AWS Free Tier Explained: What You Get, What Expires, and How to Use It for Cert Study
Everything free on AWS — and how to use it to pass your certification without spending a penny
The AWS Free Tier is one of the most generous learning resources in cloud computing. New AWS accounts get 12 months of free access to core services — enough to host a website, run a database, deploy serverless functions, and build the hands-on experience that certification exams reward. But the free tier has limits, and going over them will generate charges. This guide tells you exactly what you get, when it expires, and how to structure your cert study around it without paying a dollar.
The three types of AWS Free Tier
Not all 'free' is the same on AWS. There are three distinct categories: (1) 12 Months Free — available from your account creation date for the first 12 months. After 12 months, standard rates apply. This covers EC2, S3, RDS, and most of the core services. (2) Always Free — never expires, regardless of account age. This includes Lambda (1M requests/month), DynamoDB (25 GB), CloudFront (1 TB/month), and CloudWatch metrics. (3) Trials — short-term free access to specific services (30-day, 60-day, or limited usage). Amazon SageMaker, Amazon Comprehend, and some newer services offer trials.
The 'Always Free' tier is the most valuable for long-term study. Lambda, DynamoDB, and S3 (5 GB) together let you build functional serverless applications indefinitely on the free tier — even after your 12 months expire.
What is actually free for 12 months
The most useful 12-month free services for cert study: EC2 — 750 hours/month of t2.micro or t3.micro Linux or Windows. This is enough to run one instance continuously all month. S3 — 5 GB standard storage, 20,000 GET requests, 2,000 PUT requests per month. RDS — 750 hours/month of db.t2.micro or db.t3.micro (MySQL, PostgreSQL, MariaDB, Oracle BYOL, SQL Server Express). 20 GB of storage included. EBS — 30 GB of General Purpose SSD storage per month. CloudFront — 1 TB of data transfer out, 10 million HTTP/HTTPS requests. Elastic Load Balancer — 750 hours/month. These limits reset on the 1st of each month — they do not accumulate.
The 750 EC2 hours is per month, not per instance. If you run two t2.micro instances simultaneously, you consume 2 hours of your allowance per hour of real time — meaning you will exhaust the free tier in 15 days rather than 31. Monitor your usage in the AWS Billing Dashboard weekly.
Always Free services — what never expires
These services remain free indefinitely: Lambda — 1 million requests per month, 400,000 GB-seconds of compute time. DynamoDB — 25 GB of storage, 25 read capacity units, 25 write capacity units. SQS — 1 million requests per month. SNS — 1 million publishes, 100,000 HTTP deliveries per month. CloudWatch — 10 custom metrics, 10 alarms, 1 million API requests per month. AWS Glue — 1 million objects stored in the Glue Data Catalogue. Amazon Cognito — 50,000 monthly active users. These are the services to build on after your 12 months expire — you can maintain a serverless study environment indefinitely.
How to avoid unexpected AWS charges
Three things to set up on day one: (1) Root account MFA — go to IAM and enable MFA on the root user immediately. This prevents compromised accounts from spinning up expensive resources. (2) Billing Alert — go to CloudWatch → Alarms → Create Alarm → select 'Billing' → 'Total Estimated Charge' → set threshold at $1 USD. You will get an email before any real charge occurs. (3) AWS Budgets — go to Billing → Budgets → Create Budget → set a $0 monthly budget with email alerts at 80% and 100%. This is separate from CloudWatch alarms and provides earlier warning.
Check the AWS Billing Dashboard once a week while experimenting. Filter by service to see which resources are generating cost. The most common surprise charges come from: EC2 data transfer costs (egress), Elastic IP addresses attached to stopped instances, and RDS snapshots left running after the instance is deleted.
How to use the free tier for CLF-C02 study
AWS Cloud Practitioner (CLF-C02) is conceptual — it does not require hands-on skills. But exploratory free tier use will dramatically improve your understanding of what services actually are. Recommended free tier exercises for CLF-C02: (1) Create an S3 bucket, upload a file, and enable static website hosting — this teaches you S3 access control, regions, and the difference between public and private buckets. (2) Launch a t2.micro EC2 instance, connect via SSH, install a web server, and terminate it — this teaches you instance types, key pairs, security groups, and the EC2 lifecycle. (3) Create an IAM user with read-only S3 permissions, log in as that user, and try to write — this teaches you IAM policies and the principle of least privilege.
How to use the free tier for SAA-C03 study
Solutions Architect (SAA-C03) requires architectural decision-making. Free tier exercises that build architect thinking: (1) Set up a VPC with public and private subnets, an Internet Gateway, a NAT Gateway (note: NAT Gateway is NOT free — use a NAT Instance t2.micro instead to stay free), and route tables — this is the most common VPC scenario on SAA-C03. (2) Create an Application Load Balancer targeting two EC2 t2.micro instances — teaches you load balancing, health checks, and target groups. (3) Set up S3 lifecycle policies to transition objects from Standard to Standard-IA to Glacier — teaches you S3 storage classes and cost optimisation. (4) Enable CloudWatch logging on an EC2 instance and create a metric alarm — teaches you monitoring and observability.
NAT Gateways cost approximately $0.045/hour — about $33/month. They are NOT in the free tier. Use a t2.micro EC2 instance configured as a NAT instance for free tier-compatible private subnet routing during study.
Key tips
Set a $1 billing alert on day one — it is free and prevents surprise charges.
Terminate (not just stop) EC2 instances when done — stopped instances still incur EBS storage charges.
Delete RDS instances and their automated snapshots separately — RDS snapshots continue to be charged after instance deletion.
Elastic IP addresses attached to stopped instances incur charges — release them when not in use.
The AWS Cost Explorer (free) gives a breakdown of charges by service, region, and day — use it weekly.
AWS Educate and AWS Academy offer additional free credits for students — check eligibility.
Frequently asked questions
What is the AWS Free Tier?
The AWS Free Tier is a set of free usage limits on AWS services available to all new accounts. It has three tiers: 12 Months Free (available for 12 months from account creation), Always Free (permanent, no expiry), and Trials (short-term free access to specific services).
How long does the AWS Free Tier last?
The '12 Months Free' portion lasts 12 months from your account creation date. After that, standard AWS rates apply. Some services (Lambda, DynamoDB, CloudWatch) are in the 'Always Free' tier and never expire.
Is AWS EC2 free?
EC2 is free for 750 hours per month for the first 12 months of a new account, limited to t2.micro or t3.micro instances. After 12 months, or if you exceed 750 hours, standard EC2 rates apply.
Can I get charged on the AWS Free Tier?
Yes. The free tier has limits — if you exceed them, AWS charges the standard rate for the excess usage. Common surprises: running two EC2 instances simultaneously (doubles hourly usage), leaving RDS instances running after study, or incurring NAT Gateway charges (not in the free tier).
How do I check my AWS Free Tier usage?
Go to the AWS Billing Console → Free Tier. This shows your current month's usage as a percentage of each free tier limit with a bar chart per service. Check this weekly when actively experimenting.
What AWS services are always free?
Permanently always-free AWS services include: Lambda (1M requests/month), DynamoDB (25 GB), SQS (1M requests/month), SNS (1M publishes/month), CloudWatch (10 metrics, 10 alarms), Amazon Cognito (50,000 MAU), and AWS Glue Data Catalogue (1M objects).
How do I use the AWS free tier for certification study?
For CLF-C02: create S3 buckets, launch t2.micro EC2 instances, and explore IAM. For SAA-C03: build VPCs with subnets, set up load balancers, configure S3 lifecycle policies, and enable CloudWatch alarms. Use t2.micro instances everywhere, terminate resources after each session, and set up billing alerts before starting.
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