Amazon Web Services (AWS) Pricing in 2026

AWS Pricing Model Explained

AWS operates on a deliberately opaque pricing system. There is no single "enterprise price list", instead, AWS layers multiple discount mechanisms on top of on-demand rates, and most discounts are negotiated individually.

The framework looks like this: On-demand list price (the highest tier) → discounted by Reserved Instances, Savings Plans, and the Enterprise Discount Program (EDP), each stacking independently. Enterprises typically combine all three to reach their final blended rate.

On-Demand Pricing (List Rate)

AWS publishes on-demand rates publicly, for example, a c5.2xlarge EC2 instance in us-east-1 costs around $0.34/hour. This is almost never what enterprises pay. It's the baseline against which all other discounts are calculated.

Reserved Instances (RIs)

RIs lock you into a commitment in exchange for substantial discounts. AWS offers two terms:

• 1-year RIs: Up to 40% off on-demand pricing
• 3-year RIs: Up to 60% off on-demand pricing

RIs come in two flavors: standard (non-convertible, highest discount) and convertible (can swap instance families, slightly lower discount). Enterprises can also mix: some 3-year standard RIs for predictable workloads, some 1-year convertible RIs for flexibility.

Savings Plans

Introduced in 2019, Savings Plans are AWS's answer to more flexible commitments. Instead of locking into specific instance types, you commit to a dollar amount of compute spend. Key tiers:

• Compute Savings Plans: Cover EC2, Lambda, and Fargate, up to 66% off on-demand
• EC2 Instance Savings Plans: Lock to instance family, up to 72% off on-demand

Savings Plans are more forgiving than RIs: if your usage drops, you simply pay on-demand rates for overage. If your usage spikes, you pay on-demand for extra compute. This flexibility costs you 3 to 5% in discount vs. the highest-tier RIs.

Enterprise Discount Program (EDP)

This is the big negotiation lever. EDP is not published, you only unlock it by reaching a minimum annual spend threshold (typically $500K to $1M). Once there, AWS assigns you an Enterprise Account Manager and makes a custom deal.

EDP discounts typically stack on top of RIs and Savings Plans. Enterprises report EDP discounts of 5 to 15% off list, depending on annual commitment, competitive situation, and account size. The largest enterprises (multi-million-dollar spenders) sometimes negotiate higher discounts, but AWS gets tighter as you push past 20% off their published RI rates.

Support Costs (Often Overlooked)

AWS support tiers are not optional for enterprises:

• Business Support: $100/month minimum or 3% of monthly bill (whichever is higher)
• Enterprise Support: $15,000/month minimum or 10% of monthly bill (whichever is higher)

Most enterprises over $1M annual spend are pushed toward Enterprise Support, adding $150K to $500K+ annually depending on usage.

What Enterprises Actually Pay for AWS

Based on $2.1B+ in benchmarked contracts, here's what we see in the real world:

These are blended rates accounting for the mix of services (not all services discount equally), support costs, and data egress fees. For compute-heavy workloads (EC2, Fargate), discounts skew higher. For data services (RDS, S3 analytics), discounts are more modest.

AWS Discount Benchmarks, What's Achievable?

Not all AWS services are created equal. Here's what we've seen across our $2.1B+ benchmarked dataset:

Compute (EC2, Lambda, Fargate)

Most aggressive discounting. With a mix of 3-year RIs (60% off) and 1-year convertible RIs (40% off), plus Savings Plans, enterprises routinely see 50 to 65% blended discounts on compute. EDP can add another 5 to 10%.

Database (RDS, DynamoDB)

More modest. RDS has reserved instances (up to 60% off), but many enterprises use unallocated capacity or multi-AZ setups that resist commitment. Real-world blended discount: 25 to 40% off on-demand.

Storage & Data Services (S3, Athena, Glue)

Hardest to discount. Storage is extremely cheap already, and AWS doesn't offer meaningful commitments for S3. Data egress (per GB out) is expensive and non-negotiable: $0.09/GB for egress to the internet. Discount reality: 5 to 15% off on-demand, often through EDP only.

Data Transfer (Egress Fees)

This is where AWS makes money. There are no discounts on egress fees. $0.09/GB out to the internet is non-negotiable, even for the largest accounts. The only lever: optimize architecture to move data across AWS regions at lower cost ($0.02/GB), or negotiate intra-AWS data movement at $0.01/GB.

For a company moving 10TB/month of data out of AWS, that's $900K/year in egress alone. No discount.

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AWS Pricing by Product/Module

Here's what to expect across AWS's core service portfolio:

Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)

The workhorse. Typical discount: 45 to 55% off on-demand with a mix of 1-year and 3-year RIs, plus Savings Plans. The best discounts come from committing to specific regions and instance families early, which is exactly what AWS wants.

Relational Database Service (RDS)

Popular for MySQL, PostgreSQL, and SQL Server. RDS has reserved instances (similar structure to EC2), but multi-AZ setups and failover replicas complicate commitments. Typical discount: 30 to 40% off on-demand. SQL Server licenses cost extra and don't discount much.

Simple Storage Service (S3)

Commodity pricing. Standard storage is already competitive at ~$0.023/GB/month. No meaningful discounts exist; EDP might shave 5 to 10% off. The real cost is egress$0.09/GB to internet with zero discount.

Lambda

Serverless compute. Pricing is per-million-requests + GB-seconds. Savings Plans apply (up to 66% off), and EDP can add more. Typical discount: 35 to 50% off on-demand if you commit.

ElastiCache (Redis, Memcached)

Cache layer. Reserved instances apply. Typical discount: 40 to 50% with commitments.

Snowball / Snowmobile (Data Transfer In/Out)

Large data migration service. No discounts, pricing is per-petabyte-day. But it's cheaper than egress fees if you're moving huge datasets out.

Common AWS Contract Traps to Watch For

Trap 1: EDP Doesn't Cover Marketplace Purchases

Your EDP discount applies to AWS's first-party services. But many enterprises use third-party software sold through the AWS Marketplace (Databricks, JFrog, Datadog, etc.). These don't qualify for EDP discounts. You'll see full on-demand pricing for Marketplace items, or negotiate separate agreements.

Trap 2: EDP Minimum Commits with Penalties

AWS often asks for a 1 to 3 year upfront monetary commitment (e.g., $2M/year). If you underspend, you lose the unused credit, AWS calls this a "true-up" clause. Always negotiate true-up language: push for "true-down" or rollover of unused credits to the next period.

Trap 3: Data Egress is Non-Negotiable

As noted, no discounts exist on egress. AWS knows enterprises hate this and have accepted it. The only escape: use AWS's Direct Connect service ($0.30/hour per port) to negotiate bulk egress deals. But you still pay per GB.

Trap 4: Support Contracts Auto-Renew at Higher Tiers

AWS often automatically bumps you to Enterprise Support ($15K/month minimum) as your spend grows, charging retroactively. Watch your support tier renewals and explicitly opt out or renegotiate before auto-renewal.

Trap 5: Reserved Instance Fragmentation

If you buy RIs for the wrong instance types, availability zones, or regions, you can't use them. Unused RIs don't roll over, you're out the money. Modern RI design requires discipline or automated tooling. Many enterprises waste 5 to 15% of RI commitments due to drift.

Trap 6: Mixed Compute Discounting

You can't mix a 3-year RI (60% off) with a Savings Plan (66% off) on the same workload, they compete. AWS uses a complex algorithm to apply the best discount, but misaligned commitments can leave money on the table.

AWS Renewal Pricing: What Changes and What Doesn't

AWS contracts renew annually (or every 1 to 3 years if you've committed to an EDP deal). Here's what happens at renewal:

What Stays the Same

• EDP discount percentage (if locked in the prior agreement)
• Reserved Instance terms and discounts
• Support tier pricing (though AWS may push you to upgrade)

What Changes

• On-demand list prices: AWS raises these 5 to 15% every 12 to 18 months. This flows through to RI and Savings Plan discounts if you're calculating from a new baseline.
• Data egress pricing: Historically unchanged, but monitor this.
• EDP commitment amounts: AWS will pressure you to increase your annual commit if your usage has grown, sometimes significantly.

Renewal Strategy

Start negotiating 60 to 90 days before renewal. AWS will argue for higher EDP commits based on your trailing 12-month usage (sometimes using your peak month, not average). Counter with trailing 6-month average plus modest growth projections.

If list prices have risen since your prior RI purchase, new RIs will be more expensive, but you'll still get the same percentage discount. Time big RI purchases for Q4 when AWS is hungry.

AWS Credits and Negotiation Tactics

During EDP negotiations, AWS frequently offers upfront credits: "$500K in credits over 12 months." Understand what you're getting:

• Credits don't roll over. If you don't spend them, they expire.
• Credits apply after discounts. So if you've negotiated 40% off, a $500K credit is worth $500K against your post-discount bill.
• Credits don't apply to support costs (in most cases).

AWS loves offering credits because it front-loads the deal (looks impressive) while pushing out higher monthly costs to later in the contract. When comparing AWS proposals, always calculate the true annual cost after credits expire.