AWS Budgets Pricing Calculator & Complete Cost Guide
Interactive AWS Budgets pricing calculator. Understand action-enabled budgets, free tier limits, and budget report costs with detailed cost breakdowns.
Pricing TLDR
- • First 2 action-enabled budgets: FREE (permanent)
- • Additional action-enabled: ~$3.00/month ($0.10/day)
- • Budgets without actions: FREE (unlimited) • Reports: $0.01/report
AWS Budgets Pricing Calculator
Quick Examples:
Total number of budgets
0
200
Track spending across services, projects, or cost centers
Action-enabled budgets
0
5
Free Tier: Active
First 2 action-enabled budgets are free permanently. You're using 2 of 2 free budgets.
Budget report frequency
Budget reports cost $0.01 per report delivered via email
Estimated Monthly Cost
$0.00
You're using only free features!
About AWS Budgets
What is AWS Budgets?
AWS Budgets is a cost management tool that helps you set custom cost and usage budgets and receive alerts when you exceed or are forecasted to exceed your thresholds. It's designed to help you stay within your spending limits and avoid unexpected AWS bills.
- Cost Budgets: Track actual and forecasted costs against predefined thresholds with support for monthly, quarterly, or annual periods
- Usage Budgets: Monitor usage metrics like EC2 hours, S3 storage, or data transfer to prevent service-level overages
- Action-Enabled Budgets: Automatically apply IAM policies, stop EC2 instances, or deactivate resources when budgets are exceeded
- Email Notifications: Send alerts to stakeholders when actual or forecasted spending reaches defined percentages (50%, 80%, 100%)
- Budget Reports: Schedule automated email reports (daily, weekly, monthly) to track spending trends and budget performance
When to Use AWS Budgets
AWS Budgets is ideal for organizations that need proactive cost monitoring and automated spending controls. The generous free tier (2 action-enabled budgets + unlimited basic budgets) makes it accessible for teams of all sizes. Most small to mid-size teams can operate entirely within the free tier.
Ideal for
- Setting spending alerts for AWS accounts and preventing bill shock
- Tracking departmental or project-based spending with dedicated budgets
- Automating cost control actions when thresholds are exceeded
- Forecasting monthly costs based on current spending trends
- Managing Reserved Instance and Savings Plans utilization
- Small teams needing basic cost monitoring (free tier is sufficient)
Not ideal for
- Detailed cost analysis and optimization (use AWS Cost Explorer instead)
- Historical cost analysis beyond current period trends
- Real-time cost monitoring (budgets update 3 times daily)
- Organizations needing custom billing rates (use AWS Billing Conductor instead)
- Complex multi-account cost allocation and chargeback scenarios
AWS Budgets Pricing Breakdown
Free Tier (Permanent)
AWS Budgets offers one of the most generous permanent free tiers in AWS, making it accessible for organizations of all sizes to monitor spending without additional costs.
- 2 action-enabled budgets free permanently (not just 12 months)
- Unlimited budgets without actions at no cost forever
- Email notifications included for all free budgets
- Actual and forecasted cost tracking at no charge
- Access to all budget types (cost, usage, RI, Savings Plans)
- Web console access for budget management
- No expiration - free tier benefits never expire
Action-Enabled Budget Pricing
Action-enabled budgets allow you to automatically execute actions when spending exceeds thresholds. You pay a flat fee per budget regardless of how many actions you configure.
Budget Cost
$0.10 per day per budget (approximately $3.00/month or $36.50/year). This applies to each action-enabled budget beyond the first 2 free budgets.
Unlimited Actions Included
Configure as many actions as you need on each action-enabled budget at no additional cost. The $0.10/day fee covers unlimited action configurations and executions.
What's Included
Automatic IAM policy application, EC2 instance stop/termination, RDS instance stop, targeted resource actions, SNS notifications, and AWS Systems Manager automation - all included in the base price.
Important Note
You pay for budgets even if actions never trigger. The fee covers the monitoring and readiness to execute, not just actual execution. First 2 action-enabled budgets are completely free regardless of actions configured.
Budget Reports
Budget reports provide scheduled email summaries of your budget performance. They're billed separately from budgets themselves.
Pricing Structure
$0.01 per report delivered via email. This applies regardless of how many budgets are included in the report.
Cost Examples
Daily reports = ~$0.30/month (30 × $0.01), Weekly reports = ~$0.04/month (4 × $0.01), Monthly reports = $0.01/month (1 × $0.01), Bi-weekly = ~$0.02/month (2 × $0.01).
What's Included
Consolidated view of multiple budgets, actual vs budgeted spending comparison, forecasted spending projections, customizable email recipients, CSV attachments with detailed data.
Cost Optimization
One weekly report ($0.04/month) covering all budgets is usually more cost-effective than daily reports. Consider your team's review frequency.
Budget Types & Capabilities
AWS Budgets supports different budget types for various cost and usage monitoring scenarios.
Budget Type
Cost Budget
What It Tracks
Actual & forecasted spend
Best Use Case
Overall AWS account spending, service-specific costs, tag-based cost tracking
Budget Type
Usage Budget
What It Tracks
Service usage metrics
Best Use Case
EC2 running hours, S3 storage GB, data transfer limits, API calls
Budget Type
RI Utilization
What It Tracks
Reserved Instance usage
Best Use Case
Ensuring Reserved Instances are being used efficiently (minimum 80% target)
Budget Type
RI Coverage
What It Tracks
On-Demand vs RI ratio
Best Use Case
Tracking percentage of On-Demand usage covered by Reserved Instances
Budget Type
Savings Plans
What It Tracks
Commitment utilization
Best Use Case
Monitoring Savings Plans utilization and coverage percentages
Hidden Costs & Considerations
Important factors to consider when using AWS Budgets to avoid unexpected charges.
- Daily Billing Granularity: Budget costs are calculated daily at $0.10/day. Even if you delete a budget mid-month, you'll be charged for the days it was active.
- Budget Fees Regardless of Execution: You pay $0.10/day for action-enabled budgets even if actions never trigger. The fee covers monitoring readiness, not just execution.
- Budget Update Lag: Budgets update 3 times daily, not in real-time. This means there's a potential 8-hour lag between actual spending and budget alerts.
- Report Delivery Costs: Budget reports cost $0.01 each time they're delivered. Daily reports for a single budget cost more annually ($3.60) than a single action-enabled budget ($36.50).
- No Partial Day Refunds: If you create and delete an action-enabled budget on the same day, you still pay $0.10 for that day. Plan budget creation carefully.
Regional Pricing
AWS Budgets uses global uniform pricing with no regional variations.
Global Uniform Pricing
No regional price differences. The $0.10/day pricing for action-enabled budgets and $0.01 per report applies identically worldwide.
Centralized Service
AWS Budgets is a global service managed centrally, not deployed per-region. You access it from any region with identical pricing.
Simplified Budgeting
No need to account for regional variations or maintain separate pricing models for different geographies.
Multi-Region Support
A single budget can track spending across all AWS regions simultaneously at no additional cost.
Real-World AWS Budgets Pricing Examples
Startup (Free Tier)
$0/month
• 2 action-enabled budgets (unlimited actions)
• 5 budgets without actions
• Email alerts only
Basic cost monitoring for a growing startup
Small Development Team
$9.04/month
• 10 total budgets (5 action-enabled)
• Weekly budget reports ($0.04)
• 3 billable budgets × $3.00
Multi-project tracking with automation
Large Enterprise
$54.30/month
• 50 budgets (20 action-enabled)
• Daily reports ($0.30)
• 18 billable budgets × $3.00
Comprehensive department-level tracking
11 AWS Budgets Cost Optimization Tips
Maximize the free tier
Use 2 action-enabled budgets for critical accounts and unlimited free budgets without actions for everything else. Most teams can operate entirely free.
Use budgets without actions for basic monitoring
If you only need email alerts (not automated actions), create budgets without actions - they're completely free with no limits.
Consolidate budget reports
One weekly report ($0.04/month) covering all budgets is more cost-effective than daily reports ($0.30/month). Adjust frequency based on review cadence.
Maximize free tier action-enabled budgets
Your first 2 action-enabled budgets are completely free with unlimited actions. Use these for your most critical monitoring needs before creating additional paid budgets.
Set realistic thresholds
Configure budget alerts at 50%, 80%, and 100% thresholds to get early warnings before spending exceeds limits.
Use forecasted budgets
Enable forecasting to receive alerts before you exceed budgets, giving you time to adjust spending proactively.
Leverage tag-based budgets
Create budgets filtered by cost allocation tags to track spending by project, department, or environment without additional costs.
Review and clean up unused budgets
Action-enabled budgets cost $0.10/day even if unused. Delete budgets you no longer need to avoid wasting $36.50/year per budget.
Combine with AWS Cost Anomaly Detection
Use free Cost Anomaly Detection for real-time alerts and AWS Budgets for threshold-based monitoring - best of both worlds.
Start simple, scale as needed
Begin with free budgets for basic alerts. Only add action-enabled budgets and reports when automation justifies the cost.
Track Budget Service Costs with CostGoat
Monitor AWS Budgets service charges in real-time. Get alerts when action-enabled budgets exceed your free tier or when daily report costs accumulate unexpectedly - catch budget sprawl before it becomes expensive.
Monitor Your AWS Costs in Real-Time
CostGoat is a privacy-first desktop app that tracks your actual AWS spending as you use it. Get instant visibility into your usage and never get surprised by your cloud bills again. 7-day free trial, then $9/month.
Start Free TrialAWS Budgets Pricing FAQ
Common questions about AWS Budgets costs, free tier, and pricing models
