What you get
- 24x7 monitoring
- Incident response
- Patching
- Backups
- Security
- Monthly cost reports
- A named engineer who knows your environment
Your AWS environment, run around the clock.
We run your AWS environment around the clock, so your team can run the business. From $750 a month, based on your AWS spend. You keep your AWS account and pay AWS directly; we bill only for managing it.
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Who it's for
Built for teams without a cloud engineer on staff.
Small and mid-sized businesses on AWS, anywhere in the US or internationally, without a cloud engineer on staff.
Not included
- Application code fixes
- Office IT such as laptops, Microsoft 365, and printers
How it works
Assess, onboard, operate, optimize.
We assess and onboard your environment once, then operate and optimize it every month for the life of your contract.
Assess
1–2 weeks. Discovery call, Well-Architected scan, your tier and a fixed quote.
Onboard
2–4 weeks. Cross-account access, a standard baseline, monitoring and backups.
Operate
Every day. Monitor and respond, patch and back up, handle change requests.
Optimize
Monthly and quarterly. Cost report, rightsizing, and security review. Findings become change requests.
If you leave, we hand over the runbooks and remove our access.
Responsibilities
Who does what.
We run the infrastructure; you own your data, your application, and your decisions. AWS remains responsible for its own hardware and services.
| Area | Fastwater does | You do |
|---|---|---|
| Monitoring and incidents | Watches alerts 24x7, restores service, escalates to AWS, writes an incident report | Name an on-call contact; fix app code |
| Patching | Patches servers monthly; critical security fixes within 72 hours | Approve maintenance windows |
| Backups | Runs backups and tests a restore every quarter | Tell us your backup and retention policies on data |
| Security | Keeps GuardDuty, Security Hub and MFA on; fixes infrastructure findings | Fix app findings; report concerns |
| Access | Least-privilege roles; quarterly access review | Tell us when staff join or leave |
| Cost | Monthly cost report and savings recommendations | Approve any spend commitments |
| Changes | Makes requested changes through tickets, with a rollback plan | Request and approve changes |
| Compliance (HIPAA, PCI) | Configures controls and keeps evidence | Own compliance; sign your BAA with AWS |
| Documentation | Keeps runbooks and diagrams current; hands over everything if you leave | — |
How the relationship works
Your account stays yours.
Billing
You pay AWS as you do today. We invoice our fee monthly, calculated from your AWS bill, which we read through a billing-only role.
Access
We work through one revocable cross-account role per account, with MFA and session logging. You keep root access at all times.
AWS Support
You keep your own AWS Support plan so we can open AWS cases for you. We recommend Business Support+ on production accounts.1
Tools
AWS-native first: CloudWatch, Systems Manager, AWS Backup, GuardDuty, and Security Hub, with a ticket portal you can see.
1 AWS Business Support+ is billed by AWS, not Fastwater: 9% of the first $10K of monthly spend, $29 minimum per account (AWS pricing, November 2026).
Pricing
One monthly fee, based on your AWS spend.
Your fee starts at $750 and adds a smaller percentage as your AWS spend grows. Each tier picks up where the one below ends, so there's never a price jump when you move up.
AWS spend up to $2,500 a month
$750 per month, flat
- 2 hrs change work a month
- Business-hours response
- Monthly report
- Onboarding $2,000
AWS spend $2,500–$10,000 a month
$750 + 20% of spend over $2,500
- 4 hrs change work a month
- Sev 1 response 24x7
- Quarterly review
- Onboarding $4,000
AWS spend $10,000–$50,000 a month
$2,250 + 12% of spend over $10,000
- 8 hrs change work a month
- Sev 1–2 response 24x7
- Monthly ops call
- Onboarding $8,500
AWS spend over $50,000 a month
$7,050 + 7% of spend over $50,000
- 16 hrs change work a month
- Fastest 24x7 response
- Quarterly executive review
- Onboarding quoted
One-time onboarding is half price for environments Fastwater built. Bluewater onboarding is quoted.
What it costs at your spend.
| Monthly AWS spend | Tier | Monthly fee | Share of AWS bill |
|---|---|---|---|
| $2,000 | Shoreline | $750 | 37.5% |
| $5,000 | Tidewater | $1,250 | 25.0% |
| $15,000 | Deepwater | $2,850 | 19.0% |
| $40,000 | Deepwater | $5,850 | 14.6% |
| $100,000 | Bluewater | $10,550 | 10.6% |
Service levels
Response times by tier.
| Severity | Example | Shoreline | Tidewater | Deepwater | Bluewater |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sev 1 | Site or app down | 1 business hour | 30 min, 24x7 | 15 min, 24x7 | 15 min, 24x7 |
| Sev 2 | Slow or partly broken | 4 business hours | 2 business hours | 1 hour, 24x7 | 30 min, 24x7 |
| Sev 3 | Minor or non-prod issue | Next business day | 4 business hours | 4 business hours | 2 business hours |
| Sev 4 | Question or request | 2 business days | Next business day | Next business day | Next business day |
Every tier gets 24x7 automated monitoring; higher tiers get faster human response. Business hours are 8 am–6 pm, Monday to Friday, in your time zone.
Times are for an engineer to acknowledge and start work. A missed Sev 1 or Sev 2 response earns a 5% credit on that month's fee, up to 25%.
Add-ons and terms
Add what you need. Know what you signed.
Extra change work
$195 per hour, or $175 per hour in 10-hour blocks.
24x7 Sev 1 response for Shoreline
+$300 per month.
HIPAA or PCI compliance pack
+$350 per month.
Term and billing
12-month term, invoiced monthly in advance. 60 days' notice to cancel after the first year.
How spend is measured
Your AWS bill before credits, excluding tax and Marketplace, averaged over three months and re-checked each quarter.
Let's look at your environment.
Start with a discovery call and a fixed quote for your tier.
Book a discovery call