The Well-Architected discount programme is not widely known among AWS customers. The details circulate in partner materials but rarely reach end clients directly. What follows is based on how we’ve seen the programme work from the partner side - submitting applications and managing the approval process with AWS.
How the Well-Architected discount works
AWS runs the Well-Architected Partner Programme, through which authorised partners (like Devopsity) conduct architecture reviews. Results are recorded in the official AWS Well-Architected Tool.
After the review and remediation planning, the partner prepares a discount application. The process:
- Partner conducts the review - assesses the AWS environment against selected pillars (anywhere from 1-2 to the full set of 6, optionally with deep-dives into specific areas)
- Risk identification - high (HRI), medium (MRI), and low (LRI) risk items are documented in the WA Tool
- Remediation plan - the partner prepares a plan with estimated cost impact (what new resources will be created, what will be modified)
- Submission to AWS - the partner raises a remediation opportunity with the AWS Account Manager, including cost projections
- Account Manager approval - the AM evaluates the application in context of account history, current spend, and projected growth. Approval is not guaranteed, but in practice it is standard
- Remediation and activation - once changes are implemented and risks are closed in the WA Tool, the discount applies to new resources created through remediation
An important distinction: the discount applies to new resources created as a result of remediation, not a blanket reduction on your existing bill. If the review identifies that a database needs Multi-AZ, the discount covers the new Multi-AZ RDS configuration. If remediation requires VPC Endpoints to replace NAT Gateway traffic, the new VPC Endpoints qualify.
Who qualifies
There is no minimum spend threshold. Companies with a $500/month bill qualify alongside those spending hundreds of thousands. The only hard requirement: the review must be conducted by an authorised partner in the AWS Well-Architected Partner Programme. Running through the WA Tool questionnaire internally does not create a basis for the discount application.
Discount approval sits with the AWS Account Manager. Factors that increase the likelihood of approval:
- Planned increase in AWS spend (e.g. through migration)
- Comprehensive remediation covering risks across pillars
- History of regular reviews (quarterly or bi-annual)
- Connection to other AWS programmes (MAP, PoC)
Devopsity has been in the programme since 2024. We register every review in the official WA Tool and manage the full discount application process.
Realistic savings by company size
Startup / small SaaS ($1,000-3,000/month)
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Monthly AWS bill | $2,000 |
| New resources qualifying after remediation | ~30% of bill ($600) |
| 10% discount on new resources | $60/month |
| Savings from remediation itself (rightsizing, idle resources) | $300-500/month |
| Combined saving (remediation + discount) | $360-560/month |
| Review cost (one-off) | EUR 1,500 - 2,000 / £1,300 - 1,700 |
| Break-even (review cost) | approx. 8-12 months |
At this scale, typical remediations include rightsizing instances, shutting down idle environments, moving to Graviton processors, and implementing Savings Plans. The 10% discount is an additional benefit on top of the architectural savings.
Mid-market ($5,000-20,000/month)
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Monthly AWS bill | $10,000 |
| New resources qualifying after remediation | ~35% of bill ($3,500) |
| 10% discount on new resources | $350/month |
| Savings from remediation itself | $1,500-3,000/month |
| Combined saving (remediation + discount) | $1,850-3,350/month |
| Review cost (one-off) | EUR 2,000 - 4,000 / £1,700 - 3,400 |
| Break-even (review cost) | approx. 3-5 months |
At this level, reviews typically identify oversized EC2/RDS instances, missing reservations, unused EBS volumes, traffic routing through NAT Gateway instead of VPC Endpoints, and missing S3 lifecycle policies. Combined reduction (remediation + discount) lands between 20-35%. Financial services teams in Leeds and Edinburgh running regulated workloads on eu-west-2 see similar patterns, with the added benefit that remediation work directly supports compliance evidence for FCA and ISO 27001 audits.
Enterprise and migration projects ($50,000+/month)
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Monthly AWS bill | $80,000 |
| New resources qualifying after remediation | ~40% of bill ($32,000) |
| 10% discount on new resources | $3,200/month |
| Savings from remediation itself | $10,000-20,000/month |
| Combined saving (remediation + discount) | $13,200-23,200/month |
| Review + remediation cost | EUR 4,000 + EUR 15,000-40,000 / £3,400 + £12,800-34,000 |
| Break-even (total) | approx. 3-6 months |
At enterprise scale, remediation covers architectural changes that generate lasting cost reductions: Graviton migration (20% cheaper for equivalent compute), VPC Endpoints eliminating NAT Gateway costs, consolidated Savings Plans across accounts, and storage tiering that compounds over time.
Maximising discount coverage through migrations and modernisations
Migration and comprehensive modernisation projects generate the widest discount coverage. The logic: the more new resources created through remediation, the broader the base for the 10% discount.
When migrating from on-premise to AWS, or modernising from EC2 to containers (ECS/EKS), practically all new infrastructure qualifies as a remediation outcome. The discount can cover not 30-40%, but 70-80% of the new AWS bill.
The Well-Architected discount programme can also be combined with other AWS funding - subject to Account Manager agreement:
- AWS MAP (Migration Acceleration Program) - covers 70-80% of partner engagement costs for migration projects
- AWS PoC (Proof of Concept) - funds the prototyping and architecture validation phase
- AWS IW (Innovation Workload) - credits for startups on new workloads
A scenario: a company migrates 15 applications from on-premise to AWS. The partner runs a Well-Architected Review before migration, designs the target architecture to best practices, delivers the migration with MAP funding, and applies for the 10% discount on the new infrastructure. Combined: 70-80% of migration costs covered by MAP + 10% off the ongoing AWS bill + 20-35% savings from architecture optimisation.
Detail on MAP funding is in our AWS migration cost calculator.
Review scope - you don’t need all 6 pillars
The Well-Architected Framework has 6 pillars (Security, Reliability, Performance Efficiency, Cost Optimisation, Operational Excellence, Sustainability), but a review doesn’t require covering all of them. You can select 1, 2, or 4 pillars depending on what matters for your environment right now.
Typical scoping:
| Scenario | Pillars | Optional deep-dive | Review cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Post-migration validation | Security + Cost Optimisation | AWS bill analysis | EUR 1,500 - 2,000 / £1,300 - 1,700 |
| Compliance audit preparation | Security + Reliability + Operations | Security posture review | EUR 2,000 - 2,800 / £1,700 - 2,400 |
| Cost optimisation focus | Cost Optimisation + Performance | Full FinOps analysis | EUR 2,000 - 2,800 / £1,700 - 2,400 |
| Full review with deep-dives | All 6 pillars | 1-2 deep-dives included | EUR 2,800 - 4,000 / £2,400 - 3,400 |
Pillars don’t prescribe depth - the partner decides whether to stay at the level of standard WA Tool questions or go deeper into a specific area. A security deep-dive means reviewing IAM configuration, encryption settings, and Security Group rules at the individual resource level. A cost deep-dive means mapping spend to business applications and identifying architectural inefficiencies.
The full review process and deep-dive options are described in our guide to Well-Architected Reviews.
Step-by-step process
Phase 1: Review (1-2 weeks)
We run a structured review of your AWS environment against the selected Well-Architected pillars using the official AWS WA Tool. The focus is on items that have real business impact - not an academic checklist exercise.
Output: a prioritised list of risks - high (HRI), medium (MRI), and low (LRI). Each risk has a business impact assessment, effort estimate, and recommended remediation path.
Phase 2: Discount application (1-3 weeks)
Based on the review results, we prepare a remediation plan with estimated cost impact - what new resources will be created, what will be modified, and the projected change in monthly spend. We submit the remediation opportunity to the AWS Account Manager and manage the approval process.
Phase 3: Remediation (2-8 weeks)
We address priority risks across all severity levels (HRI, MRI, LRI). Typical remediations:
- Security: root MFA, KMS key rotation, EBS/S3/RDS encryption, Security Group tightening
- Reliability: Multi-AZ for production databases, automated backups, recovery testing
- Cost: instance rightsizing, Savings Plans, idle resource removal, VPC Endpoints replacing NAT Gateway
- Performance: Graviton migration, Auto Scaling configuration, cache tuning
- Operations: centralised monitoring (CloudWatch/Datadog), runbooks, deployment automation
Every remediation is defined as Infrastructure as Code (Terraform) and deployed through CI/CD. Step-by-step fixes for the 10 most common risks are in our HRI remediation runbook.
Phase 4: Verification and activation (1-2 weeks)
After remediation, we close resolved risks in the AWS WA Tool, create a milestone documenting the improved state, and finalise the discount activation with the Account Manager.
What the discount does not cover
The discount applies to new resources created through remediation. It does not cover:
- Resources that existed before the review and were not modified
- AWS Marketplace purchases (e.g. Datadog via Marketplace)
- Data transfer costs (egress, cross-AZ)
- Resources without a documented link to remediated risks
This is why documenting the link between risks and resources matters. We register every remediation against a specific risk in the WA Tool, which maximises the scope of qualifying resources and simplifies Account Manager approval.
Comparison with other AWS savings programmes
| Programme | Saving | What it covers | Requires commitment |
|---|---|---|---|
| Well-Architected 10% | Up to 10% | New resources from remediation | No (review + AM approval) |
| Savings Plans | 30-40% | Compute (EC2, Fargate, Lambda) | Yes (1 or 3 years) |
| Reserved Instances | 30-60% | Specific instances | Yes (1 or 3 years) |
| Spot Instances | 60-90% | Interruptible instances | No (but interruption risk) |
The Well-Architected discount requires no time commitment. No annual contract, no lock-in risk. It is a one-off review whose output - once approved - generates a discount on new resources.
The programmes stack. A Savings Plan on compute plus a Well-Architected discount on remediation resources - both apply independently.
For a detailed comparison of Savings Plans and Reserved Instances, see our Savings Plans guide.
Why this programme is little-known
Three reasons from our experience:
AWS does not actively promote it. The details are available in partner materials but rarely surface to end clients. Your Account Manager will discuss it if you ask - they are less likely to bring it up unprompted.
Companies run the review themselves. An internal team fills in the WA Tool questionnaire, but without an authorised partner there is no basis for a discount application. This is the single most common misunderstanding about the programme.
A previous partner did not follow through. The partner ran the review but never submitted the application to the Account Manager, or failed to document the link between risks and resources. We have taken over clients after such reviews and completed the documentation to a state where the application could be submitted.
How to start
The shortest path:
- Free call (30 minutes) - we map your environment and estimate which risks are likely to surface
- Review (1-2 weeks) - structured WAFR with a prioritised report and remediation plan
- Discount application - we prepare the documentation and manage the approval process with AWS
- Remediation (2-8 weeks) - we implement fixes for priority risks
- Discount active - up to 10% on new resources resulting from remediation
We also offer a free 30-minute health check - a structured conversation where we identify 2-3 top risks in your AWS environment without needing access.
Want to check if you qualify for the discount?
Book a free 30-minute call. We'll assess your environment and give you a realistic view of potential savings.
![AWS Migration Cost Calculator: Real Numbers by Company Size [2026]](/img/blog/post/2026-08-25/360x220.webp)
