Savings Plans
Usage commitment for discounts
A discount model where you commit to spending a fixed amount per hour for 1 or 3 years: Compute Savings Plans apply flexibly to EC2, Fargate, and Lambda; EC2 Instance Savings Plans offer deeper discounts but are tied to an instance family and Region; there is also a type for SageMaker.
- Cost$ Low
- Difficulty●●●●●
- Costs money when idle?Yes
- Serverless
- In examsCLF · SAA · SOA
Think of it asLike buying an annual prepaid phone plan: cheaper than paying by the minute, but you still pay in full even if you use less.
When to use it
✓ Use it when
You have a stable, predictable baseline of compute usage over 1–3 years.
✗ Avoid it when
Short-term, unpredictable workloads → On-Demand; interruption-tolerant workloads → Spot Instances.
Common uses
- Cover EC2/Fargate workloads running 24/7
- Reduce costs for steadily running Lambda
- Combine with Spot for burst workloads
What does it cost?
- Pricing model: Commit to an hourly amount for 1 or 3 years, paid all upfront, partial upfront, or no upfront; usage beyond the commitment is billed at On-Demand rates.
⚠️ Cost traps
Committing too high relative to actual usage is wasted money; check the recommendations in Cost Explorer before buying.
Related services
SAA-C03 study guide
Savings Plans is covered in these study modules: