Please help me plan upgrade AWS

When you reach the AWS Free Tier usage limits or if your Free Tier period expires, the "Free Tier" indicator may disappear from services like EC2. This doesn't necessarily mean you've upgraded your account, but rather that you might have exceeded your Free Tier limits or eligibility for certain services.

It's important to understand that the AWS Free Tier has limitations and typically expires after 12 months from account activation. After this period, or if you exceed the Free Tier limits, you may incur charges for the resources you use.

If you're using a Free account plan, you receive $100 in sign-up credits and can explore AWS services without incurring charges for six months or until credits are fully used. Once expired, the account and resources are automatically closed, though content is retained for 90 days.

If you've accidentally upgraded to a Paid account plan, there isn't a direct way to revert back to the Free plan. The Paid plan gives you access to all AWS services with standard pay-as-you-go pricing for usage beyond Free Tier limits.

To manage your situation:

1. Check your billing dashboard to confirm your current plan status
2. Monitor your usage to ensure you stay within Free Tier limits if they're still available
3. Set up AWS Budgets or Free Tier usage alerts to notify you when approaching limits
4. Consider terminating resources you're not using to avoid unexpected charges

If you need further assistance with your specific account situation, contacting AWS Support would be the best option.
Sources
Choosing an AWS Free Tier plan - AWS Billing
Cancel plan but i can't | AWS re:Post
AWS EC2 Free Tier Usage Reached 100%, Unable to Connect to Instances - How to Manage the Situation | AWS re:Post

Situation Summary

You said:

You were checking your AWS credits and clicked something that said something was upgraded. No charges appeared, but when you tried creating an EC2 instance, the “Free Tier Eligible” label disappeared.

That typically means something changed in your account’s free tier eligibility or configuration.

Possible Causes

Here are the most common causes:

1. Account or Billing Plan Changes

• You switched from “Free Tier eligible” to “Consolidated billing” or “Organization member.”

  • Only the management (payer) account in an AWS Organization gets the free tier benefits.
  • If your account joined an Organization, you lose your individual free tier benefits.

• You upgraded the account to a professional or business support plan.

  • This doesn’t itself remove Free Tier, but the UI indicators sometimes disappear when billing settings are changed.

2. Service Region or Resource Type

• Free Tier is region-specific. For example, 750 hours of t2.micro or t3.micro usage are free per month, but only in eligible regions. If you tried creating in a region not covered by free tier (like ap-south-2 or new regions), it won’t show “Free Tier Eligible.”
• You selected a non-free-tier instance type. Only a few instance types qualify (e.g., t2.micro, t3.micro in certain regions). Selecting others like t3a.small or t4g.micro will not show the Free Tier badge.

3. Account Age

• The AWS Free Tier lasts for 12 months after the date your account was created. After that period, the Free Tier labels and usage tracking disappear.

4. Credit vs Free Tier Confusion

• AWS Credits (e.g., from education, Activate, or promotional) are separate from Free Tier. Accidentally applying or activating a different credit does not remove Free Tier, but it may make billing dashboards show “Credit balance” instead of “Free Tier usage,” giving the impression that Free Tier is gone.

5. IAM/User Interface Issues

• If you’re logged in as an IAM user instead of the root account, the “Free Tier eligible” label sometimes doesn’t display — the underlying eligibility still applies, though.
• The Billing console requires root user access; limited IAM users might see inconsistent billing or eligibility info.

What Information Would Help Diagnose Precisely

If you can provide or check the following, it’ll clarify exactly what happened:

1. Account Age

   • Go to Billing → Free Tier dashboard → check “Free Tier usage.”
   • Does it show “Your Free Tier has expired”?
   • Or does it still show active tracking?

2. Organization Membership

   • Go to AWS Organizations → Accounts
   • Is your account listed as part of an Organization? If yes, is it management or member account?

3. Region and Instance Type

   • What region and instance type were you trying to launch?

   • Free Tier eligible ones are typically:

     • t2.micro or t3.micro (depends on region and platform)
     • Amazon Linux or Ubuntu AMIs (not Marketplace AMIs)

4. Billing Dashboard Messages

   • Go to Billing → Credits → Details
   • Do you see a message saying “Free Tier benefits expired” or just “Credits applied”?

5. Email Notifications

   • Check AWS email inbox for messages like:

     • “Your AWS Free Tier period has ended”
     • “Your account is now part of an organization”
     • “Your support plan has been upgraded”

Troubleshooting Steps

Try these in sequence:

1. Verify Free Tier eligibility

   • Go to Free Tier usage dashboard
   • See whether it still shows free usage or says “Expired.”

2. Check account’s organization status

   • AWS Organizations Console
   • If you’re a member, leave the organization — only standalone or management accounts have individual Free Tier.

3. Test EC2 instance creation in an eligible region

   • Region: us-east-1 or ap-south-1
   • Instance type: t2.micro or t3.micro
   • AMI: “Amazon Linux 2023” or “Ubuntu Server 22.04 LTS” (not Marketplace images)

4. Switch to the root account in console

   • Log out and sign in using the email associated with AWS root account, not IAM.

5. Contact AWS Billing Support (Free for all account types)

   • Go to: https://support.aws.amazon.com/

   • Open a Billing → Free Tier eligibility case

   • Ask:

     “I accidentally clicked something while viewing my credits and now my EC2 Free Tier eligibility indicator has disappeared. Can you confirm if my account still qualifies for the 12-month free tier?”

If any part of this explanation was helpful in diagnosing the issue, feel free to let me know — happy to help further.