Free tool · no signup
One year or three? Upfront, or not?
Pick a service, a family, a size, and a region. Set how long you plan to keep the instance running. See the upfront cash, the total commitment, the net saving, and the real break-even for every term and payment option AWS actually sells. An AWS Reserved Instance cannot be cancelled, so this prices the risk before you buy, not after.
db.r6g.xlarge in us-east-1, at $0.450/hr on-demand.
Buy the 1-year All Upfront option. It saves $3,636 over 24 months, 46% less than on-demand.
| Term | Payment option | Upfront | Total commitment | Net saving | % saved | Break-even |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1yr | No Upfront | $0 | $2,275 | $3,334 | 42% | 7 mo |
| 1yr | Partial Upfront | $1,083 | $2,167 | $3,551 | 45% | 7 mo |
| 1yr | All Upfront | $2,124 | $2,124 | $3,636 | 46% | 6 mo |
| 3yr | No Upfront | Not offered by AWS for this instance type | ||||
| 3yr | Partial Upfront | $2,187 | $4,373 | $3,511 | 45% | 13 mo |
| 3yr | All Upfront | $4,284 | $4,284 | $3,600 | 46% | 13 mo |
What this assumes
- A renewal at the end of a term is priced at today's rate.
- AWS can change its rates at any time.
Prices: AWS Price List API. Amazon RDS as of Aug 20, 2026 · Amazon ElastiCache as of Aug 21, 2026 · Amazon EC2 as of Aug 27, 2026. Verify in the AWS console before you buy.
Read this first
Two numbers this tool never hides.
Below roughly 12 months of runtime, no reservation beats on-demand. The tool says so plainly instead of naming a fake winner. And a longer horizon does not always favor the longer term: a 3-year offer only wins once the horizon actually reaches far enough past its own break-even point, and AWS only ever sells whole terms, so a horizon just past one term length still pays for a second one in full.
Term Check, answered
Questions about the choice.
Should I buy a 1-year or a 3-year reservation?
A 3-year term usually discounts more than a 1-year term. It also locks you in three times as long. AWS never cancels a Reserved Instance early: buy a 3-year term and stop the instance after 14 months, and you still pay for all 36. Run the numbers for your own instance type and horizon with the free Term Check tool.
Should I pay All Upfront, Partial Upfront, or No Upfront?
All Upfront pays the whole term at purchase and reaches the deepest discount. No Upfront pays nothing at purchase and reaches the shallowest discount. Partial Upfront splits the two. Every option locks in the same non-cancellable term, so the choice is about cash flow, not risk.
Do you take a percentage of my savings?
No, never. Reserver is a flat price, billed monthly or annually. Percentage-of-savings pricing means your vendor profits most when your bill was worst. We'd rather just charge for the software.
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