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AWS · 5:21 · Buyer-side briefing

AWS Retires Enterprise On Ramp: The Support Line Nobody Negotiated

On January 1, 2027 AWS retires Enterprise On Ramp, Business and Developer Support and upgrades On Ramp customers to Enterprise Support automatically. Why no action required means no negotiation, the gross versus net EDP base that swings the support line by twenty percent, and the sequence that turns an automatic upgrade into a negotiated one.

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Transcript

Full narration of the briefing. Click a section heading to jump the player to that moment.

No further action required 0:00

If you run AWS on Enterprise On Ramp, an email is coming, or it has already arrived. It says your support plan is being upgraded to Enterprise Support, and that no further action is required. Read that sentence the way we do: no action required means no negotiation happens. On January first, 2027, AWS retires Enterprise On Ramp, Business Support and Developer Support outside GovCloud, and moves everyone onto a ladder where every tier is a percentage of everything you spend.

I am Tom, Claire is with me, and this briefing is what changed, where the money sits, and how to turn an automatic upgrade into a negotiated one.

What AWS is doing 0:48

Here is the anatomy. Five paid tiers collapse into three. Developer and Business are discontinued and land on Business Support Plus, from nine percent of usage or twenty nine dollars a month per account. Enterprise On Ramp is discontinued, and its customers are upgraded to Enterprise Support automatically through 2026, at renewal or in batches, with one month of notice.

Enterprise Support keeps its bands, ten, seven, five and three percent, but its minimum drops from fifteen thousand dollars a month to five thousand. And a new tier, Unified Operations, sits above it from fifty thousand a month. The bands did not move. The floor under you did.

The tier down is gone 1:30

At list the math is flat to slightly favorable for most On Ramp customers, and that is exactly why it is dangerous, because it is not where the exposure is. For four years On Ramp gave organizations spending seven hundred thousand to three million dollars a year a credible alternative to Enterprise Support. Its existence was your leverage when the account team pushed Enterprise at an EDP renewal. From 2027 that internal alternative is gone.

Business Support Plus starts at nine percent, Enterprise at ten. Support now scales with every dollar of growth, every AI workload and every migration, automatically, with no purchase order and no decision.

Gross or net 2:19

Now the number most On Ramp customers have never discussed. Under an Enterprise Discount Program, Enterprise Support is mandatory, and the percentage is calculated either on gross usage before your discount or on net usage after it. If the agreement is silent, it is gross. At a twenty percent EDP discount that is a twenty percent swing on the entire support line, decided by one sentence.

On Ramp customers never had this conversation, because On Ramp was a flat ten percent. Move onto Enterprise Support without touching the agreement, and you pay the list percentage on the pre discount bill for the life of the commitment.

Where the money sits 2:59

Put it over an EDP term. Take an enterprise at one point two million dollars a month of usage with a twenty percent discount, upgraded in the third quarter without a conversation. Support at list bands on gross runs about two point seven million dollars over three years, rising with growth, with no tier down and no negotiation. Grow twenty five percent in year two with an AI program and the support line adds one hundred eight thousand a year with nobody's approval.

The same estate after a defended transition, a blended four percent on net usage, the minimum held, a cap tied to committed spend, comes to about one point four million. Same estate, half the bill.

The sequence 3:46

The response is a sequence. One, find the notice and route it to whoever owns the EDP; the upgrade email goes to the account contact, and the percentage lives in a contract that person has never read. Two, read the EDP for the support base: gross or net, whether Marketplace spend is in it, whether the support term ends with the commitment. Three, model the transition at list and at target on your real usage, with the growth plan added.

Four, ask for the percentage. Do not accept the bands. Propose a blended rate on net usage with a cap tied to committed spend. Enterprises above five million a year routinely land at five to seven percent.

AWS never offers it.

The move 4:30

Three more moves before you sign. Get the inclusions in writing: a designated TAM by name, response times, Security Incident Response and Countdown. The email describes them; the agreement should specify them. Reduce the base before the rate: every dollar moved onto Savings Plans or Reserved Instances is a dollar the support percentage never touches.

Price the alternatives before AWS removes them; partner led and third party support are now the only tier down. And if the account team positions Unified Operations for your AI program, price it as services, not as a support tier. The full research note is free to download under this video, at redresscompliance dot com slash newsletter slash september.

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