AWS Support Plans Cheat Sheet

With hundreds of services and features, AWS provides a combination of various tools, technologies, programs and human resources to proactively help their customers. AWS offers various support plans that customers can choose from based on their needs.

5 AWS Support Plans

1. Basic
2. Developer
3. Business
4. Enterprise On-Ramp
5. Enterprise

Plan Descriptions

Basic

The Basic Support plan is already available to all AWS customers by default and is free of charge. It also offers support for account and billing questions including requests for service limit increases. This AWS Support type includes the following:

• Customer Service & Communities – You have 24×7 access to customer service, AWS documentation, whitepapers, and AWS re:Post.
• AWS Trusted Advisor – This provides guidance on how to properly provision your AWS resources based on the best practices to further increase performance and improve the overall security of your cloud architecture. You are only provided access to the 7 core Trusted Advisor checks.
• AWS Personal Health Dashboard – This is a personalized view of the health status of each AWS service that you currently have. It also provides an alert when your resources are impacted by an AWS-initiated activity.

A Technical Account Manager (TAM) is a technical point of contact who provides advocacy and guidance to assist you in planning and building solutions in AWS using industry best practices. This person proactively coordinates and liaises your concerns with subject matter experts and product teams to ensure that your AWS environment operates optimally. 

Take note that a designated TAM is only available if you opt for the AWS Enterprise Support plan. The Enterprise On-Ramp plan provides access to a pool of TAMs.

Comparison of AWS Support Plans

Customers with an Enterprise support plan are eligible for additional services that are not available in the Developer or Business plans. Aside from having a designated Technical Account Manager, you will also have the following benefits if you opt for Enterprise-level support in AWS: 

• AWS Countdown
• Architecture Support
• White-glove case routing
• Management business reviews
• Concierge Support Team (for billing and account assistance)

AWS Technical Support Response Times 

You can also choose a type of AWS Support Plan based on your production workload.

• If you are only experimenting, testing, or doing a Proof of Concept (POC) in AWS, it is recommended that you choose the Developer plan.
• If you have production workloads running in AWS, it is suitable to opt for the Business plan.
• If you have production and/or business-critical workloads, the Enterprise On-Ramp plan is a good fit. 
• Lastly, if you have mission-critical workloads, it is advisable to opt for an Enterprise plan, as it offers the most efficient response times to support your systems.

With its Enhanced Technical Support, the Enterprise Support plan provides you with 24×7 access to the AWS Cloud Support Engineers via phone, chat, and email. You can also have an unlimited number of contacts that can open an unlimited amount of cases. AWS also provides you with a response time of less than 15 minutes in the event that your business-critical systems go down. 

Additional Support Services (Add-Ons) 

These are specialized services that can be added to certain support plans for an additional fee to enhance your support experience.

• AWS Incident Detection and Response:
  • An add-on for Business, Enterprise On-Ramp, and Enterprise plans.
  • Provides 24/7 proactive engagement, 5-minute response times, and incident management for your most critical workloads.

• AWS re:Post Private:
  • An add-on for Enterprise On-Ramp and Enterprise plans.
  • Creates a private, secure, organization-specific version of AWS re:Post for your internal teams to build a knowledge community.

References:

https://aws.amazon.com/premiumsupport/plans

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/awssupport/latest/user/aws-support-plans.html

https://aws.amazon.com/premiumsupport/pricing