By Werner Vogels, chief technology officer at Amazon Web Services

Amazon announced a new program that will make it free for tens of thousands of Alexa developers to build and host most Alexa skills using Amazon Web Services (AWS). Many Alexa skill developers currently take advantage of the AWS Free Tier, which offers one million AWS Lambda requests and up to 750 hours of Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) compute time per month at no charge. However, if developers exceed the AWS Free Tier limits, they may incur AWS usage fees each month.

Now, developers with a live Alexa skill can apply to receive a $100 AWS promotional credit and can earn an additional $100 per month in AWS promotional credits if they incur AWS usage charges for their skill – making it free for developers to build and host most Alexa skills. Our goal is to free up developers to create more robust and unique skills that can take advantage of AWS services. We can't wait to see what you create.

How It Works

If you have one or more live Alexa skills, you are eligible to receive a $100 AWS promotional credit to be used toward AWS fees incurred in connection with your skills. Additionally, if you continue to incur skill-related AWS charges that exceed the initial $100 promotional credit, you will also be eligible to receive monthly AWS promotional credits of $100. All you need to do is apply once. 

Build and Host Alexa Skills with AWS

With the new program, if you exceed the AWS Free Tier due to growth of your skill, or are looking to scale your skill using AWS services, you will be eligible to receive AWS promotional credits to be applied to AWS services such as Amazon EC2, Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3), Amazon DynamoDB, and Amazon CloudFront.

For example, you can use DynamoDB to create more engaging skills that have context and memory. In a game with memory, you could pause for a few hours and then keep going (like the Wayne Investigation, or Sub War). Or, to give your customers a more immersive experience, consider incorporating audio files via Amazon S3 to stream short audio bursts, games, podcasts, or news stories in your skill. Many of our most engaging skills, like Ambient Noise and RuneScape Quests – One Piercing Note, add audio sounds to soothe and voiceovers and sound effects to make the in-game experience more immersive.

Build a Skill Today - Special Offers

Our skill templates and step-by-step guides are a valuable way to quickly learn the end-to-end process for building and publishing an Alexa skill. You can get started quickly with the city guide template or fact skill template, or use the Alexa SDK for Node.js on GitHub to create a custom skill. Plus, if you publish a skill, you'll receive an Alexa dev t-shirt. Quantities are limited. See Terms and Conditions.