aws
356 articles on aws — what drives the cost, how it is priced, and where the savings actually are.
NAT gateway surprise bill: the quiet networking cost
NAT gateways charge both an hourly fee and a per-GB data processing fee, so a chatty private subnet can rack up a large bill nobody expected. Here is why it happens and how to cut the cost.
On-prem to AWS migration cost: what the move actually costs
Migrating from a data center to AWS has a one-time project cost and a new ongoing run cost that replaces your capital spend. Understanding both, and how they compare to on-prem, is essential before you commit. Here is the breakdown.
OpenSearch cost optimization: taming a pricey cluster
Managed OpenSearch bills for data nodes, storage, and often dedicated master and warm nodes, so a large or over-provisioned cluster gets expensive fast. Here is how to right-size and tier it without losing search performance.
PrivateLink cost explained: private connectivity and its price
AWS PrivateLink gives private, secure access to services without traversing the public internet, but interface endpoints bill an hourly fee per endpoint per AZ plus a per-GB data processing charge. Here is how the cost works and when it pays off.
AWS X-Ray cost: per trace recorded and per trace scanned
X-Ray bills about $5 per million traces recorded and about $0.50 per million traces retrieved or scanned, with a free tier. Sampling is the main lever, since you rarely need every request traced. Here is how the tracing model prices.
AWS DataSync cost: about a cent and a quarter per gigabyte
DataSync bills about $0.0125 per GB of data copied, plus any underlying storage and transfer at the endpoints. Cost tracks how much you move, so incremental transfers and filters keep it down. Here is the simple model.
AWS Batch cost: free service, you pay for the compute it runs
AWS Batch adds no charge of its own; you pay for the EC2, Fargate, or Spot compute your jobs run on. Compute environment choice and Spot are the big levers. Here is how to run batch workloads cheaply.
AWS AppSync cost: per query, per real-time message, per connection
AppSync bills GraphQL query and data-modification operations per million, real-time subscription messages per million, and connection-minutes. Chatty clients and broad subscriptions drive the bill. Here is how the managed-GraphQL pricing works.
AWS Redshift Serverless cost: you pay per RPU-hour of query time
Redshift Serverless bills per Redshift Processing Unit (RPU) hour while queries run, plus managed storage, with no cluster to pause. It suits variable, intermittent analytics; steady heavy load is cheaper on a provisioned cluster. Here is how to size it.
Amazon MQ cost: broker instance hours plus storage
Amazon MQ bills broker instance hours by size and deployment (single or active-standby), plus storage. Active-standby doubles the instance cost for high availability. Here is how the managed-broker pricing works and when to use it.
AWS WorkSpaces cost: monthly vs hourly billing per user
WorkSpaces bills per user by bundle, in either an always-on monthly mode or an hourly mode with a small monthly base plus per-hour usage. Choosing the right mode for each user's usage pattern is the main saving. Here is how to decide.
AWS Transfer Family cost: per-hour endpoints plus data transferred
Transfer Family bills about $0.30 per hour for each enabled protocol endpoint (SFTP, FTPS, FTP) plus about $0.04 per GB uploaded and downloaded. The always-on endpoint fee is the surprise for low-volume use. Here is the breakdown.
NAT gateway cost optimization: a sneaky networking bill
NAT gateways bill an hourly fee plus per-GB data processing, so high-traffic private subnets accessing the internet or AWS services rack up processing charges. VPC endpoints, consolidation, and architecture cut it. Here is how.
VPN vs Transit Gateway cost: connecting networks at scale
Site-to-site VPN bills per connection-hour plus data; Transit Gateway bills per attachment-hour plus data processing but scales to many networks cleanly. For a few connections VPN is cheaper; for many, Transit Gateway wins. Here is the tradeoff.
Global Accelerator cost: premium routing for global users
AWS Global Accelerator bills a fixed hourly fee plus a premium per-GB data transfer charge, routing user traffic over the AWS backbone for better performance. For latency-sensitive global apps it helps, but the premium adds up. Here is the model.
VPC cost optimization: the networking pieces that bill
A VPC itself is free, but its components, NAT gateways, VPC endpoints, data transfer, and traffic mirroring, carry cost. Knowing which pieces bill, and optimizing them, keeps VPC networking cheap. Here is the breakdown.
SageMaker cost optimization: training, endpoints, and notebooks
SageMaker cost spans training jobs (GPU-hours), inference endpoints (always-on serving), notebooks and Studio (idle compute), and processing. Endpoints and idle notebooks are the biggest waste. Here is how to cut it.
AWS ParallelCluster cost: the HPC cluster is the compute
ParallelCluster is a free tool that provisions HPC clusters; the cost is the underlying EC2 compute, storage, and networking it launches. Right-sizing nodes, using Spot, and scaling to zero when idle drive the bill. Here is the model.
AWS Verified Access cost: per app connection per hour plus data
Verified Access bills per application connected per hour plus data processed, giving zero-trust access to internal apps without a VPN. Many connected apps and high traffic drive the bill. Here is the model.
AWS Clean Rooms cost: per compute-unit of collaboration queries
AWS Clean Rooms bills for the compute (CRPU) that runs privacy-preserving queries across partners' data without sharing raw data. Query volume and complexity drive the bill. Here is the model.
AWS GuardDuty cost explained: per GB and per event analyzed
GuardDuty bills by the volume of logs and events it analyzes, CloudTrail events, VPC flow logs, DNS logs, and per feature (S3, EKS, malware, RDS protection). High-traffic accounts and enabled features drive the bill. Here is the model.
AWS Fault Injection Service cost: per action-minute of experiments
FIS bills per action-minute of chaos experiments (about $0.10), so cost scales with how long and how many fault-injection actions run. It is cheap relative to the resilience it validates. Here is the model and how it fits.
AWS CloudTrail Lake cost: per GB ingested and scanned
CloudTrail Lake bills per GB of events ingested into an event data store (by pricing tier and retention) plus per GB scanned by queries. High-volume event ingestion and broad queries drive the bill. Here is the model.
AWS Location Service cost: per request, by capability
Amazon Location Service bills per request across maps (tiles), places (geocoding, search), routes, and trackers/geofences, each priced separately with a free tier. High-volume mapping and per-position tracking drive the bill. Here is the model.