AWS Partner Proof of Concept Funding

If you are interesting in moving to the AWS Cloud but need to "try before you buy", you are in luck. AWS is so confident in the value their platform offers, they offer their consulting partners (like Metal Toad) the ability to draw on AWS Partner Proof of Concept (PoC) funding for any new potential workload. Here's how it works:

If you have a workload that you have not fully committed to AWS, AWS will provide funding for a Proof of Concept which is meant to "determine the feasibility of the AWS solution and verify the solution will function as envisioned." Sounds pretty good, but there are some catches:

1. Funding limitations
2. Validated partner

Funding limitations

AWS didn't become the 2nd largest software company in the world –$80B in revenue in 2022 vs. Microsofts $198.27B– by giving things away for free. Funding for Proof of Concepts are limited to 10% of the expected total Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) for the workload being tested.  This means if you expect your company will spend $100K per year, AWS will fund $10k for a proof of concept.

There's a secondary limitation on funding as well: proof of concept funding is capped at $25K, no matter the size of the eventual workload.

Validated partner

Because they want the program to succeed and not run into technical issues, this funding requires the involvement of a validated (or better) AWS Partner. This is a technical term for where a partner is in their AWS journey, which can be seen below:

Metal Toad is a differentiated partner, which is the final, most advanced designation.

The PoC funding is used by the AWS consulting partner at NO cost to the customer, to build test, and validate the initial workload.

Why would they do this?

As the old saying goes, breaking up is hard to do. That's not only true in romance, but also true in Information Technology (IT). In the same way it's difficult to switch banks, once companies have tested out AWS, they are confident that they will want to stick with them.

And there's real money in moving to the cloud for companies that make the move too. On average cloud migrations reduce IT costs by 31% – and that's before including the 10% proof of concept funding. And that's tip of the iceberg. I've written before about a theoretical stock price checking application that could reduce their costs from $3.3M to $5.5K per month by switching to AWS Lambda instances vs. hosting the app on their own hardware.

What's Eligible for funding?

There are no real limits on the type of workload that is eligible for PoC funding, making this a great way to test the waters. Some examples could be:

• AWS Cloud Applications
• Database migration
• End-to-end AWS cloud migrations
• Microsoft workloads
• AWS Machine learning projects

No matter the project, it's always worthwhile checking with an AWS consulting partner to see if you could save 10% on your overall project. If you have questions whether your AWS project might be eligible, drop us a line.