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Amazon EC2

FTV42

Amazon EC2'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 EC2 is a cloud compute service that provides resizable virtual server capacity for running workloads on AWS. It offers instance-based compute with choices across processor families, storage, networking, operating systems, and purchase models.

The service is used for cloud-native and enterprise applications, HPC workloads, Apple platform development with EC2 Mac instances, and machine learning training and deployment. The pricing page highlights On-Demand Instances, Savings Plans, Spot Instances, On-Demand Capacity Reservations, Capacity Blocks for ML, Dedicated Hosts, and per-second billing with a 60-second minimum.

  • Resizable virtual server capacity
  • Over 1000 instance types
  • 99.99% availability SLA commitment
  • Per-second billing with 60-second minimum
  • Spot Instances up to 90% discount
  • Savings Plans up to 72% savings
  • 400 Gbps Ethernet networking
  • EC2 Mac instances for Apple workloads

Free Tier Value

42
FTV score
Est. value$12 / month
Credit cardNot stated
Feature parity85%

This free tier is the standard AWS intro offer: 750 hours of t2.micro compute plus 30 GB of EBS storage each month. At AWS’s own paid rates, that’s worth about $11.50/month, and it renews monthly rather than ending after a short trial. A credit card is required to create the account, and the offer is capped rather than unlimited, so the value is meaningful but still below a paid EC2 setup.

How FTV is calculated →

What's included in the free tier

Verified

  • Amazon EC2 free tier access with no-cost usage for eligible new accounts.
  • Up to 750 hours per month of t2.micro or t3.micro instances, depending on Region.
  • Access to Linux, Windows, or other eligible micro instances included in the free tier.
  • Up to 30 GB of EBS storage included for free tier instance volumes.
  • Up to 2 million I/O requests for EBS included in the free tier.
  • Up to 1 GB of snapshot storage included for EBS backups.

See Amazon EC2 pricing for current limits.

Paid plans

On-Demand Instances

Usage-based
Pay-as-you-go compute capacity by the hour or second
  • No upfront payment
  • No long-term commitment
  • Billed by the hour or second
  • Flexible compute capacity

Savings Plan

Contact sales
Usage commitment with savings up to 72% vs On-Demand
  • Lower prices than On-Demand
  • Requires usage commitment
  • Applies to compute usage
  • Can reduce bill significantly

Spot Instances

Usage-based
Up to 90% discount vs On-Demand
  • Uses spare EC2 capacity
  • Deep discounts
  • Good for flexible workloads
  • Interruptible capacity

On-Demand Capacity Reservations

Usage-based
Reserve capacity in a specific Availability Zone
  • Capacity reserved in advance
  • Specific Availability Zone
  • Useful for high availability
  • Useful for disaster recovery

Amazon EC2 Capacity Blocks for ML

Usage-based
Reserve GPU instances in advance for ML workloads
  • Advance reservation of GPU instances
  • Designed for ML workloads
  • Useful for experiments and prototypes
  • Helps plan for demand spikes

Dedicated Hosts

Usage-based
Physical EC2 server fully dedicated for your use
  • Dedicated physical server
  • Supports server-bound licenses
  • Available On-Demand or with Savings Plans
  • Control maintenance event schedules

Pricing extracted from Amazon EC2's pricing page. Always verify current pricing before committing.

Common questions

Is Amazon EC2 free forever?

Partly. Amazon EC2 gives new accounts a larger allowance at first, which then steps down to a smaller permanent free tier.

What is Amazon EC2's free tier worth?

Amazon EC2's free tier is worth about $12 per month. That maps to an FTV score of 42/100. The FTV score is explained at freetier.co/ftv.