How to apply for AWS Activate credits in 2026

What AWS Activate actually is

AWS Activate is Amazon's startup programme. It bundles promotional cloud credits with technical support, training and partner offers. The credits are applied to your AWS bill automatically — they are not cash, and they cannot be transferred to another account or withdrawn.

The important thing to understand before you apply is that Activate is not one programme with one amount. It is a set of tiers, and which tier you can reach is decided almost entirely by who introduces you, not by how good your product is.

The tiers and what each one is worth

Amounts are set by AWS and change from time to time. Always confirm current figures on the official AWS Activate credits page before you plan around them.

Eligibility: the baseline rules

Across tiers, AWS applies broadly the same gate:

• Pre-Series B. If you have raised, the most recent round should generally be within the last 12 months.
• Founded in the last 10 years.
• A working company website. Not a landing page with a waitlist form — a site that explains what the company does.
• An AWS account on a paid tier plan. Create and set up billing on the account before you apply.
• New to Activate credits, or asking for more than you previously received.

Not sure you clear the bar? Work through the full eligibility criteria for both programmes first.

The application, step by step

1. Set up the AWS account first. Create the account, add a payment method, and move it onto a paid support plan. Applications tied to an account that does not exist yet go nowhere.
2. Get a business email on your own domain. This is the most common avoidable rejection. Use you@yourcompany.com, not Gmail. AWS uses domain consistency between your email, your website and your Activate profile to validate that the company is real.
3. Make the website match. The domain in your email should be the domain of the site you list. The site should name the company, describe the product, and ideally list the founders.
4. Build the Activate profile. Company name, stage, industry, what you are building, and what you plan to run on AWS.
5. Add your Organization ID if you have one. This is the field that unlocks Portfolio-tier amounts. Ask your investor, accelerator or startup body for it directly — they will not always volunteer it.
6. Submit and wait. AWS states you will be notified of your application status within 7–10 business days.

Why applications get rejected

In practice, most failed applications fail for reasons that have nothing to do with the company's quality:

• A free email address. Gmail, Outlook or Yahoo on the application signals an unverifiable company.
• A website that does not resolve, or is a single "coming soon" page.
• Mismatched details — the company name on the application differs from the one on the site or the AWS account.
• Already claimed. If a co-founder already redeemed Activate credits for the same company, a second application for the same amount will be declined.
• Applying to the wrong tier. Requesting Portfolio credits without an Org ID is an automatic no.

After approval

Credits usually appear in the AWS Billing console within a few hours of being issued. Two things trip people up:

• Credits are redeemed with the root user, not an IAM user.
• They expire. Check the expiry date the day they land, not the month you need them. Our guide to checking your credit balance and expiry covers where to look.

Once they are live, the job becomes making them last. AWS credits burn fastest on idle resources nobody remembers creating — see how to stretch free cloud credits.