How to choose an AWS consulting partner in India

The short answer

Look for three things in an AWS consulting partner in India: a tier and competencies you can confirm on AWS’s own Partner Solutions Finder, named engineers with AWS certifications who will actually work on your account, and a clear written price for both their work and your AWS usage. The tier and competencies tell you what AWS has checked. The conversation before you sign tells you whether the partner fits your business.

There are many AWS consulting companies in India, and most describe themselves in the same words. The checks below let you compare them on facts rather than adjectives.

AWS partner tiers explained

Consulting and services firms join the AWS Partner Network (APN) on the Services Path. Joining the APN costs nothing; to be listed as a services partner, a firm has to reach at least the Select tier. These are AWS’s minimums for each tier:

From AWS’s Partner Services Tiers page, checked on 29 October 2026. AWS reviews these requirements from time to time.

What the numbers mean for you. “Launched opportunities” are customer projects the partner has registered with AWS that have gone live, so a higher tier means more projects AWS has seen. The certification counts show how many people hold AWS exams, not who will work on your account. An AWS Advanced Tier partner has met the middle set of minimums, and Advanced is also the level at which AWS opens its Competency, Well-Architected and other specialisation programmes to services partners.

A higher tier is not automatically a better fit. A large Premier partner may suit an enterprise programme; a smaller Advanced partner may give a growing business more senior attention. Use the tier as a floor, then look at specialisations and references.

What competencies prove

AWS Specializations are separate from tiers. They validate expertise in a particular area. The main types are:

• AWS Competencies, for industries and use cases. To earn one, a partner passes AWS’s technical assessment, which includes reviews of several customer success examples in that area, against a published validation checklist.
• AWS Managed Service Provider (MSP), for partners that run AWS environments end to end.
• Service Delivery and Service Ready designations. AWS says these will be retired on 1 June 2027 and is no longer taking new applications.

Three competencies you are likely to come across:

• Small and Medium Business (SMB): AWS carries out technical validation of the partner’s SMB solutions and practices, including their architecture and SMB customer case studies. It covers areas such as migration and modernisation, security, data storage, disaster recovery and AI/ML.
• Migration and Modernization: validates work across discovery and planning, business cases, application and data mobility, and monitoring, checked against AWS’s own standards, with proven customer success.
• Generative AI: AWS now shows Generative AI as a category of its AWS AI Competency, for partners whose solutions use foundation models. On the Services Path it requires the Advanced tier.

Ask which competency matches your project. A migration partner with an SMB Competency has had real customer work of that kind reviewed by AWS; a partner with no competency in your area may still be good, but you will need to check their references more carefully.

How to check any partner yourself

AWS lists its partners on the AWS Partner Solutions Finder. Services partners need to be at Select tier or above to have a visible listing. A listing shows:

• the partner’s tier;
• its AWS Competencies and other specialisations;
• its AWS Certifications;
• its office locations;
• its customer references and case studies.

Search for the partner by name and check that what they tell you matches the listing: the same tier, the same competencies, offices where they say they are. Then open the customer references and look for work similar to yours. If a claim on a partner’s website isn’t on AWS’s listing, ask why. Our own listing is here.

AWS funding a partner can apply for

A partner can help you apply for several AWS programmes. In every case AWS decides: funding depends on AWS approval and on your eligibility, and no partner can promise an amount in advance.

• Migration funding. The AWS Migration Acceleration Program (MAP) helps offset the initial cost of moving to AWS. MAP credits are tied to a migration plan and, under AWS’s terms, are paid to your accounts within 30 days after the end of each quarter, based on a spend calculation. See MAP, Azure migration funding and RaMP.
• AWS Activate for startups. Up to US$5,000 in credits for self-funded startups, which apply directly, and up to US$200,000 for pre-Series B startups with an Org ID from an Activate Provider such as an accelerator or investor. See AWS Activate credits for Indian startups.
• Proof-of-concept funding. AWS’s partner funding page says funds are available to help partners explore proofs of concept for partner-led opportunities, so a partner can ask AWS to support a pilot before you commit.

Be wary of any partner who guarantees credits or quotes a funding figure before AWS has reviewed your case.

Billing: through a partner or direct

Under AWS’s Solution Provider Program, partners resell AWS and manage billing for their customers. Paying in rupees on a GST invoice lets a GST-registered business claim input tax credit, subject to the GST rules. For a wider comparison across Microsoft 365, Google Workspace and Zoho too, see buying direct or through a partner.

Questions to ask before you sign

1. Which tier and competencies do you hold, and can we see them on AWS Partner Solutions Finder?
2. Who exactly will work on our account, and which AWS certifications do they hold?
3. Can you share customer references for work like ours, with the customers’ permission?
4. How is your fee charged, and how will our AWS usage be billed? Can we see both in writing?
5. Whose name are the AWS accounts in, and who holds the root access? (It should be you.)
6. If we stop working together, how do we take everything over?
7. Which funding programmes do you think we qualify for, and what is the plan if AWS says no?
8. What response times are written into the contract?

Warning signs

• Unclear pricing: a fee you can’t work out in advance, or AWS usage bundled into a single number with no breakdown.
• No named engineers: a sales team you meet, and an unnamed delivery team you don’t.
• Claims you can’t verify: a tier, competency or programme that isn’t on AWS’s own listing.
• Guaranteed credits: funding promised before AWS has looked at your case.
• Accounts in the partner’s name, or a request for root passwords by email.

Where DevOps TechLab fits

DevOps TechLab is an AWS Advanced Tier Services Partner, with the SMB and Generative AI Software Competencies. Our story starts in 2017, and you can check our tier and competencies on AWS Partner Solutions Finder before you talk to us.

We move workloads to AWS, run them, and keep the bill in check. AWS usage through us is billed in rupees on a GST invoice at or below list price, and when something needs AWS, we raise the support case and follow it up.

• Our AWS partner page: services, funding and how billing works.
• AWS for small and medium businesses: our SMB practice and case studies.
• AWS managed services: running your AWS environment after go-live.
• Cloud migration: moving servers, apps and databases in planned waves.

Write to sales@devopstechlab.com with what you run today, and we will reply with a written plan and a price.