Savings Plan or Reserved Instance, which fits our compute usage?
Savings Plans are more flexible (apply across instance families, regions, also Fargate and Lambda), Reserved Instances cheaper for very predictable usage. For SMBs with varying workloads, Savings Plans usually win.
Try this first
- 1In Cost Explorer Recommendations, look at your last 60 days of compute usage. AWS makes its own proposal.
- 2For varying workloads: Compute Savings Plan, 1-year, no upfront. Gives discount without locking type or region.
- 3For very steady usage (database, fixed app-server) where you know the instance will still run next year, take a Standard RI for 1 or 3 years.
- 4Never cover 100 percent of usage. Aim for 70-80 percent covered by commitments, the rest on-demand for flexibility.
- 5On Azure this is Reservations or Savings Plans, on GCP CUDs (Committed Use Discounts). Same pattern.
When to bring us in
For commitments above a few thousand euro per month, a short FinOps review with someone who does this daily is usually worth the time.
See also
- Everyone logs in with the AWS root accountRoot is for emergencies and billing. Day-to-day work belongs in IAM users or SSO.
- Every developer has AdministratorAccessAdministratorAccess everywhere is convenient now, painful later. Start with role-based policies.
- Everyone has individual IAM users with their own passwordIdentity Center (formerly AWS SSO) links to your IdP and issues temporary credentials per session.
None of the above fits?
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