Launch: Savings Plans Recommendations for Member (Linked) Accounts

AWS now generates Savings Plans recommendations for member (linked) accounts, adding to existing support for organization level Savings Plans recommendations.

Savings Plans is a flexible pricing model that provides savings of up to 72% on AWS compute services in exchange for customers’ commitment to a consistent amount of compute usage (e.g. $10/hour) for 1 or 3 year term. This pricing model offers lower prices on AWS compute usage (AWS EC2, AWS Fargate, and AWS Lambda), regardless of instance family, size, OS, tenancy, or AWS region.

Previously, customers could receive Savings Plans recommendations based on the historic usage at the master (payer) account level only.  This launch gives customers easy access to Savings Plans recommendations at the member (linked) account level, in addition to existing recommendations at the master (payer) account level.  With this release, customers can identify and maximize savings for each member (linked) account, according to business needs.

Viewing the Savings Plans Member (Linked) Account Recommendations

You can find member (linked) account recommendations within the existing Savings Plans recommendation UI. In the left navigation pane, under “Savings Plans,” choose “Recommendations.”

At the center of the page are tabs with your purchase recommendations and potential savings estimates. The “All Accounts” tab enables you to see the recommendations based on the combined usage across your entire organization, and the “Linked Accounts” tab enables you to see recommendations that Cost Explorer has generated on a per member (linked) account basis.

You may also access recommendations via the Cost Explorer API.

Owners of member (linked) accounts need permissions to access Cost Explorer and view permissions to their Savings Plans recommendations. For more information, see Viewing Your Savings Plans Recommendations

Filtering Your Member (Linked) Account Recommendations

To filter the recommendations to view only those associated with one or multiple member (linked) accounts, a customer can navigate to the “Linked Accounts” filter at top of the page and make a selection, which will update the recommendations below.

How Do Recommendations Work?

Your Savings Plans recommendations are calculated at the member (linked) account level, similar to how we calculate recommendations at the master (payer) account level. We look at your historical usage (over the past 7, 30 or 60 days, based on your selection) that’s not covered by your existing RIs and simulate your bill for various levels of Savings Plans commitment. The recommendation engine also takes your billing sharing settings in the Billing Console into account (for both RIs and Savings Plans) when simulating your bill at various SP commitment amounts.

We calculate what your bill could have been if you purchased an additional Savings Plan commitment for that time period and show you what your savings could be.

Sharing Your Cost Optimization Insights with Others

From the Savings Plans recommendations UI, you can download a Savings Plans recommendation report for your organization at a master (payer) account level, all member (linked) accounts under the master (payer) account, or one or several member (linked) accounts based on custom filter criteria selected by you. You can download the recommendation report in a CSV format.

These reports can improve transparency of cost savings across your organization and help foster a cost aware culture.

To learn more about how to leverage Savings Plans recommendations to reduce your costs, see the Savings Plans User Guide.