How to get AWS Activate credits without an accelerator

You are about to build a product on AWS and you have heard there are free credits. You do not have an investor or an accelerator behind you, and the AWS pages seem to be written for people who do. This post is for that situation. Everything programme-specific below is linked to an AWS page so you can check it yourself before you apply, because the numbers and rules move.

What AWS Activate actually offers

There are two credit packages, and which one you can apply for depends on whether an AWS Activate Provider is backing you.

The amounts come from the AWS Startups credits page and AWS's own guide to Activate credits, which was last updated in June 2026. Some older AWS landing pages still quote $100,000 for Portfolio, so treat the credits page as the source of truth.

If you have no provider, Founders is your package. A thousand dollars is not a lot, but for a first version running on a small database, one or two containers and object storage, it usually covers the first few months. The application takes about an hour. The value is in the account hygiene you set up at the same time, which is the second half of this post.

Who qualifies

The AWS Activate FAQ says applications are open to "bootstrapped, self-funded, and funded startups up to and including Series A", founded within the last ten years, with "a functioning website or public profile". The credits page adds that the linked AWS account must be on a paid tier plan; the FAQ is blunt about it: "Free account plans are not eligible for Activate promotional credits."

So before you apply you need:

• A registered company that is under ten years old.
• A live website on your own domain, or at minimum a public company profile. A parked domain will not pass the "functioning website" check.
• An email address on that domain. The FAQ's decline reasons include "Free email providers are not accepted for business applications" and a mismatch between the domain on your application and the email on your AWS account.
• An AWS account in good standing, upgraded to the paid plan, using the same company domain for its root email.

If you are building on AWS China regions there is a separate programme, and if your last funding round is more than twelve months old you will be declined for Portfolio (that is one of AWS's listed reasons). Neither applies to a bootstrapped founder applying for Founders.

What the application asks for

The FAQ describes four steps: create an AWS Builder ID, complete an Activate profile, link your AWS account to that profile, then submit the credit application. You will be asked to describe the product, your funding stage and the company. Keep the description literal: what the product does, who pays for it, and what you are running on AWS. Reviewers are checking that a real company exists, not scoring the pitch.

Two rules catch people out. You can only have one application open at a time; if you submit two, AWS automatically rejects the smaller one. And each startup needs its own AWS account: a founder with two companies who applies for both from one account will be declined for the second.

AWS says processing "usually takes 7-10 business days" and cannot be expedited. You get an email either way, and the status page shows where you are in the queue.

What an Activate Provider is, and whether you can get one

An Activate Provider is "a venture capital firm, angel investor, accelerator, incubator, or other startup-enabling organization" that has partnered with AWS. Each one has a confidential Organization ID. The FAQ is explicit that an Org ID "is not a promotional code" and should not be shared, which is why you will not find working ones posted online.

You do not need a provider to get credits. You need one to get Portfolio-level credits. If you later take investment or join a programme, ask whether they are an Activate Provider before you sign anything else; AWS accepts provider applications from investors and accelerators that are actively investing, and not from co-working spaces. If you have already received Founders credits, you can apply again through a provider as long as the new amount is larger; AWS issues the difference.

Why applications get declined

The FAQ publishes the reason codes that appear on the status page. The ones a bootstrapped founder is most likely to hit:

• The email domain on the application does not match the email on the AWS account.
• A free email provider was used for a business application.
• AWS could not verify the startup's details, including its name. Match the company name on Companies House, the website and the application exactly.
• The company is more than ten years old, or is at Series B or later.
• Credits of equal or greater value were already received "across all your AWS accounts".
• The AWS account is suspended or otherwise "not in good standing" (usually an unpaid bill or a missing payment method).
• A duplicate application was already pending.

There is also a catch-all: "AWS may accept or reject any program application, in its sole discretion." Fix the specific reason, wait for the decline to clear, and reapply once.

What the credits do and do not cover

Credits apply to AWS's eligible services, which covers the things you will actually run: compute, storage, databases, networking. They also cover third-party foundation models on Amazon Bedrock. According to the FAQ they do not cover Route 53 domain registration, AWS Marketplace purchases (other than Bedrock models), upfront payments for Reserved Instances or Savings Plans, Professional Services, Training, Mechanical Turk, or anything used for mining cryptocurrency. They are never applied to bills from before the month they were issued.

Credits expire. The expiry date is shown in the Billing and Cost Management console, and the Activate terms make clear you are responsible for whatever you spend after that. Put the date in a shared calendar with a reminder six weeks before.

One more change worth knowing: since 1 December 2025 AWS has replaced the Developer and Business Support plans with Business Support+ for new subscriptions, and Activate credits can be applied to eligible support. Whether a paid support plan is worth it at your size is a separate question.

The day the credits land

A credit balance makes it easy to stop looking at the bill. Do the following before you deploy anything else.

1. Stop using the root user

The AWS account you created has a root user with unlimited access. AWS's root user best practices say plainly: "don't access the AWS account root user unless you have a task that requires root user credentials." Enable MFA on it; AWS now requires this. Never create access keys for it. Move the root email to a group address rather than one person's inbox, then create an administrative identity for day-to-day work.

2. Set up AWS Organizations and IAM Identity Center

Even with one product, create an organisation and keep the management account empty of workloads. Run the product in a member account. Use IAM Identity Center for people to sign in with short-lived credentials rather than long-lived access keys. If your credits were issued to the management account, enable credit sharing in the Billing console so member accounts draw down the same balance; the FAQ covers how this works for parent and child accounts.

3. Turn on billing alerts and a budget

Two mechanisms, both free at this scale. First, a CloudWatch billing alarm on EstimatedCharges. You have to enable "Receive CloudWatch Billing Alerts" in billing preferences and create the alarm in the US East (N. Virginia) region, because that is where billing metrics live. Second, an AWS Budget with a monthly cost limit and alerts at 50%, 80% and 100% of actual spend. Budgets can be set to exclude credits, so create one that does: that number is your real burn rate, and it is the one that matters when the credits run out. Forecast alerts need about five weeks of history before they fire, so add those later.

4. Write down what the credits are paying for

A single page in your repo: which account holds the credits, the expiry date, what the monthly run cost is with and without credits, and who has root access. When the balance hits zero you want to know within a day, and you want the answer to "what does this cost us now?" to be a number rather than a surprise.

What to do next

If you are starting a project with us, the account setup above is part of the first week and we do the application alongside you rather than for you, because the AWS account has to be yours. [NEEDS: confirm how Nexar Labs handles the Activate application with clients today, e.g. on a shared call, and whether the "application support" mentioned on the home page includes the account setup steps above.] If you are doing it yourself, start with the paid-plan upgrade and the domain email, then apply. Questions about your setup are welcome at [email protected].