Amazon EC2/EBS - If I share an EBS Snapshot am I charged for others' usage of it?

Question

As the subject says I want to know if I make a snapshot of my EBS public and others use it, do I get charged for that?

Background if anyone is interested:

I have a bioinformatics program I want to share with other researchers so I'm planning to create my own public AMI that others can use. I think this will be preferable to requiring the users to install all of the dependancies, etc.

Answer 1

For a shared snapshot, you will be charged for the storage of that snapshot (and the PUT requests to create it, and the GET requests you use in accessing it).

When someone else uses your snapshot, a copy of it is made into their account - there is no charge to you for making the copy. The user who makes the copy will be charged the normal EBS rates. Anything they do with that snapshot (i.e. creating EBS volumes, etc. will be charged to them).

As per the FAQs:

Q: What charges apply when using Amazon EBS shared snapshots? If you share a snapshot, you won’t be charged when other users make a copy of your snapshot. If you make a copy of another user’s shared volume, you will be charged normal EBS rates.

Q: Can users of my Amazon EBS shared snapshots change any of my data? Users who have permission to create volumes based on your shared snapshots will first make a copy of the snapshot into their account. Users can modify their own copies of the data, but the data on your original snapshot and any other volumes created by other users from your original snapshot will remain unmodified.