I keep recommending people look at places like Hetzner over AWS. People keep wanting to do AWS anyway, and then end up paying 2x-3x as much for the servers and more for the ops work. I shouldn't complain - people who opt for AWS even when it doesn't make sense are what my profit margin is made of.
(I have clients I recommend AWS to as well, but reducing ops time and/or reduced cost are rarely if ever part of those discussions; AWS is the luxury option)
It would typically be if they have use cases where they either want to do large batch jobs, or have other needs where "add-on" services AWS provides is worthwhile. Often it's a matter of urgency, and AWS will be a good first approximation, and we can start migrating onto a hybrid or fully dedicated environment depending on what's most cost effective down the road when they know more about what they actually need.
Sometimes it's a matter of politics and trst - AWS is trusted, and if their hosting cost doesn't add up to much of their total costs, then that trust is sometimes more worthwhile than squeezing the cost down. E.g. I'm working on a project for a VC now, and their yearly hosting costs are likely to be below what I'm charging them for the initial development of their system, so spending time selling them on a cheaper provider is just not worth it for either them or me.
(I have clients I recommend AWS to as well, but reducing ops time and/or reduced cost are rarely if ever part of those discussions; AWS is the luxury option)