What is AWS Savings Plans?
It’s no secret that using RIs – Reserved Instances generates significant savings on AWS – Amazon Web Services.
To help its customers get even more out of this savings, AWS last week launched Saving Plans, which like RIs, make it easy to buy computing hours and still generate significant discounts on your AWS account.
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What is AWS Saving Plans?
It is a new flexible rebate model launched by AWS that aims to save money on the use of computing services. This model applies to Amazon EC2 service instances regardless of AWS family, size, operating system, or region (except China) and also to other computing services such as EMR, ECS, EKS, and Fargate.
Saving Plans offers more than one type of plan over different durations, payment options, and automatically adapts to computing usage, making it simple to save – one of the biggest pains for Reserved Instance users.
With Savings Plans AWS customers commit to a cost per dollar measured per hour over 1 to 3 years. If the expense exceeds the stipulated amount, it will be charged on-demand rates.
AWS Saving Plans offers two types of plans
The compute savings plan offers savings of up to 66%, spans EC2 and Fargate instances, and has a model similar to convertible RIs. Its flexibility includes instance family, size, tenancy, operating system, as well as those that are part of the EMR, ECS, or ECK clusters. With this plan, you can even migrate from EC2 to AWS Fargate and still get the savings.
With the highest discounts, which reach 72%, the EC2 Instance Savings Plan is highlighted. Like standard RIs, it offers the flexibility to change usage between instances of a family, even for different sizes and operating systems, in a specific region. For example, you can migrate from a c5.xlarge that uses Windows to a c5.2xlarge that runs on Linux, both in Virginia.
RIs vs. Saving Plans
The most significant advantage of Savings Plans is that it automatically applies to any family, size, region, and operating system, and is also applicable to AWS Fargate, AWS’s managed container service.
On the other hand, unlike RIs, AWS Saving Plans cannot be sold on the marketplace, which means the customer cannot trade the amount already paid if their need changes.
Regarding the payment method, in both cases, it is possible to buy in 3 ways: All Upfront, with lower prices and prepayment, Partial Upfront, usually the best financial return for customers in Brazil, with half of the prepayment and the rest charged. Monthly, or No Upfront, that there is no advance payment, only the commitment to use for 1 or 3 years.
Learn more about managing and reducing IR costs on our blog or visit our Reserved Instances ebook.
The table below provides a comparison between Saving Plans and Reserved Instances:
| Savings Plan Computing | Savings Plan EC2 | Convertible Ris | Standard Ris | |
| Savings vs On-Demand | Up to 66% | Up to 72% | Up to 66% | Up to 72% |
| Savings across all regions | Yes | No | No | No |
| Savings across instance types | Yes | No | No | No |
| Savings across instance sizes | Yes | No | No | No |
| Savings across tenancies | Yes | No | No | No |
| Savings across computing services (EC/Fargate, etc) | Yes | No | No | No |
| Savings inside a region and instance family | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Savings inside a region and difference tenancies | Yes | Yes | No | No |
| Sell on Marketplace | No | No | No | Yes |
For a comprehensive EC2 pricing comparison please refer to EC2 Pricing Matrix.
How to use AWS Saving Plans?
To benefit from Saving Plans go to AWS Cost Explorer in the management console or use the API / CLI and choose the plan type, duration, and payment option. Once hired, Cost Explorer provides reports to view and measure plan performance and savings possibilities.
Importance of cloud management
One of the key advantages of a cloud infrastructure management platform is the ability to intelligently analyze and bring recommendations so that no waste occurs in the customer cloud. Cost visibility is a crucial point in detecting what is being used, how much is being paid, and what can be improved.
CleanCloud takes on this role, with cost dashboards and metrics for understanding AWS or Azure cloud costs in detail, and not just for server optimizations are more than 20 daily recommendations to reduce the cost for other AWS cloud services.
To know more about AWS cost reduction actions, please read How to Reduce AWS Costs.
What is AWS Savings Plan?
It is a new flexible rebate model launched by AWS that aims to save money on the use of computing services. This model applies to Amazon EC2 service instances regardless of AWS family, size, operating system, or region (except China) and also to other computing services such as EMR, ECS, EKS, and Fargate.
How to use AWS Saving Plans?
To benefit from Saving Plans go to AWS Cost Explorer in the management console or use the API / CLI and choose the plan type, duration, and payment option. Once hired, Cost Explorer provides reports to view and measure plan performance and savings possibilities.
Whats the difference between RI and Savings Plans?
The most significant advantage of Savings Plans is that it automatically applies to any family, size, region, and operating system, and is also applicable to AWS Fargate, AWS’s managed container service.
