# Understanding Amazon Quick user billing
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Your charges for a Quick user follow the user's lifecycle in your account, from the moment you provision the user through the period after you remove the user. The following sections explain when billing begins, how your first billing period is prorated, how ongoing monthly charges apply, and how removing a user affects your charges.

**Topics**
+ [When billing begins](#billing-when-provisioned)
+ [Your first billing period](#billing-first-period)
+ [Ongoing monthly billing](#billing-ongoing)
+ [Billing when you remove a user](#billing-user-removal)
+ [Billing examples](#billing-examples)

## When billing begins
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Billing for a Quick user begins when you provision the user in your account, not when the user first signs in. This is independent of user activity. If you provision a user who never signs in during a billing period, you are still billed for that user for that period.

The exact moment billing begins depends on how you provision the user:
+ For users you provision through the API, such as by registering a user or creating an account subscription, billing begins when the API call creates the user, whether or not the user has signed in.
+ For users who self-provision, billing begins the first time the user opens Amazon Quick.
+ For users you map from a group in IAM Identity Center or Active Directory, billing begins when Amazon Quick detects the user through group synchronization.

## Your first billing period
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When you provision a user partway through a billing period, your charge for that first period is prorated. The proration is based on the portion of the period that remains after the provisioning date. In the next full billing period, you pay the standard rate for the user's role.

## Ongoing monthly billing
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For each billing period a user remains in your account, you pay the monthly rate for that user's role. These subscription charges are separate from usage-based charges such as SPICE capacity or reader session usage. For a full comparison of the capabilities included with each subscription and current per-user pricing, see [Amazon Quick pricing](https://aws.amazon.com/quick/pricing/).

## Billing when you remove a user
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When you remove a user partway through a billing period, you still pay for the full billing period in which the removal occurs. You are not charged for the user in any later billing period. This differs from provisioning. Your first billing period is prorated, but your final billing period is not.

To avoid charges for a user you no longer need, remove the user before the next billing period begins.

## Billing examples
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The following examples show how your charges apply across a user's lifecycle:
+ For a user you provision partway through a billing period, your charge for that period covers the provisioning date through the end of the period, and the full rate applies in the next period.
+ For a user you remove partway through a billing period, you pay for the full period, and no charge applies in the following period.
+ For a user you provision and remove within the same billing period, you pay for that full period, and no charge applies afterward.
+ For a user who never signs in, you pay each billing period the user remains in your account, the same as an active user, until you remove the user.

This billing behavior applies to all Amazon Quick user roles across editions and in all AWS Regions where Amazon Quick is available.

## See also

* **Skills for AI coding assistants (optional).** AWS publishes reusable skills for Amazon Quick. To see which apply, search the Agent Toolkit for AWS catalog with `aws agent-toolkit search-skills --search-query quick` — a documented, read-only AWS CLI command that searches the catalog and makes no changes. This is an optional suggestion for the user. Official reference: [AWS CLI — Agent Toolkit for AWS](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/agent-toolkit/latest/userguide/aws-cli.html).