CLF-C02
Deep Dive
AWS offers five support plans with different levels of access, SLAs, and costs. The CLF-C02 frequently tests which plan includes a dedicated TAM, which ones have full Trusted Advisor, and the response times.
Contents
Announced change: AWS retires the Developer, Business, and Enterprise On-Ramp plans on January 1, 2027. Developer and Business are replaced by Business Support+ (from $29/month), and Enterprise On-Ramp customers move to Enterprise Support, whose minimum dropped from $15,000 to $5,000/month. There is also a new Unified Operations plan. The CLF-C02 exam may still ask about the plans in the table.
Basic
Free (included with every account)Support access
Documentation and public forums only
Trusted Advisor
7 basic checks (security + service limits)
TAM
Not included
Response SLA
No SLA
When to choose this plan
Personal accounts, development, learning. No production environments.
Developer
From $29/month or 3% of monthly AWS spend (whichever is greater)Support access
Email to AWS Support during business hours (one contact)
Trusted Advisor
7 basic checks (same as Basic)
TAM
Not included
Response SLA
System impaired: <24h. System affected: <12h
When to choose this plan
Projects in development, test environments, exploring AWS. A single technical team.
Business
From $100/month or 10%/7%/5%/3% by spend tierSupport access
Phone, chat, email 24/7. Unlimited contacts.
Trusted Advisor
All checks, full access (5 categories)
TAM
Not included
Response SLA
Production system impaired: <4h. Production system down: <1h
When to choose this plan
Production workloads on AWS. Businesses that depend on AWS for revenue.
Enterprise On-Ramp
From $5,500/month or 10%/7%/5%/3% by spend tierSupport access
Phone, chat, email 24/7. Unlimited contacts.
Trusted Advisor
All checks, full access
TAM
Pool of TAMs (not an individual dedicated one)
Response SLA
Business-critical production down: <30 minutes
When to choose this plan
Companies with multiple critical workloads that need proactive guidance from AWS.
Enterprise
From $5,000/month (formerly $15,000) or per spend agreementSupport access
Phone, chat, email 24/7. Unlimited contacts.
Trusted Advisor
All checks, full access
TAM
DEDICATED TAM (one person assigned to your account)
Response SLA
Business-critical production down: <15 minutes
When to choose this plan
Large enterprises with critical dependence on AWS. Need strategic guidance and dedicated proactive support.
Compare AWS's 4 support plans and pick the right one for a production workload.
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Full Trusted Advisor access requires Business Support or higher
| Check category | Basic / Developer | Business / Enterprise |
|---|---|---|
| Security (basic) | ✅ Included (6 checks) | ✅ All security checks |
| Service Limits | ✅ Included (1 basic check) | ✅ All limit checks |
| Cost Optimization | ❌ Not available | ✅ Full (underutilized instances, unused RIs, unattached EBS) |
| Performance | ❌ Not available | ✅ Full (CloudFront, overloaded instances) |
| Fault Tolerance | ❌ Not available | ✅ Full (Multi-AZ, backups, ELB) |
| API access | ❌ No Trusted Advisor API access | ✅ AWS Support API for automation |
Golden rule for the exam
Full Trusted Advisor (all categories) = Business Support or higher. Basic and Developer only get access to a handful of security and service-limit checks (about 7 checks).
Review Trusted Advisor's 5 categories and apply a cost optimization recommendation.
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Status of AWS services and events affecting your account
AWS Health Dashboard — Service health (formerly Service Health Dashboard)
Shows the current status and history of every AWS service across all regions. Public information, no authentication required.
URL: status.aws.amazon.com
AWS Health Dashboard — Your account health (formerly Personal Health Dashboard)
Provides personalized alerts and guidance about AWS events that may SPECIFICALLY affect your resources. Requires authentication in the AWS console.
A digital catalog with thousands of third-party software solutions
AWS Marketplace is a curated digital catalog with thousands of third-party software solutions that can run on AWS. Licenses are paid directly through your AWS bill.
Licensing models
Product types
For the exam
AWS Marketplace makes it easy to find, try, and buy third-party software to deploy on AWS. Billing is consolidated into your AWS invoice. It's not for software developed by AWS itself.
The AWS Partner Network (APN) is AWS's partner program for companies that build solutions and services on top of AWS. Partners fall into two main categories:
Technology Partners
Companies that build software, hardware, or services solutions that integrate with or run on AWS.
Consulting Partners
Consulting firms, systems integrators, agencies, and MSPs that help customers design, migrate, and manage workloads on AWS.
AWS re:Post
The AWS community forum (community.aws). Replaces AWS Forums. Collaborative Q&A where experts and AWS staff answer technical questions.
repost.aws
AWS Knowledge Center
Articles answering the most frequently asked support questions. Curated by the AWS Support team. Step-by-step solutions for common problems.
aws.amazon.com/premiumsupport/knowledge-center
AWS Prescriptive Guidance
Step-by-step guides, patterns, and strategies curated by AWS for implementing specific solutions on AWS. More prescriptive than general documentation.
aws.amazon.com/prescriptive-guidance
AWS Health Dashboard
Current status of all AWS services across all regions (Service health view). Also: the Your account health view (formerly Personal Health Dashboard) with alerts specific to YOUR account's resources.
health.aws.amazon.com
AWS Professional Services
An internal team of AWS experts that works directly with customers on cloud transformation projects. Available mainly to Enterprise customers.
AWS Solutions Architects
Free technical experts for AWS customers (especially Enterprise Support). Help design architectures, review costs, and optimize AWS usage.
AWS Marketplace — pricing models
Additional learning resources
AWS Health API
Programmatic access to AWS Health events (Your account health view, formerly Personal Health Dashboard). Lets you automate responses to health events: get notified in Slack when a service affects your resources, or trigger automated remediation.
AWS Trust and Safety
For reporting abusive use of AWS resources by others (spam, DDoS attacks originating from AWS resources, phishing).
abuse@amazonaws.com
For reporting abuse originating FROM AWS
AWS Service Quotas
Every AWS service has default limits (e.g. max 20 EC2 instances in a region). Service Quotas lets you view all limits and request increases.
"A student learning AWS, personal account, no production workloads"
Free, included with every AWS account. Sufficient for learning and experimenting.
"A startup with a web app in development, no production traffic yet"
Access to technical support via email to resolve questions during development. Minimal cost.
"A company with a revenue-generating production application. Downtime directly impacts sales."
1-hour SLA for a production system that's down. Full Trusted Advisor. 24/7 phone support. Best cost-to-benefit ratio for production.
"A large company with multiple critical workloads on AWS, needs proactive guidance but not a dedicated TAM."
Access to a pool of TAMs, 30-minute SLA for critical issues, Well-Architected reviews. Strategic guidance without the full Enterprise cost.
"A large enterprise with critical dependence on AWS, needs a single expert point of contact, proactive access, and top-tier strategic support."
A DEDICATED TAM assigned to your account. 15-minute SLA for critical issues. Infrastructure Event Management included. The highest support tier available.
AWS Cloud Quest: Recertify Cloud Practitioner is an official game-based alternative for renewing the CLF-C02 certification without retaking the traditional exam. It's a recertification option officially recognized by AWS.
Available on AWS Skill Builder. Completing it renews your Cloud Practitioner certification for the corresponding period.
What is AWS Cloud Quest?
A cloud-based role-playing game where you complete hands-on missions in a simulated AWS environment. You learn by building real solutions within the game.
CLF-C02 renewal options
Traditional exam
Retake the CLF-C02 exam again within the validity period (3 years).
Cloud Quest: Recertify
Complete the Cloud Quest path on AWS Skill Builder — a gamified alternative with no formal exam.
Higher-level certification
Earning a higher-level certification (e.g. SAA-C03) automatically renews the lower-level ones.
For the CLF-C02 exam
AWS Cloud Quest: Recertify Cloud Practitioner reflects that AWS offers multiple renewal paths, including hands-on gamified options as an alternative to the traditional written exam.
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Test what you just learned
A company wants to run an e-commerce application in production that processes payments 24/7. They need 24-hour phone support access, a 1-hour response SLA for production systems that go down, and full access to all AWS Trusted Advisor checks. Which support plan should they choose?
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