Marcus Vechiato

AWS Finally Brings Savings Plans to Databases

For years, AWS customers have asked for Savings Plans that cover managed databases. Database Savings Plans promise up to 35% savings for serverless deployments and strong discounts for provisioned instances. You keep flexibility across engines, instance families, sizes, Regions, and deployment models while locking in predictable spend with a 1 year commitment measured in dollars per hour.

What’s launching

Savings Plans are now available for Amazon Aurora, Amazon RDS, Amazon DynamoDB, Amazon ElastiCache, Amazon DocumentDB, Amazon Neptune, Amazon Keyspaces, Amazon Timestream, and AWS Database Migration Service. Your hourly commitment applies automatically to eligible usage across Regions outside China. Usage beyond your commitment is billed at on demand rates.

https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/introducing-database-savings-plans-for-aws-databases/

Why this has been expected

Database usage is fluid. Teams change engines, expand globally, and shift between provisioned and serverless as workloads evolve. Traditional commitments limited flexibility across Regions and deployment models. Extending Savings Plans to databases aligns financial commitments with modern data platforms and brings cost predictability without architectural constraints.

Key discounts at a glance

  • Serverless provides up to 35% savings compared to on demand rates.
  • Provisioned instances offer up to 20% savings across supported services.
  • DynamoDB and Keyspaces provide up to 18% savings for on demand throughput and up to 12% for provisioned capacity.

Flexibility you can rely on

Your commitment applies across Regions, engines, instance families, sizes, and deployment options. As AWS adds eligible offerings or instance types, the plan automatically covers them.

How to choose the right commitment

Two paths help you evaluate purchases. Recommendations analyze your recent on demand usage to propose an hourly commitment that maximizes savings. Purchase Analyzer lets you model custom commitment levels and lookback windows so you can see projected cost, coverage, and utilization. This approach fits incremental purchasing strategies and expected future changes.

A practical way to start

  • Inventory your database usage by engine, Region, and deployment type.
  • Identify a steady baseline you can commit to for 12 months and favor serverless where discounts are highest.
  • Use Purchase Analyzer to model conservative commitments and layer additional purchases over time.
  • Track utilization monthly and adjust with small commitments as patterns stabilize.

Where the biggest wins are likely

Aurora Serverless v2 and DynamoDB on demand workloads with continuous but variable traffic. Global deployments that rely on caches with ElastiCache across Regions. Modernization programs moving from provisioned to serverless while maintaining discount coverage.

Caveats

Savings apply to eligible usage only. Anything above the commitment is at on demand rates. Plans are available in all AWS Regions outside China. Review the pricing page and user guide to understand eligibility and how recommendations are calculated.

Bottom line

Database Savings Plans bring long awaited financial flexibility to AWS data platforms. You can keep architectural freedom while gaining predictable costs and meaningful discounts.