Use reserved instances to reduce ECI costs - Elastic Container Instance

If you run long-lived online applications and specify Elastic Compute Service (ECS) instance types when you create elastic container instances, you can use reserved instances to reduce costs by offsetting pay-as-you-go bills.

Purchase reserved instances

A reserved instance provides a billing discount by matching pay-as-you-go ECS instances (excluding preemptible instances) in your account. If your elastic container instance is created with specified ECS instance types, reserved instances can offset its bills. For more information, see Overview.

Reserved instances apply only to elastic container instances created with specified ECS instance types. Before you purchase a reserved instance, note the following items:

Only specific ECS instance types can be used to create pods. Make sure that the ECS instance types you select are supported by Elastic Container Instance. For more information, see Specify ECS instance types to create an elastic container instance.
Reserved instances apply only to elastic container instances that meet the matching rules. Make sure that your elastic container instances can match the reserved instances.

Note
When you purchase a reserved instance, you commit to specific terms and instance types. The reserved instance then automatically matches eligible pay-as-you-go instances within its term. You cannot manually control how matching works. Once matched, the system checks for eligible pay-as-you-go instances hourly and offsets bills based on the computing power of the reserved instance. For more information, see Usage rules for reserved instances.

You can purchase and manage reserved instances on the Reserved Instances page in the ECS console. For more information, see Purchase reserved instances.

To optimize costs for existing elastic container instances, identify instances created with specified ECS instance types and purchase reserved instances that match those types.
If you have no existing elastic container instances, select ECS instance types based on your requirements, purchase matching reserved instances, and then create elastic container instances with those types.
To apply reserved instances to elastic container instances, specify matching ECS instance types when you create the elastic container instances.

View the offset information of a reserved instance

View billing details for elastic container instances and reserved instances in the Expenses and Costs console.

Important

When multiple zones are specified for creating elastic container instances, the instances may be distributed across zones. If a reserved instance does not offset bills as expected, check whether the reserved instance and the elastic container instance are in the same zone. If they are in different zones of the same region, you can convert the zonal reserved instance to a regional one. For more information, see Change the zone of a reserved instance.

View bills of elastic container instances

On the Bills > Bill Details page, go to the Billing Details tab to view your usage details by instance. Costs covered by a reserved instance do not appear on your bill.
View the bill of a reserved instance

On the Manage Reserved Instances page, set Resource to Reserved Instance. On the Details tab, you can view the reserved instance's discount details.

The usage details of reserved instances show which elastic container instances are offset by each reserved instance in each billing cycle (hour).