6 reasons why AWS is the top cloud choice for startups
At Vention, we love startups for their trailblazing ideas — and we’ve helped bring countless of them to life with robust cloud infrastructures and innovative solutions. Our team has helped companies like ClassPass and Thirty Madison transform from MVPs into unicorns, giving us firsthand insight into how the right platform can turn bold concepts into industry-changing success stories.
As an Advanced Tier Services Partner in the AWS network with 15 years of experience delivering AWS consulting and development projects, we know why AWS has become the go-to choice for many. And this isn’t a sales pitch — it’s a look at what makes AWS for startups a game-changer, backed by our real-world experience.
For tech startups, where data drives decisions and lightning-fast operations are essential, choosing the best-fit cloud platform is one of the earliest — and most critical — decisions they face.
That’s why over 280,000 startups globally — including 80 percent of unicorns and 96 percent of AI/ML unicorns — trust AWS to fuel their growth and success.
Here’s how AWS delivers:
You get the support you need to launch
AWS runs dedicated initiatives for startups, offering numerous opportunities for growth. You can apply for accelerators to get much-needed mentorship and technical assistance in software product development, along with solid AWS credits and cash grants. $225,000 sounds like no slight boost, right?
But that’s not all. You can promote your AWS-based startup on Showcase (a dedicated AWS webspace) and connect with the community and experts.
As a bonus, AWS also provides over 600+ free digital courses to help your development team build their AWS cloud skills at no additional cost.
"As an Advanced Tier partner, Vention is intimately familiar with all the funding mechanisms available to our startup customers. Early-stage startups can access capital to offset costs, making PoC funding more accessible.
For growing startups, Vention has access to more robust funding programs to unlock larger sums for more complicated projects, enabling these startups to innovate faster.
Vention’s ability to leverage these programs, in conjunction with its cloud capabilities and startup expertise, makes it an excellent partner for our startup customers."
You have endless room to innovate and experiment
The AWS product list includes over 200 services, many of which are tailored to the needs of specific industries and use cases. Instead of reinventing the wheel, you can leverage ready-made solutions, including computing, databases, analytics, networking, migration and modernization, developer and manager tools, web3, and security. This means you can channel your energy into building your app, not the infrastructure behind it.
Our lead DevOps engineer, Semyon Gordeev, highlights: “Even if your startup idea is revolutionary, AWS has all the cutting-edge cloud technologies to make it happen. The latest disruptor? Artificial intelligence. AWS already has a suite of AI services designed to help you execute complex innovations without missing a beat.”
You can unlock every level of cost-efficiency
Early-stage tech startups often face tight budgets, high operating costs, and the challenge of turning ideas into viable products. AWS addresses this with flexible, cost-effective options tailored to young companies.
Free tiers for experimentation: AWS’s free tier offering is perfect for handling this situation without costly experiments. With access to 100+ AWS cloud services and tools, you can test what works best through free trials, 12 months free, and always-free options.
For example, a prospective AWS cloud adopter can try EC2 to run a micro instance for a month to experiment with their own code. Tech companies building virtual agents or translation services have 12 months to experiment with Amazon Transcribe, Amazon Translate, and Amazon Rekognition to ensure that the tools provide the needed accuracy of automated spoken and written translations.
Pay-as-you-go pricing: Another major advantage is a pay-as-you-go model. AWS offers a flexible pricing structure where startups only pay for what they use — think of the hours your server runs or the amount of data stored. This is particularly attractive for SaaS startups with fluctuating demand.
Cost optimization tools: AWS offers cost optimization tools and programs to help startups save up to 40 percent of their AWS cloud costs. From pricing plans and discounts for upfront usage commitments to specialized tools like AWS CloudWatch, AWS Cost Explorer, and AWS Budgets, startups have everything they need to stay efficient.
Semyon explains: “AWS CloudWatch collects and tracks metrics, which help you measure your resources. It offers powerful customization as you can create tailored dashboards, track specific metrics, and set up automated scaling. And if something critical — like a server overload — occurs, CloudWatch will trigger a red flag.
Cost Explorer helps monitor spending trends, while Budgets lets you set cost caps and receive alerts when nearing them.”
You gain the flexibility to scale effortlessly
With AWS, SaaS startups can automatically scale resources up or down based on real-time traffic. This flexibility is a game-changer, especially when traffic can surge unexpectedly.
Why does it matter?
- You avoid overpaying for resources you don’t need (remember AWS’s pay-as-you-go pricing?).
- Your SaaS app stays lightning-fast no matter how much traffic comes your way, ensuring smooth performance and happy users.
Load balancing is another great way to handle increased or decreased workloads efficiently. The service spreads incoming traffic evenly and prevents any instance from overloading. This boosts reliability and performance and provides an extra layer of defense against DDoS attacks.
AWS also offers long-term scalability, giving startups leeway to adjust their cloud solution as their needs evolve.
Case in point: When we were working with a telehealth platform, Dialogue, they experienced a 5X surge in demand — and traffic — due to COVID-19. Our team was responsible for optimizing Dialogue’s AWS-based environment. As a result, query latency dropped from 60 seconds to under 30 milliseconds, enabling them to keep up with demand and maintain exceptional performance.
Your app keeps running thanks to rock-solid reliability
AWS is synonymous with uptime and dependability. With AWS cloud, your data infrastructure is secured by the world's largest redundancy system, at both regional and global levels. If one server goes down, another is already in place to prevent service interruptions and data loss.
AWS’s uptime varies by service:
- 99.9% uptime guarantee for services like CloudFront and 99.95% uptime for critical tools like EKS. That translates to minimal downtime: just 8.77 hours or 4.38 hours annually.
- Unmatched data durability: Amazon S3 offers a 99.999999999% SLA, so your data remains intact and secure under any circumstance.
One real-world success story is Curve, a UK-based platform consolidating credit cards within one app. They engaged Vention to enhance their speed and agility, with the ultimate goal of delivering a more meaningful customer experience. Using AWS, Vention enabled flexible deployments, cutting-edge performance, and scalable organization. Later, Curve raised £9.4M in a record-breaking Crowdcube campaign.
Your app and data security are world-class
AWS delivers enterprise-grade security at a fraction of the cost, sparing startups from hiring top-tier security experts or building controls from scratch. Instead, AWS provides a solid set of tools to keep your data and business secure.
AWS provides all possible ways to protect your data, from granular access control, identity management, and DDoS protection to special hardware like CloudHSM.
In terms of compliance, AWS also simplifies life for startups by giving them access to infrastructure that meets industry standards such as HIPAA, GDPR, and PCI DSS. What’s left for startups is configuring their services and applications in line with compliance requirements.
“At every startup stage, AWS brings its unique advantages.
No matter where your startup is on its journey, the AWS cloud platform offers the capabilities to drive your success and growth:
- Early-stage startups are focused on a fast launch and cost savings. AWS for startups allows building a cloud-native flexible architecture, making it easy to start with an MVP and scale as they grow. And the credits, free tier, and pay-as-you-go pricing? Absolute lifesavers.
- Growth-stage startups handling user growth will love the reliability and auto-scaling features, which ensure their infrastructures evolve seamlessly with user demand.
- Expansion-stage startups can leverage AWS’s global reach, deploying apps closer to users worldwide for stellar performance.”
Remember: AWS is not the only choice
While AWS is a major player in the cloud world, it’s not the only name in the game. Other market leaders like Microsoft and Google offer compelling alternatives. In Q2 2024, AWS held a 33 percent share, Microsoft — 20 percent, Google — 10 percent, and all other cloud infrastructure providers — the remaining 37 percent.
If you're all set for AWS, great! But if you’re still weighing your cloud platform options, exploring what Microsoft and Google offer could reveal a better fit for your unique needs.
If you’re feeling overwhelmed by the choice, our cloud consultants can help. They’ll assess your goals, current infrastructure, and plans to recommend the ideal solution. They can also design your solution’s architecture and guide you through migration or modernization strategies to set you up for success.
AWS for startups: Lift your ideas above the clouds
Whether you need help building scalable architectures, optimizing performance, or keeping costs in check, our AWS experts have you covered every step of the way.