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6At every AWS re:Invent, the cloud giant announces a host of new services and features, from AI/ML tools to new compute and storage options. While many of these updates generate excitement, some stand out for their immediate impact on cloud cost management and operational efficiency. One such much-awaited update at re:Invent 2025 was the AWS Database Savings Plans.
For businesses running workloads across Aurora, RDS, DynamoDB, DocumentDB, Neptune, and other AWS-managed databases, this plan promises a simpler, more flexible way to reduce costs while maintaining the freedom to adjust workloads as your needs evolve. It’s one of the most welcome announcements for teams looking to optimize database spend without getting locked into rigid AWS Reserved Instances or struggling with complex billing.
If you’ve been managing multiple database engines, planning migrations, or modernizing your stack, Database Savings Plans are designed to make life easier and budgets more predictable.
What are AWS database savings plans?
AWS Database Savings Plans are essentially a flexible commitment to spend a fixed amount per hour over a 1-year term. In return, AWS gives you discounted rates on your eligible database usage. The savings can be up to 35%, especially for serverless offerings, with modest but still useful discounts on provisioned instances.
Unlike AWS Reserved Instances, which tie you to a specific engine, instance type, region, or size, AWS Database Savings Plans apply across eligible services and automatically cover usage that falls under your commitment. That means you can:
- Switch between instance families (for example, Aurora db.r7g to db.r8g)
- Modernize from Amazon RDS for Oracle to Aurora PostgreSQL or DynamoDB
- Move workloads between AWS regions (say EU (Ireland) to US (Ohio))
All without losing your discount. Any usage beyond your committed spend is billed at on-demand rates, so you only pay full price when you exceed the commitment.
Which services are covered under AWS Database Savings Plans?
Database Savings Plans cover a broad range of database services, including:
- Amazon Aurora (including Serverless v2)
- Amazon RDS (all supported engines)
- Amazon DynamoDB (on-demand and provisioned)
- Amazon ElastiCache for Valkey instances and serverless
- Amazon DocumentDB (including serverless)
- Amazon Neptune (including serverless)
- Amazon Keyspaces
- Amazon Timestream
- AWS Database Migration Service (DMS)
Previously, each of these services either had its own reservation options or none at all. Now, a single commitment instrument can cover a lot of your database usage, making management simpler.
How do the savings work in AWS Database Savings Plans?
The headline “up to 35% savings” usually applies to serverless deployments, such as Aurora Serverless v2, DocumentDB Serverless, Neptune Serverless, and ElastiCache Serverless.
For provisioned instances, discounts are generally lower:
- Aurora, RDS, DocumentDB, Neptune → around 20%
- DynamoDB and Keyspaces on-demand throughput → up to 18%
- DynamoDB and Keyspaces provisioned capacity → up to 12%
So while the maximum figure makes for a nice headline, for many traditional workloads, the savings are modest but consistent and predictable.
Why are AWS Database Savings Plans a welcome feature?
AWS customers have been asking for flexible, cross-service cost-saving options. AWS Database Savings Plans bring several improvements:
- Broader coverage: one plan for multiple database types
- Flexibility: spend-based commitment rather than instance-based
- Support for serverless: discounted rates even for variable workloads
- Regional mobility: shift workloads between AWS regions without losing your discount
- Migration-friendly: switch engines or instance families as part of modernization efforts
For businesses running AI, analytics, or multi-cloud workloads, this flexibility is very helpful.
How to purchase and monitor AWS Database Savings Plans?
AWS provides multiple ways to evaluate and purchase Database Savings Plans:
Savings Plans Recommendations – generates suggestions based on your recent usage. It calculates the hourly commitment that would maximize savings.
Purchase Analyzer – lets you model different commitment levels, see coverage, utilization, and cost impact before you buy.
You can complete purchases via the AWS Management Console, CLI, or API. After purchasing, coverage and utilization reports in the AWS Billing and Cost Management console help you monitor whether your commitment is being fully used, and any under- or over-utilization can be addressed proactively.
What are the benefits of AWS Database Savings Plans?
- Fungibility across engines and regions – your $/hour commitment automatically applies to eligible usage, whether it’s Aurora, DynamoDB, or DocumentDB. You don’t need to buy multiple RIs to cover changes.
- Covers serverless and instance-based databases – flexibility to run workloads in whichever deployment type suits your application, while still enjoying cost benefits.
- Predictable cost for spiky workloads – even on-demand DynamoDB workloads can now benefit from a committed spend, bringing more predictable budgeting to variable usage patterns.
- Simplifies modernization – switching engines or instance families no longer requires separate reservations or planning for new RIs.
In short, it brings simplicity, predictability, and cross-service coverage, which was much needed in the AWS ecosystem.
Do AWS Database Savings Plans support older database generations?
While Database Savings Plans sound like a neat, flexible way to save on RDS, Aurora, and ElastiCache, there’s a big practical limitation that customers notice almost immediately - they don’t cover most of the instance types that people are actually running today.
RDS & Aurora
The plan only applies to the latest-generation instance families, starting from the M7 and R7 series. If you’re on db.m7 or db.r7, great - you can enjoy the savings. But the reality is different for most teams. A large share of production workloads still run on earlier generations like m5, r5, r6g, and even the popular burstable families t3 and t4g. None of these qualify for the Database Savings Plan.
So unless you modernise to the newer families, you’re basically back to the old playbook: Reserved Instances or on-demand pricing. In other words, the savings kick in only if you’re already modern, or willing to migrate.
ElastiCache
There’s a similar story here. The Savings Plan only covers Valkey, the Redis-compatible OSS engine. If your workloads use the standard Redis or Memcached, you can’t apply Database Savings Plans at all - your only option is Reserved Nodes. Given Redis’ massive adoption, this feels like a big gap for many teams.
What are the other limitations of Database Savings Plans?
- Discounts aren’t always higher than AWS RIs – provisioned workloads often get lower discounts than traditional AWS Reserved Instances.
- Commitment term limitations – currently only 1-year, no-upfront options are available. This keeps things simple but limits discount depth compared to 3-year RIs.
- More moving parts – if you operate older RDS instances alongside modern Aurora clusters, you may still need RIs for older workloads and AWS Database Savings Plans for newer ones. This adds some complexity to cost management.
Basically, AWS Database Savings Plans are a powerful tool, but not a silver bullet. They work best for recent generation instances, serverless workloads, and workloads that can flexibly adopt supported engines.
Practical takeaways on AWS Database Savings Plans
- Use AWS Database Savings Plans for modern workloads and serverless databases.
- Combine with AWS RIs for legacy workloads if you have older instances that aren’t eligible.
- Start with the AWS recommendations or Purchase Analyzer to pick the right commitment level.
- Monitor coverage and utilization regularly to avoid overspending or underusing the commitment.
- Plan migration and modernization paths around eligible instance families and serverless services.
For businesses looking to manage costs while maintaining operational flexibility, this hybrid approach will likely be standard for the next few years.
Conclusion
AWS Database Savings Plans are one of the most useful announcements from re:Invent 2025. They combine flexibility, cross-service coverage, and predictable savings, making it easier to manage modern database workloads, optimize costs, and plan migrations.
They are especially valuable for teams running Aurora, serverless databases, and DynamoDB/Keyspaces workloads, but they are not a blanket replacement for all AWS Reserved Instances. The best approach for most organizations will be a hybrid strategy: RIs for legacy workloads, AWS Database Savings Plans for modernized and serverless deployments, and a clear roadmap for modernization to maximize cost efficiency.
If you’ve been juggling multiple database engines, planning migrations, or experimenting with serverless workloads, Database Savings Plans offer a welcome, flexible tool to make cloud cost management simpler and more predictable.
To explore more key announcements and insights, make sure to check out our latest blog on AWS re:Invent 2025 updates.
