Amazon Elastic Block Store'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. The free plan includes 30 GB of EBS storage included, 2 million EBS I/O operations included, and 1 GB of EBS snapshot storage included.
About
Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS) provides durable, high-performance block storage for Amazon EC2 instances. It is designed for workloads that need persistent storage attached to compute, such as databases, mission-critical applications, and data-intensive systems.
EBS volumes can be created in a specific Availability Zone and attached to EC2 instances for use as file systems, database storage, or general block storage. The service includes multiple volume types to balance performance and cost, along with snapshot-based data protection and encryption capabilities.
- Persistent block storage for EC2 workloads
- Multiple volume types for different performance and cost needs
- Snapshot support for backup, recovery, and migration
- Encryption and access controls for data protection
- Designed for high availability and durable storage
Free Tier Value
This free tier is worth about $3/month because it includes 30 GB of EBS storage, 2 million I/O operations, and 1 GB of snapshot storage, which lines up with the classic AWS EBS free-tier bundle. It is capped and time-limited rather than unlimited, and new customers may also get up to $200 in AWS Free Tier credits, but that credit is a one-time allowance rather than a recurring monthly benefit. A credit card is typically required to create the account, so the value is solid but still below a paid month of even modest EBS usage.
What's included in the free tier
Verified
- 30 GB of EBS storage included.
- 2 million EBS I/O operations included.
- 1 GB of EBS snapshot storage included.
- Access to Amazon EBS General Purpose SSD volumes (gp3 and gp2).
- Access to Amazon EBS Throughput Optimized HDD volumes (st1).
- Access to Amazon EBS Cold HDD volumes (sc1).
- Up to $200 in AWS Free Tier credits for eligible AWS services, including Amazon EBS.
- Free plan available for 6 months after account creation.
- Free Tier credits must be used within 12 months of account creation.
See Amazon Elastic Block Store pricing for current limits.
Paid plans
EBS standard pay-as-you-go
- storage
- per GB-month
- IOPS
- per provisioned IOPS-month
- throughput
- per MB/s-month
- snapshot storage
- per GB-month
- Provision EBS storage by GB-month
- IOPS and throughput charges apply for higher-performance volumes
- Snapshot storage billed separately
- Supports gp3, gp2, st1, sc1, io1, io2 volume types
EBS Snapshots Archive
- archive storage
- per GB-month
- retrieval
- per GB
- minimum retention
- 90 days
- Archive snapshot storage at lower cost
- Temporary restore available
- 90-day minimum retention period
- Separate retrieval fee applies
EBS Fast Snapshot Restore
- DSU-Hour
- per hour
- minimum charge
- 1 hour
- scope
- per snapshot and AZ
- Enable fast restore for snapshots
- Charged per snapshot and Availability Zone
- Billed per minute with one-hour minimum
- Useful for rapid volume initialization
EBS direct APIs for Snapshots
- API requests
- per request
- SnapshotAPIUnit
- per unit
- ListSnapshotBlocks and ListChangedBlocks billed per request
- GetSnapshotBlock billed per SnapshotAPIUnit
- PutSnapshotBlock billed per SnapshotAPIUnit
- Supports direct snapshot data access
EBS Time-based Snapshot Copy
- data copied
- per GB
- completion duration
- per hour
- Predictable completion-time snapshot copy
- Charged by data copied and target duration
- Different rates for different completion windows
- Cross-region transfer charges may apply
Provisioned Rate for Volume Initialization
- snapshot size
- per GB
- initialization rate
- per MB/s
- Create fully performant volumes from snapshots
- Charged on full snapshot size
- Rate depends on chosen initialization speed
- Useful for bulk volume creation and recovery
Pricing extracted from Amazon Elastic Block Store's pricing page. Always verify current pricing before committing.
Common questions
Is Amazon Elastic Block Store free forever?
Partly. Amazon Elastic Block Store gives new accounts a larger allowance at first, which then steps down to a smaller permanent free tier.
What is Amazon Elastic Block Store's free tier worth?
Amazon Elastic Block Store's free tier is worth about $3.00 per month. That maps to an FTV score of 35/100. The FTV score is explained at freetier.co/ftv.
