What are AWS Savings Plans?
AWS Savings Plans are flexible pricing models that offer significantly reduced hourly rates compared to On-Demand prices. Unlike classic Reserved Instances, Savings Plans offer more flexibility: you commit to consistent usage, measured in USD per hour, for 1 or 3 years, but depending on the plan type, you can freely switch between services, regions, and instance types.
The main advantage of Savings Plans is the balance between cost savings and flexibility. You benefit from significant discounts without committing to specific instances. With changing workloads or modernization projects, you remain flexible, since discounts are automatically applied to matching usage.
Core Features
- Four plan types: Compute Savings Plans, EC2 Instance Savings Plans, Database Savings Plans, and SageMaker AI Savings Plans cover different workload categories.
- Automatic application: AWS automatically applies the agreed discounts to matching usage, with no manual assignment required.
- Term options: 1 year or 3 years, with no-upfront, partial-upfront, or all-upfront payment options.
- Cost Explorer integration: Savings Plans Recommendations provide data-driven suggestions for the right commitment level based on historical usage.
- Flexibility depending on plan type: Compute Savings Plans allow switching between EC2, Fargate, and Lambda as well as between regions and instance families; Database Savings Plans allow switching between database engines and services.
Typical Use Cases
Predictable Baseline Workloads
For workloads with stable baseline usage, Savings Plans offer significant savings compared to On-Demand prices. A common approach is analyzing usage over several months and committing below the average baseline; usage peaks continue to be covered at On-Demand prices.
Multi-Service Compute Environments
Compute Savings Plans cover EC2, Fargate, and Lambda. Organizations using multiple compute services, or planning to migrate between them, benefit from the flexibility of this plan type while still saving costs.
Database Workloads
Database Savings Plans reduce costs for Amazon Aurora, RDS, DynamoDB, ElastiCache, DocumentDB, and other database services, regardless of engine, instance family, or region. This also eases database migrations, for example from RDS for Oracle to Aurora PostgreSQL-Compatible.
Cloud Modernization
During modernization projects, workloads often change. With Compute Savings Plans, you can migrate from EC2 to Fargate or Lambda without losing your agreed discounts, since they automatically apply to the new services.
ML Workloads on SageMaker AI
SageMaker AI Savings Plans reduce costs for notebook, training, and inference usage on Amazon SageMaker AI, regardless of instance family, size, region, or component used.
Benefits
- Significant cost savings compared to On-Demand prices for predictable baseline usage
- Four specialized plan types covering compute, database, and ML workloads
- Automatic application to the most cost-effective matching usage
- Combinable with On-Demand prices for usage peaks
- Data-driven recommendations via AWS Cost Explorer simplify choosing the commitment level
Integration with innFactory
As an AWS Reseller, innFactory supports you with AWS Savings Plans: usage analysis, commitment recommendations, selection and purchase of the right Savings Plans types, and continuous optimization of your cloud costs.
Available Tiers & Options
Compute Savings Plans
- Flexible across EC2, Fargate, Lambda
- Region switching possible
- Instance type and OS switching possible
- Lower discount than EC2 Instance Savings Plans
EC2 Instance Savings Plans
- Highest discount among compute plans
- Flexibility in instance size, OS, and tenancy
- Bound to instance family and region
Database Savings Plans
- Covers Aurora, RDS, DynamoDB, ElastiCache, DocumentDB, and more
- Flexible across database engines and instance families
- Lower discount than compute plans
SageMaker AI Savings Plans
- Discounts for ML workloads on SageMaker AI
- Flexible across instance types and components (notebook, training, inference)
- Usable only for SageMaker AI
Typical Use Cases
Frequently Asked Questions
What are AWS Savings Plans?
AWS Savings Plans are flexible pricing models that offer meaningful discounts compared to On-Demand prices. You commit to consistent usage, measured in USD per hour, for 1 or 3 years and receive reduced prices on the AWS services covered by the plan in return.
What types of Savings Plans are available?
AWS offers four types: Compute Savings Plans (flexible across EC2, Fargate, and Lambda), EC2 Instance Savings Plans (highest discount, but bound to an instance family and region), Database Savings Plans (for Aurora, RDS, DynamoDB, ElastiCache, DocumentDB, and other database services), and SageMaker AI Savings Plans (for ML workloads on SageMaker AI).
How do I choose the right commitment level?
Analyze your historical usage with AWS Cost Explorer. Savings Plans Recommendations provide data-driven suggestions for the commitment level. Starting conservatively below your average baseline usage and increasing gradually reduces the risk of overcommitting.
What happens with excess usage?
Usage above your commitment level is billed at standard On-Demand prices. There are no penalty fees for underutilization, but the hourly commitment you signed up for is due for the full term regardless of actual usage.
How much do AWS Savings Plans cost?
Savings Plans are not a standalone product with a separate price, but a discount model applied to existing compute, database, or SageMaker AI usage. You still pay for the capacity you actually use, but at a reduced, contractually fixed hourly rate. The exact savings depend on the plan type chosen, the term, and the payment option (no upfront, partial upfront, or all upfront).
Note: All product information on this page has been compiled with care, but is provided without guarantee and may be outdated or incomplete. Cloud services evolve rapidly — features, pricing, SLAs, and availability change frequently. Authoritative and up-to-date information can only be found on the official product page of AWS (official documentation). This page does not represent an offer by AWS.