- Pay-as-you-go: Pay only for what you use, no upfront costs.
- Save when you commit: Use Reserved Instances or Savings Plans for lower rates.
- Pay less with more use: Volume-based discounts reduce cost as usage grows.
- Free tier: Try many AWS services at no cost within usage limits.
Pricing calculator: Estimate monthly costs using the AWS Pricing Calculator.
💰 When AWS Charges You
- Resource creation: Billing starts when you create or run a resource (e.g., EC2 instance, S3 bucket).
- Resource usage: Charged for actual use — compute time, storage, data transfer, API calls, etc.
- Idle resources: Even if not used, you’re charged if the resource is running (e.g., stopped EC2 = no cost, running = charged).
- Deletion: Billing stops immediately after you delete or terminate the resource.
- Monthly billing: AWS bills are generated monthly, but usage is tracked hourly or per-second depending on the service.
