AWS Reserved Instances and Savings Plans both offer up to 72% discount over on-demand. Which is right for your workloads? This guide compares both options with 2026 pricing.
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Commitment to specific instance type, region and term (1 or 3 years). Standard RI 1yr (no upfront): 28-35% saving. Standard RI 3yr (all upfront): 40-42% saving. Convertible RI 3yr: 31-54% saving with flexibility to change instance type. Best for stable 24/7 workloads.
Commitment to $/hour compute usage (not specific instance). Compute Savings Plans: any EC2, Fargate, Lambda — up to 66% saving. EC2 Instance Savings Plans: specific instance family in region — up to 72% saving. More flexible than RIs.
EC2 Instance Savings Plans provide same discount as Standard RIs (40-42% for 3yr). Compute Savings Plans: slightly less (36%) but cover more services. Pure EC2 stable workloads: RI = Savings Plan. Mixed workloads: Compute Savings Plans. Maximum discount on specific family: Standard RI.
m6i.xlarge on-demand: $0.192/hr = $1,681/month. 3yr RI: $0.116/hr = $1,016/month. Saving: $665/month, $7,980/year, $23,940 over 3 years per instance. TCOIQ calculates this automatically across your entire environment.
Buying RIs before rightsizing (always rightsize first), buying wrong instance family, over-committing (start at 60-70% RI coverage), not tracking RI utilisation (unused RIs still cost money), ignoring regional requirements. TCOIQ identifies the right RI strategy before you commit.
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