotiation, talk to your account manager rather than a broker.
Where to check your balance
AWS Billing and Cost Management console → Credits. Each row shows the credit name, the amount remaining, the expiry date and the applicable services — note all four, not just the balance.
What moves the value of AWS credits
We do not publish a percentage, because there is no index price and anyone quoting one before seeing your listing is guessing. These are the factors that actually decide it.
Service eligibility
An Activate credit restricted to EC2 and S3 is worth materially less than a general-purpose promotional credit of the same size, because a buyer can only apply it to a slice of their bill.
Marketplace and commitment exclusions
Buyers with real scale usually want to cover Marketplace software or Savings Plans. Credits that exclude both are harder to place regardless of balance.
Time to expiry
Credits apply automatically to eligible usage and cannot be held back or redirected, so a buyer has to be able to consume the balance before it lapses. Short runways compress value fast.
Account and Organization structure
Whether a credit applies to a single linked account or across an AWS Organization changes which transfer arrangements are even mechanically possible.
AI service eligibility
Buyers looking for AI spend specifically want credits that apply to Amazon Bedrock and SageMaker. Many older promotional grants predate those services or exclude them, so a credit that covers only classic infrastructure is worth less to an AI buyer than its balance suggests. Check the applicable-services list for the AI services by name rather than assuming general eligibility covers them.
Check these before you talk to a buyer
- The credit name and programme it came from, not just the dollar figure
- Remaining balance rather than the original grant amount
- Expiry date for each credit line separately — they often differ
- Applicable services, and any exclusion of Marketplace, RIs or Savings Plans
- Whether the credit sits on a standalone account or inside an Organization
- What your own AWS agreement says before you talk to any buyer
Amazon Web Services’s own terms
Read these rather than taking our word for it. We do not guarantee that any credit is transferable, and your agreement with Amazon Web Services governs what you may do.