AWS RDS Pricing Guide – Storage, Instances & Deployments

Factors Influencing AWS RDS Pricing

In our exploration of AWS RDS, understanding the factors that influence its pricing is of the utmost importance. Primarily, two key elements play a significant role in determining the total cost – data transfer and storage.

Data Transfer

Data transfer costs with AWS RDS can be complex as they depend on various scenarios. These involve data transfers within the same Availability Zone, across different Availability Zones, between AWS RDS and Amazon EC2 instances, and more. Let’s delve into some specifics.

Within Availability Zone

Data transferred between AWS RDS and Amazon EC2 instances in the same Availability Zone is free of charge, as is data transferred between Availability Zones for the replication of Multi-AZ deployments. This provides significant cost savings for businesses that deploy their applications within the same Availability Zone.

Across Availability Zones

Data transfer scenarios involving different Availability Zones within the same region can be a bit trickier. If an Amazon RDS DB instance outside a Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) interacts with an EC2 instance in a different Availability Zone, the data transfer charge is waived for traffic in or out of the RDS DB instance, but standard EC2 Regional Data Transfer charges apply ($.01 per GB in/out).

On the other hand, for Amazon RDS DB instances inside a VPC, EC2 Regional Data Transfer charges apply on both sides of the transfer if the data is moved between an EC2 instance and an RDS DB instance in different Availability Zones.

Cross-Region Transfers

Cross-region data transfers, such as DB snapshot copies or automated backups across regions, incur charges for the data transferred to copy the snapshot data and DB transaction logs across regions.

Free Tier and Other Services

As part of AWS Free Tier, customers receive 100 GB of free data transfer out to the internet each month. Additionally, rate tiers take into account your aggregate data transfer out usage across various AWS services, providing more flexibility with data transfer costs.

AWS RDS Data Transfer Pricing

In terms of specific RDS data transfer pricing, AWS charges based on the amount of data transferred in and out of AWS RDS.

Data Transfer in to RDS:

Data Transfer out of RDS:

Storage

Storage is another significant factor influencing the total cost of AWS RDS. AWS RDS supports three different storage options – Magnetic Storage, General Purpose (SSD) Storage, and Provisioned IOPS Storage. Each caters to specific needs and carries different cost implications.

Magnetic Storage

This is a legacy storage type that’s no longer actively used. Though available for backward compatibility, its limitations like poor scalability, size restrictions, and sub-optimal performance make it a less popular choice today.

General Purpose (SSD) Storage

This is the default storage type on SSD and a cost-effective storage solution. Typically used for development or testing workloads, General Purpose Storage allows for sizes between 20 GiB – 64 TiB (based on the engine). It comes in two versions: gp2 (standard performance) and gp3 (better performance), costing $0.115 per GB.

General Purpose (gp2) Storage Pricing

General Purpose (gp3) Storage

Provisioned IOPS Storage

For high-performing applications, Provisioned IOPS (input/output operations per second) storage is recommended. This storage type provides fast responses and consistent throughput, albeit at a higher cost. The cost for this type of storage involves both storage capacity and IOPS, leading to costs for 50 GB storage and 1,000 IOPS at $6.25 (for storage) and $100.00 (for IOPS).

Understanding these factors – data transfer and cloud storage – is crucial to effectively estimate and manage your AWS RDS costs. Stay tuned as we dive into the specifics of AWS RDS instance pricing in the next section.

AWS RDS Database Engines Pricing

Amazon RDS for MySQL Pricing

MySQL is an open-source relational database management system known for its speed and reliability. AWS RDS makes it easy to set up, operate, and scale MySQL deployments in the cloud. With Amazon RDS, you can deploy multiple editions of MySQL in minutes with cost-efficient and resizable hardware capacity. They offer a range of instances tailored to fit your needs for both compute capacity and storage.

Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL Pricing

PostgreSQL is a powerful, open-source object-relational database system with an emphasis on extensibility and standards compliance. Amazon RDS makes it easy to use PostgreSQL, providing the performance you need with the convenience of AWS. It manages time-consuming database administration tasks, freeing you to focus on your applications and business.

Amazon RDS for Oracle Pricing

Amazon RDS for Oracle makes it easy to set up, operate, and scale Oracle Database deployments in the cloud. It provides cost-efficient and resizable capacity while automating time-consuming administration tasks such as hardware provisioning, database setup, patching, and backups. It frees you to focus on your applications so you can give them the fast performance, high availability, security, and compatibility they need.

Amazon RDS for SQL Server Pricing

Amazon RDS for SQL Server makes it easy to set up, operate, and scale SQL Server deployments in the cloud. With Amazon RDS, you can deploy multiple editions of SQL Server in minutes with cost-efficient and resizable capacity. Amazon RDS frees you to focus on application development by managing time-consuming database administration tasks including backups, software patching, monitoring, scaling, and replication.

AWS RDS Instances Type and Pricing

AWS RDS supports various database instance types. A comprehensive summary of the various database instances and its pricing are given below:

Amazon RDS Free Tier

The Amazon RDS Free Tier is designed to help new AWS customers get started with a managed database service in the cloud for free. You can use this service to develop new applications, test existing applications, or gain hands-on experience with Amazon RDS.

This offering includes:

• 750 hours of Amazon RDS Single-AZ db.t2.micro, db.t3.micro, and db.t4g.micro Instance usage running MySQL, MariaDB, and PostgreSQL databases each month.
• 750 hours of Amazon RDS Single-AZ db.t2.micro Instance usage running SQL Server (running SQL Server Express Edition) each month.
• 20 GB of General Purpose (SSD) DB Storage
• 20 GB of backup storage for your automated database backups and any user-initiated DB Snapshots.

Note that backup storage is free up to 20 GB or the size of your DB storage, whichever is less. If you exceed these limits, or if you terminate all DB instances in your account, backup storage will be charged at standard RDS rates.

The AWS Free Tier is available to you for 12 months starting with the date on which you create your AWS account. When your free usage expires or if your application use exceeds the free usage tiers, you simply pay standard, pay-as-you-go service rates.

Amazon RDS On-Demand DB Instances

Amazon RDS on-demand DB instances are billed based on the class of the DB instance. Billing starts as soon as the DB instance is available and is calculated down to the second, with a minimum of 10 minutes for billable configuration changes. Billing continues until the DB instance terminates, which occurs when you delete the DB instance or if the DB instance fails. If you wish to stop billing for your DB instance, you must stop or delete it to avoid being billed for additional DB instance hours.

Amazon RDS Reserved DB Instances

Reserved DB instances allow you to reserve a DB instance for a one- or three-year term, and in turn, you get a significant discount compared to on-demand DB instance pricing. These are not physical instances, but rather a billing discount applied to the use of certain on-demand DB instances in your account.

When you purchase a reserved DB instance, you commit to getting a discounted rate on a specific DB instance type for the duration of the reservation. The DB instance you create must match the specifications of the reserved DB instance to be billed at the discounted rate; otherwise, it is billed at an on-demand rate. You can modify a DB instance using a reserved DB instance, and if the modification is within the specifications, part or all of the discount still applies.

Amazon RDS Reserved Instances provide three payment options: No Upfront, Partial Upfront, All Upfront, allowing you to balance the amount you pay upfront with your effective hourly price.

Please note that Reserved Instance prices do not cover storage or I/O costs. For more information on features, payment options, and rules, you can visit the AWS Reserved Instances page.

Reserved VS On-Demand Instance Pricing Comparison

1-Year Pricing Summary

Please note that these prices are estimated based on the data provided, AWS prices may vary based on region, instance type, and other factors. For the most accurate pricing, always refer to the AWS Price List API or AWS Pricing Calculator.