AWS Pricing & Billing

EC2 Pricing & Billing Options

 

 

Overview of AWS Pricing Options

 

On-Demand – for short workloads, pay by second

 

Reserved – 1 or 3 years – for long workloads

 

Convertible Reserved – long workloads with flexible instances

 

Savings Plans – 1 or 3 years – commits to a fixed usage, for long workloads

 

Spot – short workloads, can be cancelled at any time by AWS according to general load of other customers, very cheap

 

Dedicated Host – book entire physical machine and control instance placement

 

Dedicated Instance – no other customers share hardware

 

Capacity Reservation – reserve capacity in a specific AZ (Availability Zone) for later use

 

 

Pricing Options in Detail

 

On-Demand

 

has highest cost, no long-term commitment, best for short-term loads

 

Reserved Instances

 

72% max discount vs on-demand, you reserve specific instance attributes

 

specify reservation period eg 1 year

 

payment – upfront or not upfront, discount for upfront

 

scope – in specific region or AZ

 

recommended for stead state loads eg database apps

 

you can buy and sell them in the reserved instance AWS marketplace

 

 

Convertible Reserved Instance

 

allows you to change the EC2 instance spec

 

 

 

Savings Plans

 

discount acc to long term usage as for Reserved up to 72%

 

commit to certain type of usage, eg $10 per hr for 1 or 3 yrs

 

Usage beyond this is billed at on-demand price

 

but you are locked to a specific instance type and region

 

however you can change instance size and OS, and tenancy – host, dedicated default – can change this

 

Spot instances

 

up to 90% discount

 

the most cost-efficient

 

good for resilient to failure loads, eg batch jobs, data analysis, flexible jobs

NOT suited to databases!

 

 

Dedicated Hosts

 

you get a physical server dedicated to your own usage

 

advantageous for compliance requirements and server/hw-bound licenses for software eg per socket/core/CPU etc

 

the most expensive option in AWS

 

can be on demand pay per second

or reserved – 1 or 3 yrs with no-upfront, partial upfront, no upfront

 

 

Dedicated Instances

 

run on hw dedicated to you, but you may share the hw with others in the SAME ACCOUNT

 

but you don’t have access to the actual hardware, unlike dedicated host – important difference

 

no control over instance placement

 

suitable for short-term uninterrupted workloads that need to run in a specific AZ

 

 

AWS Pricing Calculator

 

The AWS Pricing Calculator is a web-based planning tool for creating budget estimates for your AWS projects before building them.

 

AWS Pricing Calculator is available free of charge via a web-based console at https://calculator.aws/#/

 

You do NOT need an AWS account in order to use the Pricing Calculator.

 

It provides an estimate of your AWS fees and charges, but the estimate doesn’t include any applicable local sales taxes.