diff --git a/templates/packer/variables.pkr.hcl b/templates/packer/variables.pkr.hcl
index 9e381ad33..034c55675 100644
--- a/templates/packer/variables.pkr.hcl
+++ b/templates/packer/variables.pkr.hcl
@@ -18,6 +18,12 @@ variable "region" {
 # Automatically set by environment variables
 variable "composer_commit" { type = string }
 
+# Controls whether AMIs should be created. If you just need to test whether the image can be built, leave it as true
+variable "skip_create_ami" {
+  type = bool
+  default = true
+}
+
 # The name of the resulting AMI and the underlying EBS snapshot
 variable "image_name" { type = string }
 # A list of users to share the AMI with
diff --git a/templates/packer/worker.pkr.hcl b/templates/packer/worker.pkr.hcl
index b3372b3ea..5524fd312 100644
--- a/templates/packer/worker.pkr.hcl
+++ b/templates/packer/worker.pkr.hcl
@@ -20,6 +20,8 @@ source "amazon-ebs" "image_builder" {
   # Network configuration for the instance building our image.
   associate_public_ip_address = true
   ssh_interface = "public_ip"
+
+  skip_create_ami=var.skip_create_ami
 }
 
 build {
diff --git a/tools/appsre-build-worker-packer.sh b/tools/appsre-build-worker-packer.sh
index 6c1008e21..41192384b 100755
--- a/tools/appsre-build-worker-packer.sh
+++ b/tools/appsre-build-worker-packer.sh
@@ -6,6 +6,7 @@ set -exv
 COMMIT_SHA=$(git rev-parse HEAD)
 COMMIT_BRANCH=$(git rev-parse --abbrev-ref HEAD)
 ON_JENKINS=true
+SKIP_CREATE_AMI=false
 
 # Use gitlab CI variables if available
 if [ -n "$CI_COMMIT_SHA" ]; then
@@ -23,6 +24,11 @@ if [ "$ON_JENKINS" = false ]; then
     sudo dnf install -y podman jq
 fi
 
+# skip creating AMIs on PRs to save a ton of resources
+if [[ $COMMIT_BRANCH == PR-* ]]; then
+    SKIP_CREATE_AMI=true
+fi
+
 # decide whether podman or docker should be used
 if which podman 2>/dev/null >&2; then
     CONTAINER_RUNTIME=podman
@@ -202,4 +208,5 @@ $CONTAINER_RUNTIME run --rm \
                    -e PKR_VAR_image_name="osbuild-composer-worker-$COMMIT_BRANCH-$COMMIT_SHA" \
                    -e PKR_VAR_composer_commit="$COMMIT_SHA" \
                    -e PKR_VAR_ansible_skip_tags="$SKIP_TAGS" \
+                   -e PKR_VAR_skip_create_ami="$SKIP_CREATE_AMI" \
                    "packer:$COMMIT_SHA" /osbuild-composer/worker-packer.sh