Amazon Makes It Free for Developers to Build, Host Alexa Skills Using AWS

Amazon this week announced a program that will make it free for Alexa developers to build and host most Alexa skills using Amazon Web Services.

Many Alexa skill developers take advantage of the AWS Free Tier, which offers one million AWS Lambda requests and up to 750 hours of Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud compute time per month at no charge—but if developers exceed the tier limits, they may incur usage charges.

Now developers with a published Alexa skill can apply to receive a $100 AWS promotional credit and can also receive an additional $100 per month in AWS promotional credits if they incur AWS usage charges for their skill.

“There is already a large community of incredibly engaged developers building skills for Alexa,” said Steve Rabuchin, Vice President, Amazon Alexa. “We’re excited to announce a new program that will free up developers to create more robust and unique skills that can take advantage of AWS services.”

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