Billing & Support
12% of exam • Cost optimization and AWS support
Know these pricing models inside and out!
On-Demand Instances
Pay by the second (Linux) or hour (Windows)
- • No long-term commitments or upfront payments
- • Most expensive option
- • Use case: Short-term, unpredictable workloads
Reserved Instances (RI)
Commit to 1 or 3 years for significant discount
- • Up to 72% discount vs On-Demand
- • Payment options: All upfront, Partial upfront, No upfront
- • Standard RI: Highest discount, can't change instance type
- • Convertible RI: Lower discount, can change instance type
- • Use case: Steady-state, predictable workloads (databases, baselines)
Savings Plans
Commit to consistent compute usage ($/hour) for 1 or 3 years
- • Up to 72% discount vs On-Demand
- • More flexible than Reserved Instances
- • Compute Savings Plans: Most flexible (EC2, Fargate, Lambda)
- • EC2 Instance Savings Plans: Lower prices, less flexible
- • Use case: Consistent usage with flexibility needs
Spot Instances
Bid on unused EC2 capacity
- • Up to 90% discount vs On-Demand
- • Can be interrupted: AWS can terminate with 2-minute warning
- • Use case: Fault-tolerant, flexible workloads (batch jobs, data analysis, image processing)
- • NOT suitable for: Databases, critical applications
Dedicated Hosts
Physical server fully dedicated to your use
- • Most expensive option
- • Visibility into sockets, cores, host ID
- • Use case: Regulatory requirements, licensing (BYOL - Bring Your Own License)
- • Dedicated Instances: Hardware dedicated to you, but you don't control placement
AWS Budgets
Set custom cost and usage budgets with alerts
- • Create budget alerts when costs or usage exceed thresholds
- • Monitor Reserved Instance and Savings Plan utilization
- • Supports cost, usage, and reservation budgets
- • Example: Alert me when monthly EC2 spend exceeds $500
AWS Cost Explorer
Visualize, understand, and manage AWS costs over time
- • Interactive graphs showing cost trends
- • Filter by service, region, tag, etc.
- • Forecast future costs based on historical data
- • Identify cost optimization opportunities
- • Example: "Which service cost the most last month?"
Cost & Usage Report (CUR)
Most comprehensive cost and usage data available
- • Detailed billing data at hourly/daily level
- • Delivered to S3 bucket
- • Can be integrated with Athena, QuickSight for analysis
- • Use case: Deep dive analysis, chargeback to departments
AWS Cost Anomaly Detection
ML-powered service to detect unusual spending patterns
- • Automatically identifies cost anomalies
- • Sends alerts when unusual spending detected
- • Root cause analysis included
Understand the key differences for the exam!
| Feature | Basic | Developer | Business | Enterprise |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cost | Free | $29/month | $100/month | $15,000/month |
| Use Case | Testing/POC | Development | Production | Mission-Critical |
| Tech Support | None | Business hours email | 24/7 phone/chat | 24/7 phone/chat |
| Response Time (Urgent) | - | - | < 1 hour | < 15 min |
| Trusted Advisor Checks | 7 core checks | 7 core checks | Full checks | Full checks |
| Technical Account Manager | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ (TAM) |
| Architecture Support | ✗ | General | Contextual | Consultative |
Business Plan Highlights
- • 24/7 support via phone/chat
- • Full Trusted Advisor checks
- • Third-party software support
- • Best for production workloads
Enterprise Plan Highlights
- • Dedicated Technical Account Manager (TAM)
- • 15-minute response for critical issues
- • Concierge support team
- • Infrastructure Event Management
AWS Free Tier
- • Always Free: DynamoDB (25GB), Lambda (1M requests/month)
- • 12 Months Free: EC2 t2.micro (750 hours/month), S3 (5GB)
- • Trials: Short-term offers for specific services
AWS Organizations - Consolidated Billing
- • One bill for multiple AWS accounts
- • Volume discounts across all accounts
- • Share Reserved Instances and Savings Plans
Resource Tags
- • Key-value pairs for organizing resources
- • Track costs by project, department, environment
- • Essential for cost allocation and chargeback
Spot = Cheapest (90% off)
But can be interrupted!
RI/Savings Plans = 72% off
1 or 3 year commitment
Budgets = Set alerts
Proactive cost monitoring
Cost Explorer = Visualize
Understand spending trends
Business = Production
24/7 support, <1hr response
Enterprise = TAM
Dedicated account manager