The short answer.
There is no such thing as "an AWS credit". There are four different doors, and you come in through one of them according to what your company is today: a startup applies through AWS Activate and applies on its own; an established company comes in through the migration and proof-of-concept programs, which only an AWS partner can file.
Almost every article on this mixes the four doors into a single number and promises an amount. The amount is not the interesting part: what decides whether the credit comes through is which door you come in by, what scope you can write down, and whether somebody can file the application in the right portal.
This guide walks the four doors in order, with the amount and the rule for each one taken from AWS's own pages. The sources are at the bottom, with links.
The four doors.
Each has an audience, a ceiling and a place where the application is filed. Confusing the doors is the most common reason an application dies without an answer.
AWS Activate — startups
The Founders package, for a self-funded startup, starts at US$1,000 and goes up to US$5,000. The Portfolio package reaches US$200,000 and requires an Org ID from an Activate provider — an accelerator, an angel investor or a fund.
The eligibility AWS publishes: pre-Series B, founded in the last 10 years, an AWS account on a paid plan, and being new to Activate credits or asking for more than you have already received.
MAP — migration
The Migration Acceleration Program has three phases: Assess, Mobilize and Migrate & Modernize. AWS describes what it delivers as tools, training, partner specialists with a migration competency, and financial investment.
The application is submitted by the partner in the funding portal, and since 2024 the model covers migrations of up to US$10 million in annual recurring revenue.
Proof of concept and sandbox
AWS maintains funding for proof-of-concept projects and the APN Innovation Sandbox Credits, which exist to offset the consumption generated while a solution is being developed.
It is the right door when nobody yet knows whether the idea works — and it is the one closest to what a company needs before approving an AI project.
Marketing funds and Marketplace
Marketing Development Funds pay for demand-generation activity in cash or in credit. The Private Offer Promotion Program offers promotional credit to the customer in a transaction through AWS Marketplace.
Neither of them reduces your infrastructure invoice. They are here because they show up at the same counter and get confused with consumption credit all the time.
Who qualifies at each door.
| Program | Who it is for | Published amount | Who files it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Activate Founders | Self-funded startup | US$1,000, up to US$5,000 | The startup itself |
| Activate Portfolio | Startup with an Org ID from an accelerator, angel or fund | Up to US$200,000 | The startup itself |
| AI startup credits | Companies past Portfolio, by invitation | US$200,000 or more | The AWS account manager |
| MAP — migration | A company migrating workloads to AWS | Not published — set per phase and per milestone | The partner, in the funding portal |
| Proof of concept and sandbox | A company testing whether the idea works | Not published — case by case | The partner, in the funding portal |
"Not published" means exactly that: AWS does not disclose a ceiling for those programs. Any percentage you read elsewhere without a link to an AWS page is a third party guessing, and a guess about a cloud bill is expensive.
How the application works from the inside.
Five steps. The third is what separates an approved application from a forgotten one, and it is the one almost nobody prepares.
Work out which door you come in through
A startup founded in the last 10 years and pre-Series B comes in through AWS Activate and applies on its own. An established company comes in through the partner funding programs — migration and proof of concept — which only an AWS partner can file.
Gather what the application requires before you open it
An AWS account on a paid plan, a working website, a company registration, and an estimate of consumption. For Activate Portfolio you need the Org ID of an Activate provider: an accelerator, an angel investor or a venture capital fund.
Write the scope with milestones and numbers
AWS approves funding against scope and milestones, not against intent. Say which workload migrates, in what order, what the expected monthly consumption is afterwards, and how the result will be measured.
File it in the right place
Activate is applied for by the startup itself on the AWS site. Partner funding is submitted by the partner in the AWS Partner Funding Portal, and requires the partner to have an account in AWS Payee Central.
Spend the credit before the expiry date
Credit is valid for a limited time and does not apply to everything. Check the date in the console and plan consumption to fit inside it: credit that expires unused does not become money and does not come back.
What almost everybody gets wrong.
The first four are written into the AWS promotional terms and almost nobody reads them. The fifth is in no terms at all, and it is the most expensive.
Assuming credit does not expire
Promotional credit is valid for a limited time and cannot be redeemed after the expiry date given when you receive the code. Saving credit for next year is throwing it away.
Counting on it to pay for everything
The terms exclude AWS Marketplace, AWS Professional Services, AWS Training, AWS Certification, AWS Managed Services, Amazon Mechanical Turk and non-eligible support. Software bought on Marketplace still comes out of cash.
Expecting it to offset tax
Credit is not applied against transaction taxes, nor against the upfront portion of Savings Plans and Reserved Instances. In Brazil that changes the bill materially, and it usually only shows up on the first invoice.
Trying to move credit between accounts
Each code is redeemed once, in one account. Credit cannot be sold, licensed, rented or transferred, does not become cash and is not refundable. Which account receives it is a decision with no way back.
Using credit to postpone the architecture conversation
Credit pays the invoice for a while. The architecture that produced the invoice stays exactly the same. When the credit runs out, the bill returns to its real size — now with more workload on top of it. Fixing the cost first makes the same credit last twice as long.
What an AWS partner is, and what the tiers mean.
An AWS partner is a company registered in the AWS Partner Network. Registering is free and means nothing on its own. What means something is the tier, and the tier is measured in certifications, in launched opportunities and in recurring revenue — numbers AWS publishes.
| Tier | Accredited people | Technical certifications | Launched opportunities |
|---|---|---|---|
| Select | 4 — 2 technical, 2 business | 2 | 3, totalling US$1,500 in monthly revenue |
| Advanced | 8 — 4 technical, 4 business | 6, with at least 3 Professional or Specialty | 20, totalling US$10,000 in monthly revenue |
| Premier | 20 — 10 technical, 10 business | 25, with at least 10 Professional or Specialty | 50, totalling US$50,000 in monthly revenue |
Below Select there is the Registered stage, which is only the sign-up. Premier additionally requires three competencies, one of them MSP, DevOps or CloudOps, a business plan with AWS, and more than six months sustaining the criteria. That is why the tier says something: it is not bought, it is accumulated.
What changes when you go through a partner.
Start with the mechanism, not the promise. Migration funding, proof-of-concept funding and marketing funds are submitted by the partner, in the AWS funding portal, and require the partner to have an account in AWS Payee Central. A company on its own does not have that door. It is not a commercial advantage: it is how the program was designed.
In practice that usually means three things: more credit than the company would get on its own, a better chance of the proof of concept being subsidized, and — in some cases — AWS covering a meaningful share of the implementation through the migration programs.
None of it is guaranteed, and it is a tendency, not a rule. AWS approves case by case, against scope, milestones and real consumption. A partner improves the odds and shortens the path; a partner does not turn the odds into a certainty. Anyone promising you a fixed credit amount before AWS has looked at your case is selling something they do not control.
At Moonxi, credit and funding are part of the scope of the data and cloud front: the plan says which door your case comes in by, what has to be written for the application to stand a chance, and how much the bill drops with no credit at all. The partnership tier is a record that lives in AWS Partner Central — if it weighs on your decision, ask in the conversation and we will show you the record, rather than stamping a badge here and asking you to take our word for it.
Questions about AWS credits.
Can any company get AWS credits?
No, and the doors are different. AWS Activate is for startups: founded in the last 10 years, pre-Series B, with an AWS account on a paid plan. An established company does not come in that way — it comes in through the migration and proof-of-concept funding programs, which are filed by an AWS partner.
How much credit can you get?
It depends on the package. AWS Activate Founders, for a self-funded startup, starts at US$1,000 and goes up to US$5,000. AWS Activate Portfolio reaches US$200,000 and requires an Org ID from an Activate provider. Above that, AWS has an AI startup credits program, by invitation only, for companies that have already been through Portfolio.
Do AWS credits expire?
Yes. The AWS promotional terms say credit is valid for a limited time and cannot be redeemed after the expiry date given when you receive the code. Each code is used once, in one account, and is not transferable and does not become cash.
Can I pay for AWS Marketplace with credit?
No. The terms exclude AWS Marketplace, AWS Professional Services, AWS Training, AWS Certification, AWS Managed Services, Amazon Mechanical Turk and non-eligible support. Credit also does not offset tax on the transaction or the upfront portion of Savings Plans and Reserved Instances.
Do I need an AWS partner to apply for credit?
For Activate, no: the startup applies directly. For the partner funding programs — migration, proof of concept, marketing funds — yes: the application is submitted by the partner in the AWS funding portal, and a company on its own does not have that door.
Does credit fix an expensive cloud bill?
No, it postpones it. Credit pays the bill for a while and the architecture that produced the bill stays the same. When the credit runs out, the invoice returns to its real size. Fixing the cost first makes the credit last longer and go further.
What tier is Moonxi's AWS partnership?
The partnership tier is a record that lives in AWS Partner Central, not a sentence on a website. If it weighs on your decision, ask in the conversation and we will show you the record — rather than stamping a badge here and asking you to take our word for it.
Want to know which door your company comes in by?
The diagnostic looks at your data, your systems and your AWS bill, and comes back with the credit path that fits your case — along with what can be cut before you need any credit at all.
Sources
Every amount and every criterion in this guide came from one of these pages, opened on August 9, 2026. AWS changes program names and amounts without notice: if you are reading this much later, check the link before relying on the number.
- AWS — AWS Activate Credits — packages, amounts and eligibility ↗
- AWS — Migration Acceleration Program — the three phases ↗
- AWS — Funding Benefits for AWS Partners ↗
- AWS — Streamlined MAP funding and approval in AWS Partner Central ↗
- AWS — AWS Partner Services Tiers — the criteria for each tier ↗
- AWS — AWS Promotional Credit Terms & Conditions ↗