AWS Support Plans Cheat Sheet

AWS currently offers four support tiers. Basic Support is included at no cost for every AWS account. The three paid tiers: Business Support+, Enterprise Support, and Unified Operations, are structured so that each higher tier includes all features of the one below it, plus additional capabilities. Customers should select based on workload criticality, desired response times, and the level of proactive engagement they require.

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

AWS Support Plans

1. Basic
2. Business Support+
3. Enterprise
4. Unified Operations

Basic Support

Basic Support is automatically included with every AWS account at no charge. It’s designed for customers who are getting started with AWS or running non-production workloads and who rely primarily on self-service resources.

The plan provides 24/7 access to customer service for account, billing, and service limit inquiries, along with the AWS documentation library, whitepapers, and the AWS re:Post community forum. AWS Trusted Advisor is included but limited to seven core checks covering S3 bucket permissions, security groups, IAM use, MFA on root account, EBS/RDS public snapshots, and service limits. Customers also get the AWS Health Dashboard for a personalized view of service health and resource impact alerts.

Note that Basic Support does not include access to technical support engineers for case-based assistance.

Key inclusions:

• 24/7 access to customer service for account and billing questions
• Documentation, technical whitepapers, and AWS re:Post community
• AWS Health Dashboard with account-specific health alerts
• Seven core AWS Trusted Advisor checks (security + service limits)
• Support for service limit increase requests
• No access to technical support cases or cloud engineers

Business Support+

Business Support+ is AWS’s entry-level paid tier and the minimum recommended plan for production workloads. It replaces the legacy Developer and Business Support plans, starting at $29/month per account (or a percentage of monthly AWS charges, whichever is greater).

The plan includes 24/7 AI-powered contextual assistance that provides environment-aware troubleshooting and best-practice guidance before escalating to a human engineer. When escalation is needed, customers get 24/7 access to Cloud Support Engineers via phone, web, chat, and email, with unlimited cases and unlimited IAM-authorized contacts.

Business Support+ unlocks the full suite of 500+ Trusted Advisor checks across cost optimization, performance, security, fault tolerance, and service limits (Trusted Advisor Priority requires Enterprise Support or above). Also included are the AWS Support App for Slack, the AWS Support API for automating case management workflows, and third-party software support for interoperability and configuration guidance on EC2 operating systems and common software stacks running on AWS.

Key inclusions:

• AI-powered contextual assistance, available 24/7
• 24/7 phone, web, chat, and email access to Cloud Support Engineers
• Unlimited support cases and unlimited authorized contacts (IAM-supported)
• Full set of 500+ AWS Trusted Advisor checks
• AWS Health API for programmatic health event access
• AWS Support API for case and Trusted Advisor automation
• AWS Support App for Slack integration
• Third-party software interoperability and configuration support
• Prioritized responses on AWS re:Post
• Contextual architectural guidance tied to your specific use cases

Response time SLAs:

• General guidance: < 24 hours
• System impaired: < 12 hours
• Production system impaired: < 4 hours
• Production system down: < 1 hour
• Business-critical system down: < 30 minutes

Enterprise Support

Enterprise Support replaces the former Enterprise On-Ramp and classic Enterprise plans, with a revised minimum of $5,000/month (down from $15,000). It’s designed for organizations running business-critical or regulated workloads that need a dedicated AWS expert and a proactive support relationship.

The defining feature is a designated Technical Account Manager (TAM), a single named contact who becomes deeply familiar with the customer’s environment, architecture, and business goals. The TAM proactively monitors the account, advocates with AWS service teams, and coordinates subject matter experts when complex issues arise.

AWS Security Incident Response is included at no additional cost, covering preparation, response coordination, and recovery for security events such as account compromises, data breaches, and ransomware. AWS Countdown is also included, providing TAM-led engagement to help plan and execute high-stakes events like product launches, peak traffic periods, and major migrations.

On the guidance side, Enterprise Support goes beyond Business Support+ with consultative architectural reviews, AWS Well-Architected Reviews, proactive security assessments, and strategic business reviews. A designated Senior Billing and Account Specialist provides white-glove billing analysis and optimization support.

Key inclusions (in addition to Business Support+):

• Designated Technical Account Manager (TAM)
• AWS Security Incident Response — included at no extra cost
• AWS Countdown event management for critical launches and migrations
• AWS Well-Architected Reviews
• Strategic business reviews with AWS experts
• Annual proactive security review
• Trusted Advisor Priority — enhanced, TAM-curated check recommendations
• Designated Senior Billing and Account Specialist (concierge billing)
• Consultative architectural reviews based on your applications

Response time SLAs (same general tiers as Business Support+ with one addition):

• General guidance: < 24 hours
• System impaired: < 12 hours
• Production system impaired: < 4 hours
• Production system down: < 1 hour
• Business-critical system down: < 15 minutes

Unified Operations

Unified Operations is AWS’s highest support tier at $50,000/month, built for mission-critical workloads needing a continuous operational partnership rather than just reactive support.

Beyond a designated TAM, customers get Domain Specialist Engineers (DSEs) for continuous service-specific recommendations and Incident Management Engineers (IMEs) for 24/7 proactive monitoring. IMEs target a 5-minute response for critical cases, the only sub-10-minute SLA across all plans.

AWS Countdown Premium is included, and personalized runbooks and Critical Workload Reviews are continuously maintained for enrolled workloads.

Key inclusions (in addition to Enterprise Support):

• Designated Domain Specialist Engineers (DSEs) for application-specific expertise
• Incident Management Engineers (IMEs) for 24/7 proactive workload monitoring
• AWS Incident Detection and Response — included at no extra cost
• AWS Countdown Premium — included (one recurring subscription)
• 5-minute critical response SLA via IMEs with Incident Detection & Response
• Continuous architectural reviews and service-specific resiliency recommendations
• Personalized runbooks and documented operational procedures
• Critical Workload Reviews on an ongoing basis
• Designated Senior Billing and Account Specialist with global coverage

Response time SLAs:

• General guidance: < 24 hours
• System impaired: < 12 hours
• Production system impaired: < 4 hours
• Production system down: < 1 hour
• Business/Mission-critical system down: < 5 minutes (via IME with IDR)

Comparison of AWS Support Plans

* Unified Operations <5 min response requires Incident Detection and Response onboarding.  |  Source: aws.amazon.com/premiumsupport/plans

AWS Technical Support Response Times 

The following table summarizes the human response time SLAs across all four current plans. Response times represent the initial human engagement target, not necessarily the time to full resolution. AWS will make every reasonable effort to respond within the timeframes listed.

* Unified Operations 5-minute response applies to cases raised via Incident Detection and Response with alarm-onboarded workloads.

Pricing Structure

All AWS Support plans are billed monthly with no long-term contracts required (except Unified Operations, which requires a 90-day minimum commitment). Pricing is calculated as the greater of either the flat monthly minimum or a percentage of your gross monthly AWS charges for the billing period. The percentage-based model ensures that support costs scale with usage, making the plans accessible at lower spend levels and capping the marginal cost at higher spend levels through a tiered rate structure.

Fees are calculated on gross AWS charges before any discounts, credits, or Reserved Instance savings are applied. However, certain service charges are excluded from the fee calculation, including: AWS Support itself, AWS Marketplace purchases (with the exception of Bedrock Marketplace), AWS Professional Services, AWS Training and Certifications, Amazon Mechanical Turk, FreeRTOS, AWS Managed Services, and VMware Cloud on AWS. Charges for prepaid Savings Plans, Reserved Instances, and Reserved Nodes are included in the calculation in the month of purchase (prorated over the term for existing reservations upon plan sign-up).

Additional Support Services (Add-Ons) 

In addition to the core features included with each support plan, AWS offers several specialized services that can be purchased as optional add-ons to enhance the support experience for specific use cases. These add-ons are available for qualifying plans only, and some are included at no additional cost with the Unified Operations plan.

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