Getting Started with Amazon QuickSight: A Beginner's Guide for Data Teams

Amazon Quick Sight, formerly Amazon QuickSight, is the business intelligence (BI) capability of Amazon Quick. It is AWS-native, serverless and built for dashboards that run inside your AWS environment or in your own applications. This guide walks through the first six steps, from sign-up to a shared dashboard. It reflects AWS documentation as checked on November 6, 2026.

A note on the name. On October 9, 2025, AWS announced that QuickSight evolved into Amazon Quick Suite, now called Amazon Quick. The BI features continue as Quick Sight. AWS states that existing dashboards, datasets, analyses, permissions and API integrations are unchanged, so older QuickSight tutorials still describe the same underlying product, even where screens and menu names differ.

Step 1: Understand what you are getting

• Fully managed: no infrastructure to maintain.
• Two pricing models: per-user seats, or capacity pricing that sells Reader sessions in bulk for embedded and hard-to-size audiences. A session is a 30-minute period.
• Embedded analytics: dashboards can be embedded in your own applications and portals.
• AI features: natural language questions and, for Pro roles, executive summaries, data stories and scenario analysis.

Step 2: Sign up and set up your environment

There are two documented paths:

• Through your AWS account. Provision Amazon Quick in the AWS Management Console and configure authentication with IAM Identity Center or IAM federation. You need an AWS account, appropriate IAM permissions, and access to the data sources you plan to use, such as Amazon S3, Athena, Redshift or RDS.
• Without an AWS account. Individuals and small teams can sign up at aws.com/quick with an email or social login and choose a Free or Plus plan.

For most business deployments, the first path is the right one because it keeps identity, billing and governance in your existing AWS controls.

Step 3: Connect to your data

Quick Sight connects to AWS sources (S3, Athena, Redshift, RDS, Aurora), third-party databases and warehouses (such as MySQL, SQL Server and Snowflake), and uploaded files (CSV and Excel). In the navigation pane, open Datasets under Quick Sight, create a new dataset, choose the source and enter credentials.

Then choose how the data is used:

• SPICE copies the data into Quick Sight's in-memory engine. It is priced at $0.38 per GB per month, with 10 GB included for each Author. It suits interactive dashboards on moderate volumes.
• Direct query reads from the source at query time. It suits data that must be current or cannot be copied.

Step 4: Prepare and clean your data

Quick Sight lets you rename fields, change data types, create calculated fields and join datasets. Treat this as light modeling. If the data needs heavy transformation, do that upstream in your pipeline so every dashboard shares the same definitions.

Step 5: Build your first analysis

1. Create a new analysis from your dataset.
2. Drag fields onto the canvas.
3. Choose the visual type: bar, table, KPI, heat map and others.
4. Add filters, parameters and drill-downs.

Pro roles also include executive dashboard summaries and generative data stories that turn a dashboard into a written narrative.

Step 6: Publish and share

Publish the analysis as a dashboard, then share it with users or groups, set permissions, schedule email reports, or embed it in an application or portal.

What it costs

AWS list prices are $3 per Reader, $20 per Reader Pro, $24 per Author and $40 per Author Pro, per user per month. A $250 per month per-account infrastructure fee applies if the account has any Pro user or has Q&A enabled through topics or dashboard Q&A. Plan the mix of authors and readers before you provision seats. Our full breakdown is in Amazon QuickSight pricing explained.

Where Cruz Street helps

Cruz Street designs and builds Quick Sight deployments, from data architecture and secure access through custom BI portals and embedded analytics. See Amazon QuickSight consulting, our Analytics and BI services and the QuickSight resource page, or contact us to scope your first dashboard.

Quick summary

1. Provision Amazon Quick and set up access.
2. Connect a data source and choose SPICE or direct query.
3. Prepare the data.
4. Build visuals.
5. Publish and share.
6. Embed or operationalize the dashboard.

Sources

• AWS Business Intelligence Blog, October 9, 2025: https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/business-intelligence/reimagine-business-intelligence-amazon-quicksight-evolves-to-amazon-quick-suite/
• Amazon Quick user guide, What is Amazon Quick: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/quick/latest/userguide/what-is.html
• Amazon Quick user guide, Setting up and signing into Amazon Quick: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/quick/latest/userguide/setting-up.html
• AWS, Amazon Quick Sight pricing: https://aws.amazon.com/quick/quicksight/pricing/