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Compare sign-up options - Amazon Account Management
Services or capabilities described in Amazon Web Services documentation might vary by Region. To see the differences applicable to the China Regions, see Getting Started with Amazon Web Services in China (PDF).

Compare sign-up options

Warning

We're currently releasing our new experience to a limited number of customers. You might not be able to access this experience yet.

When you sign up for Amazon, you unlock the world's most comprehensive and broadly adopted cloud. We offer the greatest choice of innovative cloud and AI capabilities and expertise, on the most extensive global infrastructure, with industry-leading security, reliability, and performance.

There are two ways to sign up for Amazon. If you want complete control over account configuration and where your content is stored, or if you have regulated workloads such as HIPAA, FedRAMP, use Sign up for Amazon (advanced). If you are a new user and want to use a login you already own to sign in to Amazon and create an Amazon environment with preconfigured defaults in select Amazon Web Services Regions, use Sign up for Amazon (new).

Considerations for choosing how to sign up for Amazon

Consider the following before choosing your sign-up method. You can activate all Amazon features for your account if necessary.

  • If you have specific product requirements such as regulated workloads that include HIPAA or FedRAMP, do not use our new Amazon experience.

  • Your content will be stored in a designated Region which is selected based on your contact information.

  • The new Amazon experience makes it easier for you to start building without creating Amazon permissions. If you need fine-grained control over your users or role-based permissions, do not use Sign up for Amazon (new).

  • If you need account-specific payment configurations set up by Amazon, also known as net terms billing, do not use Sign up for Amazon (new).

  • If you need access to the full set of Amazon services, do not use Sign up for Amazon (new). For more information, see Supported Amazon Web Services services for Sign up for Amazon (new).

Compare features for sign-up options

The following table compares Amazon wide requirements that are either supported for Sign up for Amazon (new) or Sign up for Amazon (advanced). If a feature is not listed in this table or described in Compare access management, it is available. You can activate advanced features for your account if you need any of the unsupported features. For more information, see Activate advanced Amazon features.

Feature Sign up for Amazon (new) Sign up for Amazon (advanced)
Join Amazon Partner Network No Yes
Create a Professional Services contract No Yes
Enroll in an Enterprise Agreement with Amazon No Yes
Purchase an Amazon Skill Builder Team subscription No Yes
Work with an Amazon Training Partner No Yes
Earn extra credits from Amazon Activate No Yes
Use Amazon Marketplace No Yes
Designate your Amazon account as HIPAA or SEC compliant No Yes
Select a specific Amazon Web Services Region to create your Regional resources No. For more information, see Amazon Web Services Regions for your projects. Yes
Access an opt-in Region No Yes
IAM Access Analyzer No Yes
Sign-in access policies No Yes
Set up script to connect your local agent to your Amazon accounts Yes No
Create spend limits for your accounts Yes No
Savings plans No Yes
Automatic opt-in to Cost Optimization Hub Yes No
Automatic opt-in to Amazon Organizations Yes No
Automatic opt-in to IAM Identity Center Yes No
Automatically opt in to IAM role manager Yes No
Console account colors No Yes
Disable multi-session console support No Yes. If you sign in again using a Builder ID, multi-session support will be enabled automatically.

Compare access management

When you use our new Amazon experience, Amazon creates preconfigured defaults to help you get started building. Your Amazon resources are organized in projects. A project contains an Amazon Web Services account and settings for sharing with other collaborators. If you use the paid plan, your project can also have a set monthly pre-tax cost, called a spend limit. All of the projects you own make up your organization, which you control through your management account in Amazon Settings. This organization is the same as an Amazon Organization; however, Amazon manages aspects of this organization on your behalf.

Amazon manages the following elements of your Amazon Organization:

  • Organization management policies. When you use our new Amazon experience, Amazon manages the organization management policies including the resource control policies (RCPs) and the service control policies (SCPs). If you want to create your own, use Sign up for Amazon (advanced).

  • Human access roles. A human access role is any role that allows a human to have specific permissions. For example, a human access role could let the user tester have read only access to Amazon Bedrock. While you can create IAM roles and IAM users, we recommend only using them when necessary. Amazon manages all human access to your project. You can add and remove team members to your project. When you add a team member, they have access to all the resources in your project. For more information, see Invite team members to collaborate in Amazon Settings.

Every project has a managed security implementation that makes it easy to build with confidence. By default, any application or code in your project has access to all Amazon resources in that same project. You do not need to perform additional access configuration.

Amazon resources in different projects cannot access each other, unless you turn on cross-project access for certain resources. For instance, you can create a Lambda function in one project and then invoke it using an API in a different project. This is described as a cross-account integration. For more information, see Cross-account Lambda integrations. As long as both projects are owned by the same management account, this is supported.

By default, your project does not provide external access to any resources. You must configure Amazon resources to allow for public access. You can do the following:

  • Create a public S3 bucket to host a simple static website or files. For more information, see Getting started with Amazon S3.

  • Create an API Gateway API to act as the front door of your application. For more information, see Build an HTTP API.

  • Create an EC2 instance with a public IP address to allow for communication between your instances and the Internet. For more information, see Launch your first EC2 instance.

  • Create a CloudFront distribution to deliver your static and dynamic web content, such as .html, .css, .js, and image files, to your users. For more information, see Getting started with CloudFront.

  • Create a Lambda function URL to provide a simple, direct publicly accessible HTTP endpoint for a Lambda function. Make sure your Lambda function has the correct permissions. For more information, see Creating a function URL and Security and auth model for Lambda function URLs.

  • Use a combination of these or other Amazon mechanisms.

In addition, when you activate advanced features, you have access to even more mechanisms to provide external access to your resources.

Manage your Amazon Web Services accounts

You manage your Amazon Web Services accounts based on the type of Amazon you're using. The following table shows where to find the documentation for each management task.

Task Sign up for Amazon (new) Sign up for Amazon (advanced)
Sign up Sign up for Amazon (new) Sign up for Amazon (advanced)
Create an account Create a project in Amazon Settings Sign up for Amazon (advanced)
Close an account Close a project in Amazon Settings Close an Amazon Web Services account
Update your password Update your password in Amazon Settings Update root user password
Register MFA devices Manage multi-factor authentication (MFA) in Amazon Settings Step 3: (Recommended) Set up the Amazon MCP Server
Change your email Change your email address in Amazon Settings Update the Amazon Web Services email address
Change your name Manage your name or nickname in Amazon Settings Update your Amazon Web Services account name
Update contact information Edit your contact information in Amazon Settings Update the primary contact for your Amazon Web Services account
Update alternate contacts Not applicable Update the alternate contacts for your Amazon Web Services account
Manage billing Manage your payment method in Amazon Settings Update billing for your Amazon Web Services account
Manage tax information Manage tax registration in Amazon Settings Manage your payments
Enable or disable Amazon Web Services Regions Not applicable. You cannot modify your Amazon Web Services Region. Enable or disable Amazon Web Services Regions in your account
View account identifiers Not applicable View Amazon Web Services account identifiers
Create an account alias Not applicable Create an Amazon Web Services account alias
Upgrade your account Upgrade your account in Amazon Settings Free Tier plans
Create a spend limit Create a spend limit in Amazon Settings Not applicable
Update a spend limit Update a spend limit in Amazon Settings Not applicable
Remove a spend limit Remove a spend limit in Amazon Settings Not applicable
Invite team members Invite team members to collaborate in Amazon Settings IAM Identities
Switch between projects Switch between projects Multi-session support
Connect an AI coding tool Connect an AI coding tool Not applicable
Delete all sessions Delete all sessions in Amazon Settings Not applicable
Opt out of AI data use Opt out of use of your content for service improvement in Amazon Settings AI services opt-out policies
Request your data Request your Amazon Builder ID data Request your data
Add a recovery email Add a recovery email in Amazon Settings Not applicable
Delete your Amazon profile Close your account in Amazon Settings Close an Amazon Web Services account
Manage accounts in India Manage accounts in India in Amazon Settings Manage accounts in India
Create an administrator user Not applicable Sign up for Amazon (advanced)
Plan your account governance structure Not applicable Plan your Amazon Web Services account governance structure