AWS MAP Migration Credits Negotiation: How to Maximise Your Funding

What AWS MAP Is and Why It Matters

The AWS Migration Acceleration Program is a structured funding program that provides AWS service credits to enterprises migrating workloads to AWS, combined with partner funding and methodology support to reduce migration execution risk. MAP is designed to address the two most common objections to large-scale cloud migrations: the upfront cost of migration services, and the gap period during which an enterprise pays for both on-premises infrastructure and cloud consumption before decommissioning legacy systems.

In one engagement, a global manufacturing firm migrating 200 workloads to AWS was told by their SI that MAP credits of $1.2M were 'the maximum available'. Redress reviewed the MAP application and identified three additional eligible workload categories the SI had not included. Total MAP funding secured: $2.7M—more than double the original figure. The engagement fee was under 4% of the incremental credits.

MAP credits are applied quarterly against your AWS bill and reduce the effective cost of the AWS services consumed during migration. The credits are calculated based on the estimated post-migration annual spend — the workload spend you will generate on AWS once migration is complete — and are structured to cover a significant portion of migration-period costs rather than a flat dollar amount unrelated to workload scale.

For enterprises planning significant migrations — moving data centre workloads, decommissioning on-premises SAP, Oracle, or IBM environments, or consolidating from other cloud platforms — MAP credits can represent hundreds of thousands to several million dollars of migration cost offset. The program also brings access to AWS Partner Network migration specialists who share in the funding, creating a financial incentive for partners to complete migrations successfully.

MAP Program Structure: Three Phases

MAP is structured around three sequential phases, each with associated funding and deliverables. Understanding the phase structure is essential for negotiating the right level of support and credits at each stage.

Phase 1: Assess

The Assess phase involves a structured evaluation of your existing environment, application portfolio, and migration readiness. AWS and its partners use tooling such as Migration Evaluator (formerly TSO Logic) to model the cost and complexity of migrating each workload. The output is a migration business case that establishes the post-migration AWS spend projection — the number that drives your MAP credit calculation.

The Assess phase funding covers the cost of discovery tooling and initial migration planning services. Enterprises should push for a comprehensive Assess engagement that covers the full application estate, not a subset of workloads. The breadth of the Assess determines the quality of the MAP credit calculation in subsequent phases.

Phase 2: Mobilise

The Mobilise phase prepares the migration infrastructure: landing zone setup, security baseline, network architecture, operations tooling, and migration runbook development. AWS funds this phase through partner co-investment, with MAP credits covering AWS service consumption during the preparation period.

The Mobilise phase is where enterprises frequently underinvest, because it is not directly productive — no workloads move during this phase. However, organisations that compress or skip proper Mobilise execution consistently encounter higher per-workload migration costs and longer timelines in the migration phase itself.

Phase 3: Migrate and Modernise

The migration phase is where the bulk of MAP credits are applied. Credits are released quarterly based on migrated workload spend — AWS validates the workloads you have successfully migrated and applies the corresponding credit tranche to your bill. The quarterly cadence means you receive credit offset continuously throughout the migration, reducing the dual-running cost gap that delays many migration business cases from achieving payback.

The Modernise component recognises that enterprises rarely want to do a lift-and-shift to cloud — they want to take advantage of managed services, serverless architectures, and cloud-native capabilities. MAP credits now explicitly cover modernisation activities (moving to RDS from self-managed databases, adopting Lambda-based architectures, containerising legacy applications) in addition to pure infrastructure migration.

The 2024 MAP Changes: What They Mean for Enterprises

AWS made significant updates to the MAP program structure effective July 2024, with additional changes in August 2024 specifically for VMware migrations. Understanding these changes is critical for enterprises entering MAP discussions today.

Streamlined Funding and Approval

AWS simplified the MAP approval process in July 2024, reducing the number of required approval stages for partners and eliminating several documentation requirements that had slowed deal execution. Partners can now access MAP funding approval through AWS Partner Central with faster turnaround, which directly reduces the time from migration decision to credit availability.

Critically, AWS also scaled MAP funding to support migration partners on every engagement above $100,000 in projected annual AWS spend — removing a previous threshold that had excluded smaller workload migrations from partner co-funding. This means enterprises migrating individual workloads in the $100K to $500K annual spend range can now access structured MAP funding that was previously reserved for large-scale enterprise programmes.

Dedicated VMware Migration Track

Following Broadcom's acquisition of VMware and the subsequent forced transition of VMware customers from perpetual licences to subscription-only pricing — with support cost increases of three to five times prior levels — AWS introduced a dedicated VMware migration MAP track in August 2024. The VMware MAP track provides incremental funding for enterprises migrating VMware workloads specifically to AWS, recognising the urgency created by Broadcom's pricing changes.

Enterprises currently facing Broadcom's subscription renewal demands should evaluate this track explicitly. The VMware MAP track can materially reduce the net cost of a VMware-to-AWS migration, and the funding can be structured in parallel with AWS infrastructure credits from the standard MAP programme. Alternatives to continuing with Broadcom VMware subscriptions — including AWS VMware Cloud on AWS, Nutanix on AWS, and native AWS compute migration — all potentially qualify for MAP funding.

Strategic Partner Incentives (SPIs)

The 2024 MAP updates introduced Strategic Partner Incentives — incremental funding packages available for specific high-priority migration categories including Greenfield workloads (new-to-cloud deployments), VMware migrations, and large-scale modernisation programmes. SPIs are not automatically available — they require specific partner designation and AWS approval — but for enterprises working with a properly designated MAP partner, SPIs can add 15 to 30 percent more funding to a standard MAP engagement.

Partner Selection: The Leverage You Have

MAP credits flow through AWS Partner Network partners who hold active MAP designations. The partner you select directly affects the quality of the migration execution, the amount of partner co-funding available, and the speed at which MAP credits are processed and applied to your bill.

AWS MAP partners are tiered by their migration track record, their AWS competency certifications, and the volume of MAP credits they have processed in prior engagements. Tier 1 MAP partners — those with AWS Migration Competency and a strong MAP delivery history — have higher funding approval rates, access to SPI funding, and dedicated AWS MAP business development support. Choosing a less-experienced MAP partner to save on partner fees frequently results in lower total credit availability that exceeds the partner fee savings.

When evaluating MAP partners, ask specifically: What is their AWS MAP funding approval rate in the last 12 months? Have they completed migrations of similar workload type and scale? Do they hold the AWS Migration Competency designation? Can they provide references from MAP engagements of comparable scope? The answers to these questions are better predictors of your MAP outcome than the partner's advertised migration methodology.

Aligning MAP Credits With Your EDP Commitment

MAP credits interact directly with your EDP commitment in a way that creates planning opportunity. MAP credits reduce your effective AWS bill during the migration period. However, they do not count as spend toward your EDP committed floor — they are bill reductions, not spend additions.

This means that during an active MAP-funded migration, your actual net AWS cost may be significantly lower than your EDP commitment level, creating an apparent pacing gap that could trigger a shortfall. Enterprises that plan their EDP commitment level without accounting for MAP credit impact routinely find themselves paying EDP shortfall charges at year-end while simultaneously receiving MAP credits — a double payment that negates the MAP programme benefit.

The correct approach is to negotiate your EDP commitment timeline and level alongside MAP discussions — ideally before signing either. An EDP commitment structured to begin after the primary MAP credit period ends avoids the pacing conflict. Alternatively, for organisations that want an EDP in place immediately for discount purposes, negotiate the EDP committed floor at a level that reflects post-MAP net spend rather than gross spend, and model the quarterly MAP credit application rate into your pacing forecast.

Data Egress and Migration Cost Modelling

Any MAP negotiation should include explicit modelling of data egress costs during migration. Moving large volumes of data into AWS is typically free (data transfer in is zero-cost). Moving data out of a source environment — whether on-premises or another cloud provider — involves egress charges at the source, not at AWS. But during the cutover and test phases of migration, you will likely transfer data both directions as you validate workloads in AWS before decommissioning source systems.

Data egress is the most common source of unexpected migration costs that MAP credits do not cover. AWS egress charges begin at $0.09 per GB for the first 10 TB and reduce at volume tiers — but for multi-terabyte database migrations, the bidirectional data transfer costs during migration testing can accumulate into five-figure sums that were not included in the migration business case. Model these costs explicitly and, where significant, negotiate a dedicated egress credit as part of your MAP package.

Negotiating the MAP Credit Amount

The MAP credit amount is not fixed — it is negotiated based on the scale of the migration, the post-migration annual AWS spend, and the strategic value AWS places on winning your workloads. Three factors strengthen your negotiating position for higher MAP credits:

• Scale of committed migration : Larger migrations receive proportionally higher credits. Present a migration scope that covers your full workload portfolio, not just the initial tranche. AWS credits the programme based on the projected total annual AWS spend post-migration, so a larger declared scope produces a higher credit calculation.
• Competitive alternatives : A credible alternative cloud migration (Azure, Google Cloud) creates urgency for AWS to maximise MAP funding to win the workload commitment. Even partial workload migration to a competitor reduces AWS's MAP credit investment rationale.
• Timeline alignment with AWS fiscal periods : Like EDP negotiations, MAP commitments finalised near AWS quarter-end (January, April, July, October) tend to receive better-than-standard credit packages as AWS account teams work to close migration commitments against their quarter targets.