Summary of How Paid AMIs Work

You create an AMI as described elsewhere in this guide.

You register a product with Amazon DevPay. As part of this process, you provide a product description, product pricing, etc. This registration process creates a product code for the product and a URL where customers can sign up to use the product (called the purchase URL).

You use an Amazon EC2 command or API call to associate the product code with your AMI. This makes the AMI a paid AMI.

You use an Amazon EC2 command or API call to share the AMI with select customers or the public.

	Note
	Even if you share a paid AMI and it has a product code, no one can use the AMI until they sign up for it (see the following steps).

You advertise your paid AMI to customers and make the purchase URL available to them. Note that you can submit your paid AMI to be listed on the AWS Resource Center with other public AMIs at http://developer.amazonwebservices.com/connect/kbcategory.jspa?categoryID=116.

Customers who want to use your AMI discover your product through your advertisements or the AWS Resource Center, etc.

Customers then use the purchase URL you provide to sign up for and purchase your product. If they're not already signed up for Amazon EC2, they'll be prompted to sign up. They purchase your product with their Amazon.com accounts. They must have the credentials needed to launch Amazon EC2 instances. At this point, they have the AMI ID (from either step 5 or step 6 above).

Customers then launch an Amazon EC2 instance specifying the AMI ID. Because you associated the shared AMI with the product code, the customers are charged at the rate you set. For more information, see Paying for AMIs

	Note
	Detailed information about most of the following steps is provided in the Amazon DevPay Developer Guide.