Amazon WorkSpaces Core Pricing

WorkSpaces Core allows you to pay for usage based on monthly subscriptions or hourly meters. With the monthly subscription offering, you pay a fixed monthly fee per virtual desktop for unlimited usage during the month. Unlimited usage pricing is ideal for workers who use the service as their primary desktop.

With the hourly metering option, you pay a small, fixed monthly fee per virtual desktop to cover infrastructure and storage cost, and a low flat rate for each hour of usage during the month. Hourly metering is better suited for workers who only require part-time access to their virtual desktop.

You can mix the monthly subscription and hourly metering options within your AWS account, and you can switch between options at any time within a billing period.

In addition to the costs for WorkSpaces Core, you can purchase third-party VDI management software licensing separately if you require licenses plus any additional OS or software you want to run on the virtual desktop.

WorkSpaces Core pricing components are the same as WorkSpaces with monthly subscription and hourly metering options. However, because WorkSpaces Core provides VDI hardware only, it is offered at a lower cost than the all-inclusive WorkSpaces. Customers can bring their own supported VDI management software license or purchase one from AWS Marketplace.

WorkSpaces Core APIs require integration from third-party VDI management solution providers. We are currently working with numerous VDI solution providers to implement the WorkSpaces Core APIs. Please check with your AWS account representative or contact us for availability and pricing for these integrated solutions.

* Must be eligible for License Portability for BYOL and have a WorkSpaces Core partner. For more information about these, visit this page.

Using the US West (Oregon) Region, you launch virtual desktops for two sets of users. The first group of 100 users requires the monthly subscription option because they will use WorkSpaces as their full-time desktop for general productivity, while the second group of 10 users is better suited to hourly metering as they require occasional access to higher-performance machines.

For the first group of 100 users you select the Value Bundle with 1vCPU, 2 GB memory, 80 GB root volume and 10 GB user volume, running on Windows with a fixed price of $16.80 per virtual desktop per month. With the monthly subscription, users have unlimited access to their virtual desktops. Monthly spend for this group of users is 100 users x $16.80 per virtual desktop for a total of $1,680 per month.

For the second group of 10 part-time users you select a Power Bundle with 4 vCPU, 16 GB memory, 80 GB root volume, 10 GB user volume, and hourly metering. With hourly metering, this virtual desktop has a fixed price of $5.80 per month + $0.51 per hour. Let’s assume each of the 10 users spends 5 hours a week on their virtual desktop (20 hours a month). Monthly spend for this group is calculated as follows:

10 users x $5.80 access cost = $58

200 hours of usage x $0.51= $102

$58 access cost + $102 usage cost = $160 total bill

For more pricing/billing details on Amazon WorkSpaces Core, please access the pricing section of our FAQ.