A savings plan is a discount plan that reduces your Elastic Container Instance (ECI) costs in exchange for a commitment to a consistent hourly spend (measured in USD/hour) over a one-year or three-year period. After a savings plan takes effect, it automatically applies to eligible pay-as-you-go elastic container instances to reduce your costs. You do not need to manually match resources.
Savings plans apply to pay-as-you-go elastic container instances but do not apply to preemptible elastic container instances.
If you run online applications on elastic container instances for an extended period of time, savings plans can help you reduce costs compared to standard pay-as-you-go rates.
Savings plan types
Savings plans come in two types. Before you purchase a savings plan, understand the differences between the two types and select the one that best fits your requirements.
| Feature | General-purpose savings plans | ECS compute savings plans |
|---|---|---|
| Scope | All pay-as-you-go elastic container instances, regardless of Elastic Compute Service (ECS) instance type | Only elastic container instances created with specific ECS instance types |
| Flexibility | Higher | Lower |
| Savings | Standard | Higher |
| Best for | Workloads where you may change instance types over time | Workloads that consistently use the same instance types |
General-purpose savings plans: Apply to all pay-as-you-go elastic container instances regardless of the ECS instance types on which the elastic container instances are based. These plans provide greater flexibility than ECS compute savings plans.
ECS compute savings plans: Match specific ECS instance types and offset fees of only elastic container instances that are created by using the corresponding ECS instance types and billed based on the ECS instance types. These plans provide greater savings than general-purpose savings plans.
Purchase a savings plan
You can view savings plans on the Savings Plans page in the ECS console. When you purchase a savings plan, you can adopt a plan recommended by the system or select a plan based on your consumption trends.
Use purchase recommendations (for existing instances): If you already have elastic container instances and want to optimize costs, go to the Purchase recommendation page of savings plans to get a recommendation based on your usage history.
Calculate and purchase manually (for new deployments): If you do not have existing elastic container instances, calculate the price of an elastic container instance and determine your hourly commitment based on the discount. Then, go to the Savings Plan buy page to purchase a savings plan.
For more information about how to purchase and apply savings plans, see Purchase and apply savings plans.
View the offset information of a savings plan
After you purchase a savings plan, the system automatically matches the savings plan with eligible elastic container instances to offset fees. You can view the offset information in the Expenses and Costs console.
View bills of elastic container instances: In the Expenses and Costs console, choose Bills > Bill Details in the left-side navigation pane, and then click the Billing Details tab. On this tab, you can view the billing details of each elastic container instance. No bills are generated for the fees of elastic container instances that are offset by savings plans.
View the effect of savings plans: In the Expenses and Costs console, choose Savings Plan > Overview in the left-side navigation pane. On the Savings Plan page, you can view the overview, details, usage, and coverage of your savings plans.