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Paid AMIs
Topics
Amazon EC2 integrates with Amazon DevPay, enabling developers to charge other Amazon EC2 users for the use of their AMIs or to provide support for instances. For more information about Amazon DevPay, see the Amazon DevPay Developer Guide. For more information about charging for the use of your AMIs, or providing support, see Creating Paid AMIs.
This section describes how to discover paid AMIs, launch paid AMIs, and launch instances with a support product code. Paid AMIs are AMIs you can purchase from other developers.
Find Paid AMIs
There are several ways you can find AMIs that are available for you to purchase. You can look for information about them on the Amazon EC2 resource center and forums. Alternatively, a developer might give you information about a paid AMI directly.
You can tell if an AMI is a paid AMI by describing the image using the console, the command line tools, or the API. If the AMI is a paid AMI, it has a product code; otherwise, it does not.
Note
You must sign up for a paid AMI before you can launch it. If you find a paid AMI that you are interested in, go to the Amazon EC2 resource center and forums, which might have more information about the paid AMI and where you can sign up to use it.
AWS Management Console
To find a paid AMI
Open the Amazon EC2 console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.
In the navigation pane, click AMIs.
The console displays your AMIs.
To display the paid AMIs, select Marketplace Images from the middle Filter drop-down list.
Command Line Tools
To check whether an AMI is a paid AMI
Use the ec2-describe-images command as follows.
PROMPT>ec2-describe-images<ami_id>The
<ami_id>is the ID of the AMI.The command returns numerous fields that describe the AMI. If the output for the AMI contains a product code, the AMI is a paid AMI.
This example shows ec2-describe-images output for a paid AMI. The product code is ACD42B6F.
PROMPT>ec2-describe-images ami-a5bf59ccIMAGE ami-a5bf59cc cloudmin-2.6-paid/image.manifest.xml 541491349868 available public ACD42B6F i386 machine instance-store
Purchase a Paid AMI
You must sign up for (purchase) the paid AMI before you can launch it.
Typically a seller of a paid AMI presents you with information about the AMI, its price, and a link where you can buy it. When you click the link, you're first asked to log in with an Amazon.com login, and then you are taken to a page where you see the price for the paid AMI and can confirm that you want to purchase the AMI.
Important
You don't get the discount from Amazon EC2 Reserved Instances with paid AMIs. That is, if you purchase Reserved Instances, you don't get the lower price associated with them when you launch a paid AMI. You always pay the price that the seller of the paid AMI specified. For more information, see Reserved Instances.
Launch Paid AMIs
After you purchase a paid AMI, you can launch instances of it. Launching a paid AMI is the same as launching any other AMI. No additional parameters are required. For more information, see Launching EC2 Instances.
The instance is charged according to the rates set by the owner of the AMI (which is more than the base Amazon EC2 rate).
Note
The owner of a paid AMI can confirm if a particular instance was launched using their paid AMI.
Using Paid Support
The paid AMI feature also enables developers to offer support for software (or derived AMIs). Developers can create support products that you can sign up to use. With this model, the developer provides you with a product. During sign-up for the product, the developer gives you a product code for that product, which you must then associate with your own AMI. This enables the developer to confirm that your instance is eligible for support. It also ensures that when you run instances of the product, you are charged according to the developer's terms for the product.
Important
After you set the product code attribute, it cannot be changed or removed.
To associate a product code with your AMI, use the ec2-modify-image-attribute command:
PROMPT>ec2-modify-image-attribute<ami_id>--product-code<product_code>
The <ami_id> is the AMI ID and
<product_code> is the product code.
The following command associates the ami-2bb65342 AMI with the 774F4FF8 product code.
PROMPT>ec2-modify-image-attribute ami-2bb65342 --product-code 774F4FF8productCodes ami-2bb65342 productCode 774F4FF8
Important
If you've purchased Amazon EC2 Reserved Instances, you can't use them with supported AMIs. That is, if you associate a product code with one of your AMIs, you don't get the lower price associated with your Reserved Instances when you launch that AMI. You always pay the price that the seller of the support product specified. For more information, see Reserved Instances.
Bills for Paid and Supported AMIs
At the end of each month, you receive an email with the amount your credit card has been charged for using the paid or supported AMIs during the month. This bill is separate from your regular Amazon EC2 bill.
At any time, you can view the usage information for your paid and supported AMIs; for more information, go to http://www.amazon.com/dp-applications.
