AWS Support Plans and Resources Overview

AWS offers a range of support plans designed to help customers succeed with the cloud by providing the right mix of tools, technical expertise, and guidance.

These plans cater to various needs—from basic account assistance for new users to comprehensive, 24/7 enterprise-grade support for mission-critical workloads.

Understanding AWS Support Plans enables organizations to choose appropriate support levels that align with their operational requirements, budget, and business goals.

Introduction to AWS Support Plans

AWS provides five main support plans: Basic, Developer, Business, Enterprise On-Ramp, and Enterprise. Each plan offers a distinct set of features, response times, and access to AWS experts.

1. Basic Support: Automatically available to all AWS customers at no additional cost. It includes access to the account and billing support, AWS documentation, whitepapers, and support forums. Basic Support also offers service health dashboards and service quota increase requests. However, technical support cases beyond billing incur charges.

2. Developer Support: Designed for users experimenting or testing on AWS. Priced with a monthly fee starting at $29, it offers everything in Basic plus email support during business hours, best practice guidance, client-side diagnostic tools, and unlimited support cases by authorized users.

3. Business Support: Recommended for production workloads. It includes 24/7 phone, email, and chat support; full access to AWS Trusted Advisor checks; support for third-party software on AWS; access to the AWS Support API; and unlimited support cases with prioritized response times.

4. Enterprise On-Ramp: A transitional plan for customers preparing for Enterprise-level support, offering many Business Support features with additional architecture guidance and limited access to AWS Technical Account Managers (TAMs).

5. Enterprise Support: The most comprehensive plan, starting at $15,000 per month. It offers all Business features plus a designated TAM as a primary contact, proactive architectural guidance, operational reviews, concierge support, infrastructure event management, and onboarding assistance. This plan is for mission-critical, complex, large-scale AWS environments.

Additional Support Resources

Below are essential services designed to detect potential problems early and recommend effective solutions.

1. AWS Trusted Advisor: A service available with Business and Enterprise plans that inspects AWS environments to recommend cost savings, security improvements, fault tolerance, and performance enhancements.

2. AWS Personal Health Dashboard: Provides a personalized view of AWS service health affecting your resources with proactive notifications.

3. Support Automation Workflows: Enables automated case creation and interaction with AWS Support through APIs for Business and Enterprise customers.

Choosing the Right Plan

Selection depends on workload criticality, technical sophistication, compliance requirements, and budget.

Startups and developers may find the Developer plan sufficient; production environments usually require Business plan features; and mission-critical enterprise applications benefit from Enterprise-level support and dedicated TAM engagement.