Creating an AWS Account

1Key Concepts Before You Start

Before diving into the signup process, it's worth understanding how AWS works and what you'll need.

Concept	What it means for you
Free Tier	AWS offers a generous free tier for the first 12 months on new accounts. We'll host your website within these free limits, so under normal conditions you shouldn't pay anything to host a basic static site.
Pay-as-you-go	AWS charges based on the resources you consume. If your site suddenly goes massively popular overnight and exceeds the free-tier limits, AWS starts charging a few cents per gigabyte of data transferred.
Card Requirement	To create the account, AWS requires a credit or debit card. This is an industry standard to verify your identity and prevent fake-account creation, and to have a billing method on file in case you exceed the free tier.

2Initial Signup

Let's start by creating your login credentials for the root user account.

1. Go to the official AWS page: aws.amazon.com.
2. Click the orange button that says "Create an AWS Account" in the top-right corner.
3. Email address: Enter an email address you have access to.
4. AWS account name: Enter a name for your account. This is just for your own internal reference (e.g. "MyWebsite"). You can change it later.
5. Click Verify email address.
6. AWS will send a numeric code to your email. Copy it and paste it into the screen to confirm you own the email.
7. Password: Create a strong, secure password. This account (known as the Root User) has full control over all resources and billing, so store it somewhere safe.

3Contact and Billing Information

Now AWS needs to know who you are and how to handle any future charges.

1. Contact information: Select the account type.
   • Choose "Business" if you're creating this for work or a company.
   • Choose "Personal" if it's for your own projects. There's no difference in features or pricing between the two.
2. Fill out the rest of the form with your full name, phone number, country, and a real physical address. Check the box to accept the terms and conditions, and continue.
3. Billing information: Enter your credit or debit card details. As mentioned above, this is required to verify your identity and to have a backup method in case you exceed the free-tier limits.
4. Enter the billing address associated with that card.

4Identity Verification

AWS runs one last step to confirm you're a real person and not an automated bot trying to mass-create accounts.

1. You'll be asked to provide a valid phone number.
2. Select how you'd prefer to receive the verification code: by text message (SMS) or an automated voice call.
3. Enter your number (make sure you select the correct country code) and solve the security code (captcha) shown on screen.
4. Click "Send SMS" or "Call me now."
5. Once you receive the 4-digit numeric code on your phone, enter it on the AWS screen and click continue.

5Choosing a Support Plan (Critical Step!)

This is the final step, and it's where you need to be careful not to accidentally sign up for a paid monthly service.

AWS offers different tiers of technical support. For our purposes, and for anyone just getting started or hosting simple projects, the free plan is more than enough.

1. You'll see a screen comparing three support plans: "Basic Support," "Developer Support," and "Business Support."
2. Critical step: Make sure you select "Basic Support - Free."
3. The Developer plan (from $29/month) and Business plan (from $100/month) offer priority technical help from AWS engineers, but you don't need them to follow this course's tutorials.
4. Click the orange "Complete Sign Up" button.

And that's it! You'll see a welcome screen congratulating you on creating your AWS account. Full account activation can sometimes take a couple of minutes, or in rare cases a few hours, while AWS processes your information.

Now you can click "Go to the AWS Management Console" and sign in with the email and password you created in Step 2.

Verification

Related Resources

• AWS Free Tier — Details on what AWS's free tier includes.