6 Billing and pricing
This chapter covers
- Introducing the AWS Billing Dashboard
- Identifying the AWS Pricing Models
- Distinguishing Consolidated Billing, AWS Cost Calculators, and AWS Free Tier
- Examining the five AWS Support Plans
As you may recall, in Chapter 5 we learned about foundational security and compliance concepts as well as many of the core AWS security services. We’re getting to the end of the “content” section of this book with this chapter, where we are introduced to foundations of AWS’s billing and pricing models, tools, and support plans.
6.1 AWS Billing and Pricing Concepts
I won’t lie—the idea of having to comprehend and then explain billing and pricing for utilizing AWS was an instant grimace-maker for me. I think many people experience similar reactions when they first encounter the seemingly endless ways AWS can charge for one service or another, and how monthly costs are calculated. Social media is filled with posts about nasty billing surprises some organization or person had when checking their monthly AWS bills.
Perhaps with the understanding that comprehending and managing billing and cost analyses with cloud computing resource usage is not an easy feat, AWS offers many resources and tools to help manage your monthly cloud bills. It’s still not “simple,” but these tools and resources may make the process of understanding and anticipating your monthly AWS bills a little easier.
In this section, we first learn about core billing and pricing concepts such as: