Free calculator
Credits hide your real bill. Enter your balance, the months until expiry, your usage before credits, and your growth. See which comes first, the end of the balance or the end of the term, and what the first full bill looks like. Everything computes in your browser.
Find your credit cliff
Enter your real numbers. Everything below computes in your browser. Nothing you type here is sent anywhere.
The credit amount left on your account today
Use the earliest expiry date on your credits
The gross monthly charge, before any credit is applied
How fast usage grows from one month to the next
The link carries your numbers.
Estimate only. It uses your entered numbers and a steady monthly growth rate. It cannot see a step change, such as a new commitment or a launch. Some charges are not eligible for credits and are paid in cash. Enter usage before credits, and leave out charges that credits do not cover.
A startup on AWS Activate, Google Cloud, Azure, or an AI API credit program often sees a net bill near $0. Budgets and dashboards that read the net number stay quiet. Meanwhile, usage keeps growing.
When the credits end or expire, the full bill arrives in one month. This page calls that the credit cliff. The bill did not jump. The credit that covered it went away.
The AWS Promotional Credit Terms list exclusions. Credits do not apply to AWS Marketplace, some AWS Support, or Route 53 domain registration. They also do not cover "any upfront fee for any Services such as Savings Plans and Reserved Instances".
The same terms say credits are "valid for a limited time only". Read the terms that came with your own credits. Your program can differ.
So the calculator is an estimate. If part of your bill is not eligible, you pay for it in cash from the first day. It is not in the usage number you enter here.
AWS Cost Explorer and AWS Budgets both have a Charge type filter. "Credit" is one value of that filter. Exclude it, and the report shows the usage before credits.
Use that gross number as the input for this calculator. Then set a budget alert on the same gross number. The alert fires when real usage grows, even while credits cover the bill.
Use the calculator to find your cliff month. Then work through this list before the credits end.
Month 1 is next month. It runs at your current usage. Each later month grows by your growth rate, compounded. The running total is compared with your credit balance.
The run-out month is the first month where the running total reaches the balance. If that month is on or before the expiry month, the credits run out first. If not, the credits expire with money left, and the unused balance is shown.
The first full bill is the usage in the first month with no credit at all. It is the month after the run-out month, or the month after expiry, whichever comes first. The run-out month itself is only partly covered, so the calculator does not count it as a full bill.
The search stops after 120 months. If your balance lasts longer than that, the calculator says it never runs out.
Once you know the cliff month, put a number on the budget that should never be crossed. The forecast calculator projects growth, and cost alerts tell you when daily spend jumps.
Every AWS credit fact on this page comes from the primary AWS documents below. Checked as of 2026-09-30.
FAQ
The credit cliff is the month when promotional credits end or expire and the full bill arrives at once. The usage behind the bill was there all along. The credits hid it.
No. The AWS Promotional Credit Terms exclude AWS Marketplace, some AWS Support, and Route 53 domain registration. They also exclude "any upfront fee for any Services such as Savings Plans and Reserved Instances". Check the terms that came with your own credits.
Use the Charge type filter in AWS Cost Explorer or AWS Budgets. "Credit" is one value. Exclude it to see gross usage.
Enter your balance, the months until expiry, your usage before credits, and your growth. The calculator shows the run-out month, says which event comes first, and shows any unused balance at expiry.
Google Cloud, Azure, Anthropic, and OpenAI are examples of providers that may offer credits. Terms differ by program and by contract. Read your own terms. This page only cites AWS terms.
CostMon tracks your daily spend and alerts you on a jump. It does not promise to show the usage behind a credit. Use the Charge type filter in AWS to see gross usage, and use the result here to plan the cliff month.
A monthly invoice tells you what already happened. CostMon builds a daily baseline, so a spike stands out while you can still act on it.