Amazon API Gateway's free allowance is an intro tier: new accounts get a larger allowance that steps down to a smaller permanent free tier after the intro period.
About
Amazon API Gateway is a fully managed service for creating, publishing, maintaining, monitoring, and securing APIs at scale. It provides a front door for applications to access data, business logic, and backend functionality through REST APIs, HTTP APIs, and WebSocket APIs.
The service is designed for teams building serverless, containerized, and web application backends that need reliable API management with built-in traffic control, authorization, monitoring, and versioning. It also includes API Gateway Portals for creating AWS-native developer portals to discover, document, and govern APIs across an organization.
- Build and manage REST, HTTP, and WebSocket APIs
- Support real-time two-way communication for interactive applications
- Apply traffic management, throttling, CORS, and access control
- Integrate with IAM, Amazon Cognito, OIDC, OAuth2, and Lambda authorizers
- Monitor API activity and performance with CloudWatch
- Create managed developer portals for API discovery and governance
Free Tier Value
This free tier is a strong introductory offer: it includes monthly API usage across REST, HTTP, and WebSocket APIs for up to 12 months, but it is capped and time-limited rather than perpetual. The page also says new customers can get up to $200 in AWS Free Tier credits, but that is a one-time credit rather than a recurring monthly allowance, so the monthly value is not estimated from it.
What's included in the free tier
Verified
- One million REST API calls received per month for up to 12 months.
- One million HTTP API calls received per month for up to 12 months.
- One million WebSocket messages per month for up to 12 months.
- 750,000 WebSocket connection minutes per month for up to 12 months.
- Available only to new AWS customers.
- Free tier usage expires after 12 months from AWS sign-up date.
- Usage beyond monthly free limits is billed at standard API Gateway rates.
See Amazon API Gateway pricing for current limits.
Paid plans
HTTP APIs
- Pay-as-you-go API calls
- Data transfer out billed separately
- No minimum fees
- No upfront commitments
REST APIs
- Pay-as-you-go API calls
- Data transfer out billed separately
- No minimum fees
- No upfront commitments
- Private APIs have no data transfer out charges
WebSocket APIs
- Pay-as-you-go messaging
- Connection minutes billed separately
- Messages metered in 32KB increments
- Control frames like ping/pong are not metered
API Gateway Portals
- PortalProducts included
- 10
- ProductRestEndpoints per PortalProduct
- 40
- Includes 10 PortalProducts
- Includes 40 ProductRestEndpoints per PortalProduct
- Monthly charges are prorated based on usage
- Additional PortalProducts billed separately
Pricing extracted from Amazon API Gateway's pricing page. Always verify current pricing before committing.
Common questions
Is Amazon API Gateway free forever?
Partly. Amazon API Gateway gives new accounts a larger allowance at first, which then steps down to a smaller permanent free tier.
What happens when you exceed Amazon API Gateway's free tier?
You move to a paid plan. Amazon API Gateway's cheapest paid plan is API Gateway Portals at $125 / month.