Can AWS Credits Pay for Your Heroku Migration? What Activate, MAP, and Partner Credits Actually Cover

AWS promotional credits can offset eligible AWS consumption during a Heroku migration, particularly the four-to-eight-week parallel-run period involving duplicate infrastructure, database replication, data transfer, and initial production usage, but they cannot pay Heroku invoices, third-party services, taxes, consulting, or engineering labor. Early-stage startups may qualify for AWS Activate credits through self-service applications or referrals from accredited providers, while larger, committed migrations may receive partner-led funding through AWS’s Migration Acceleration Program (MAP). The article emphasizes applying for credits and confirming expiration dates before provisioning infrastructure, retaining ownership of the AWS account so credits, Savings Plans, and negotiated discounts remain available, and avoiding vendors that resell cloud capacity under their own accounts. It identifies NAT Gateway charges, outbound data transfer, multi-AZ services, and prolonged parallel operation as common cost surprises, and recommends continuous database replication, gradual traffic shifting, a firm decommissioning deadline, and delaying long-term capacity commitments until post-migration workload patterns are known.

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