Case study
How to manage multiple clients with AWS Organizations (single or separate invoices)
schedule2 min
calendar_today26 March 2025
syncCaricamento...
Shellonback's guide to setting up an AWS Organization when you work with multiple clients
“I have a client I bill cloud costs to directly, but I want to keep those costs split by management, resources, access and control, without creating disconnected accounts with separate credentials.”
If you have ever asked yourself this question, this article is for you.
Why create an AWS Organization?
Anyone doing technical or IT work for several clients often ends up managing cloud infrastructure in a distributed way. AWS offers a native tool called AWS Organizations, which is a good fit for:
- Separating resources by client
- Centralizing management and access
- Consolidating (or splitting) billing
- Avoiding several unrelated AWS accounts, each with its own pile of credentials to manage
The Shellonback case: multiple clients, a single point of control
At Shellonback we found ourselves in exactly this situation. We work with several clients on cloud projects, but we wanted to avoid:
- Countless logins to remember
- Separate accounts that cannot be managed
- Confusion about costs and resources
The solution?
We created an AWS Organization structured like this:
- Main account: managed by Shellonback
- Client 1 and client 2 accounts: each with its own isolated environment
- Access to client accounts through IAM Switch Role
- Billing that can be tracked per client (with the option of a single invoice or separate ones)
The practical steps we followed
1. Enabling AWS Organizations
We enabled the service from a main company account: cloud@shellonback.com
2. Creating the client accounts
From the AWS console, we created:
cliente1@shellonback.comcliente2@shellonback.com
Each account has its own isolated, secure environment.
3. Centralized access through Switch Role
The IAM users in our main account can enter each client environment using the delegated role OrganizationAccountAccessRole, without knowing passwords or managing separate credentials.
4. Centralized (but separable) billing
AWS lets you consolidate billing under the main account, but:
- You can track costs for each client separately
- Or issue a single overall invoice, depending on your business model
In practice: you can have everything billed to you and then split it, or bill each client directly, without giving up control.
Why this setup works well for agencies, freelancers and MSPs
- Each client has its own cloud “space”
- You don't have to create or manage several accounts with different logins
- You have a single console to govern everything from
- You can see costs per client precisely
- Access is secure, scalable and centralized
Bonus: everything under control, security included
Each client account can have dedicated policies, separate logging and custom alerts. You can also use Service Control Policies to define what can and cannot be done in each environment.
Want to do the same for your company?
If you manage AWS infrastructure for several clients, or want to start offering cloud services in a scalable way, we can help you:
- Design and configure your AWS Organization
- Create client accounts with secure access
- Manage Switch Role, billing and per-client cost reports
Contact us at luca.mangiacotti@shellonback.com