What are AWS EC2 Reserved Instances and how much can I save?

Reserved Instances let you commit to a specific EC2 instance type in a specific region for 1 or 3 years, saving up to 72% compared to on-demand pricing. You can choose No Upfront, Partial Upfront, or All Upfront payment options. Standard Reserved Instances can also be resold on the AWS Reserved Instance Marketplace.

How much can I save with AWS EC2 Savings Plans?

AWS EC2 Savings Plans can reduce costs by up to 72% compared to on-demand pricing. 3-year commitments offer the highest savings (up to 72%), while 1-year plans provide up to 42% savings. All-upfront payment options maximize your discount.

Reserved Instances vs Savings Plans — which is better?

Savings Plans are more flexible — they apply across instance families, regions, and services like Fargate and Lambda. Reserved Instances offer capacity reservation (zonal RIs) and marketplace resale. Both offer up to 72% savings. Use our calculator to compare exact costs side by side for your specific instance type.

What are AWS EC2 Spot Instances?

Spot Instances let you use spare AWS capacity at up to 90% discount compared to on-demand prices. They are ideal for fault-tolerant workloads like batch processing, data analysis, and CI/CD pipelines. AWS can reclaim them with 2-minute notice.

Which AWS region has the cheapest EC2 pricing?

EC2 pricing varies by region. Generally, US East (N. Virginia) offers competitive rates, but prices differ by instance type. Use our multi-region comparison tool to find the most cost-effective region for your specific instance needs.

Should I choose 1-year or 3-year Savings Plans?

3-year plans offer maximum savings (up to 72% off) but require longer commitment. 1-year plans provide flexibility with up to 42% savings. Consider your workload stability and budget constraints when choosing.

How accurate is the AWS EC2 pricing calculator?

Our calculator uses real-time AWS pricing data directly from AWS Pricing API. Prices are cached for 24 hours with stale-while-revalidate for up to 7 days, ensuring fast performance while maintaining accuracy. All calculations include the latest on-demand, reserved, and spot instance pricing.

AWS Region Guide

Choosing the right region is one of the most impactful decisions for both cost and performance. Here's how to make the right call.

Four Factors to Consider

⚡

Latency

Distance to your users. Every 1,000 km adds ~5-10ms of round-trip latency.

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Cost

Prices vary up to 50% between regions for the same instance type.

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Data Residency

Regulations like GDPR, KVKK, PDPA may require data to stay in specific countries.

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Service Availability

Not all AWS services launch in every region simultaneously. New services hit us-east-1 first.

Pricing by Region

Approximate price difference vs us-east-1 (baseline) for a typical m-family instance.

Region	Code	Price Tier	Note
N. Virginia	us-east-1	Cheapest	Baseline pricing. Most services launch here first.
Ohio	us-east-2	Cheapest	Same pricing as N. Virginia for most services.
Oregon	us-west-2	Cheapest	Same pricing tier. Popular for west coast workloads.
Ireland	eu-west-1	+~10%	Cheapest EU region. Good for GDPR-compliant European workloads.
Frankfurt	eu-central-1	+~12%	Central Europe. German data residency requirements.
Singapore	ap-southeast-1	+~14%	Southeast Asia hub. Good coverage for APAC.
Tokyo	ap-northeast-1	+~18%	Japan. Higher cost but critical for Japanese market latency.
Mumbai	ap-south-1	+~8%	India. Surprisingly affordable for APAC.
São Paulo	sa-east-1	+~40-50%	Most expensive major region. Limited alternatives for LATAM.
Cape Town	af-south-1	+~30%	Africa. Premium pricing but only option for African data residency.

🔒 Data Residency & Compliance

GDPR (EU)

Data must be processable within EU. Adequacy decisions allow some non-EU transfers.

Any EU region: eu-west-1, eu-central-1, eu-west-2, eu-south-1, eu-north-1, eu-west-3, eu-central-2

KVKK (Turkey)

Personal data of Turkish citizens should stay in Turkey or with explicit consent.

No AWS region in Turkey yet. Nearest: eu-south-1 (Milan), me-south-1 (Bahrain)

PDPA (Singapore)

Data can transfer out with adequate protection, but local hosting preferred.

ap-southeast-1 (Singapore)

LGPD (Brazil)

Similar to GDPR. Local hosting simplifies compliance.

sa-east-1 (São Paulo)

HIPAA (US)

AWS signs BAAs for eligible services. Region choice is flexible within US.

Any US region with BAA

Region Selection Strategies

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Single region — users in one geography

Pick the cheapest region closest to your users. For US users: us-east-1. For EU: eu-west-1. Simple and cost-effective.

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Multi-region — global user base

Deploy in 2-3 regions (e.g., us-east-1 + eu-west-1 + ap-southeast-1) with Route 53 latency-based routing. Covers most of the world under 100ms.

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Cost-optimized — latency-tolerant workloads

Run batch processing, ML training, or CI/CD in the cheapest region (us-east-1/us-east-2/us-west-2) regardless of user location.

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Compliance-driven — regulated industries

Region choice is dictated by regulation. Start with the required region, then optimize within those constraints.

Tips

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Use our multi-region comparison

Our calculator compares prices across all regions for any instance type. Find the cheapest region instantly.

Open calculator →

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Test latency yourself

Use tools like cloudping.info or our built-in region ping to measure actual latency from your location.

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Data transfer costs add up

Cross-region data transfer is $0.02/GB. If services talk across regions frequently, co-locate them.

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New regions are pricier

Recently launched regions (me-central-1, ap-south-2, etc.) tend to have higher prices. They may drop over time.

Compare prices across regions

Our multi-region comparison shows the exact price difference for any instance type across all AWS regions — on-demand, reserved instances, savings plans, and spot.

Open Calculator