You Earned AWS Credits. Now What?
You earned the credits. Now let’s turn them into something you can actually build, share, and be proud of.
If you've been working your way through Student Rewards and earned your AWS credits, congratulations!
At 7 badges, you earn $10 in AWS credits. At 14 badges, you earn another $20. That gives you $30 that you can actually use to explore AWS and try building something of your own.
But once you earn them, you might have the same question we've heard from students before:
What do I actually do with these credits?
That's what I want to help with here.
You don't need to start with a huge project, and you definitely don't need to know every AWS service before you begin. You can use your credits to experiment, try something new, and build at your own pace.
First, How Do the Credits Actually Work?
The nice thing is that you don't have to decide upfront which AWS service you want to spend your credits on.
Once you redeem your promotional code, the credit is added to your AWS account and automatically applies toward eligible AWS charges.
So, if you want to try Amazon Polly today and experiment with AWS Lambda next week, you can.
How to Redeem Your Credits
Redeeming your credits is quick:
2. Select Redeem credit
3. Enter your promo code and the CAPTCHA security code
4. Select Redeem
And you’re all set!
Your credit balance should then appear on your Credits page.
One thing to know before you start: AWS asks you to have a credit card on file when activating your account and redeeming promotional credits.
If you’re creating a new AWS account, you may also be eligible for additional credits through the AWS Free Tier. New customers can start with $100 in AWS credits and earn up to another $100 by completing activities that help you explore different AWS services.
Free Plan: This is a good place to start if you just want to learn and experiment. You can explore AWS for up to six months without being charged, if you stay on the Free Plan. Your Free Tier credits are available during that six-month exploration period.
Paid Plan: This gives you access to the full range of AWS services and features if you’re ready to build production workloads. Charges can apply based on what you use.
What happens when my credits run out?
This depends on the AWS plan you’re using. If you’re on the Free Plan, you won’t be charged when your credits run out. If you’ve switched to the Paid Plan, standard charges can apply based on the services and resources you continue to use. That’s why it’s a good idea to check your credit balance and set up a budget alert as you build.
So, if you’re just getting started, take a look at the AWS Free Tier before you build. Between your Free Tier credits and the credits you’ve earned through Student Rewards, you may have more room to experiment than you realize.
Where Can You Use Your Credits
Short version: your credits can be used across many core AWS services, including compute, storage, databases, serverless, and generative AI. You do not have to choose one service when you redeem them. If the service is eligible, the credit applies automatically.
Here are a few examples of services your credits can cover:
Amazon S3, Amazon EC2, AWS Lambda, Amazon DynamoDB, Amazon Bedrock, Amazon Lightsail, Amazon Lex, Amazon Polly, Amazon Translate, Amazon Comprehend, and Amazon Transcribe.
There are also a few things your credits won't apply to:
AWS Marketplace purchases, AWS Training and Certification fees, Amazon Mechanical Turk, Route 53 domain registration, Reserved Instance upfront fees, AWS Professional Services, and Enterprise Support.
Every project below uses eligible services, so you can pick the one that sounds interesting and start there.
One more thing worth knowing: credits expire. Check the expiration date tied to your promotional credit, so you have time to put it to use.
So, What Can You Actually Build?
This is the fun part.
There isn't one project everyone should build. Think about what you're curious about or what would be useful to you and start there.
Here are a few ideas:
- Want something you can try in five minutes?
Paste in some text, choose a voice, and Polly turns it into speech.
You could turn a section of your study notes into audio, experiment with different voices, or just see how text-to-speech technology works behind the scenes.
It's simple, but that's kind of the point. Your first AWS project doesn't have to be complicated.
- Interested in languages?
You can enter text and translate it into another language directly in the console; no coding required.
Try translating something you wrote yourself and compare the results. If you're interested in building multilingual experiences someday, this is an easy way to start exploring how that technology works.
- Curious about AI and text?
Give it a paragraph, review, article, or even something you've written yourself, and see what it identifies: sentiment, key phrases, entities, and more.
This is one of those tools that's easier to understand once you actually play with it.
Try giving it two completely different pieces of text and see what changes.
- Want to build something interactive?
There's a starter template you can use to build a simple flower-ordering chatbot, and from there you can start making it your own.
Maybe turn it into an FAQ bot for your student organization, an event assistant, or something completely different.
You don't have to build the final version on day one. Start with the template, see how everything connects, and then experiment.
- Want to put something live on the internet?
In about 15 minutes, you can have a real WordPress site running on AWS.
Maybe it's a portfolio. Maybe it's a blog. Maybe it's just a test site you use to understand how hosting works.
The important part is that you're not only reading about cloud infrastructure. You're actually using it.
- Ready for something a little more technical?
Build a serverless API using AWS Lambda, Amazon API Gateway, and Amazon DynamoDB ( Create a CRUD HTTP API)
This one takes a little more time, but you'll get to see how different AWS services work together to create a real backend.
If you're interested in software development, cloud engineering, or just want to understand what's happening behind the apps you use every day, this is a great project to explore.
One thing to keep in mind: costs can vary depending on how much data your project uses and how many API requests it makes. For a small learning project, usage may be minimal, but it’s still a good idea to keep an eye on your usage as you build.
- Have an audio recording you want to turn into text?
Upload a short audio clip to Amazon S3 and use Transcribe to turn it into searchable text.
You could test it with part of a lecture, a short voice note, or your own recording.
Sometimes the easiest way to learn AWS is to start with something from your everyday life and ask, "Can I build something around this?"
And don’t just stop once it works. Take a screenshot, add it to your GitHub or portfolio if it makes sense, write about what you learned, or share it with the Builder Center community. Even a small project gives you something real to show and talk about.
A Quick Tip Before You Start Building
We know billing can feel a little intimidating when you're new to AWS, so best practice is to set up a budget alert early to avoid any surprises.
1. Open Billing and Cost Management → Budgets → Create budget
2. On the Choose budget type page, choose Use a template (simplified) and Monthly cost budget.
3. Give your budget a name and set an amount you’re comfortable monitoring.
4. Add your email for alerts
5. Select ‘Create budget’
Then you can focus on exploring while keeping an eye on your usage.
And here's a nice bonus: setting up a budget is also one of the onboarding activities that can earn eligible new AWS customers an additional $20 in AWS credits.
Not Sure Which Project to Pick?
Don't spend too much time trying to choose the "perfect" one.
Pick the project that makes you curious enough to open the console and try it.
If AWS is completely new to you, start with something simple like Polly or Translate. You'll get comfortable clicking around the console and seeing an AWS service do something.
If you've already played around with AWS, challenge yourself with Lex or the serverless API.
And if you start one project and realize you're more interested in something else? That's completely fine, too.
That's part of learning.
Make What You Have Go Further
Before you start using your credits, it’s worth checking what you may already be able to use for free. For example, AWS Lambda includes 1 million requests per month, and Amazon DynamoDB includes 25 GB of storage. For a small project, you may find that you barely touch your promotional credits first. That is completely fine. It means you still have them available when you are ready to try something bigger.
Your Student Rewards credits can also be stacked with eligible account sign-up credits. AWS applies credits based on expiration, using the balance that expires sooner first.
Another simple habit: when you finish testing something, clean up the resources you no longer need. If you launch a Lightsail instance, create a DynamoDB table, or spin up another resource just to experiment, take a minute to shut it down or remove it when you are done. It is also worth checking the console by region, so you know what is still running.
And remember that budget alert from earlier? Don’t forget to set it up! It is an easy way to stay aware of your usage while you focus on building.
If you want more guided practice, Builder Center has 330+ free workshops covering everything from cloud basics to full-stack builds. And if you have not reached 21 badges yet, keep going. That milestone unlocks a $100 Foundational Certification voucher for AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner or AWS Certified AI Practitioner.
One Last Thing
Your project doesn't have to be impressive to be worth building.
A five-minute experiment can teach you something. A small project can turn into a portfolio piece. And sometimes just getting comfortable enough to say, "I've actually used this before," makes the next project much easier.
So, if you've earned your credits, don't feel like you need to save them until you have the perfect project idea.
So pick something that sounds interesting, open the console, and give it a try.
And if you build something with your Student Rewards credits, share it with the community. I'd genuinely love to see what you create.
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