Effective Cost

The extended metric Effective Cost aligns with the FOCUS Effective Cost concept. The metric shows what AWS usage actually cost after Reserved Instance (RI) and Savings Plan (SP) commitments are applied.

• Commitment fees are spread across the hours they cover instead of appearing as a single cash charge.

• PartnerOps calculates Effective Cost after contract pricing; price books and custom line items are already included.

• Values are populated for end-customer (Tier 3) AWS billing after the billing pipeline processes the period. PartnerOps refreshes aggregated datasets throughout the day. If a report does not yet show Effective Cost, wait for the next refresh or run data recalculation.

Note

The Effective Cost metric, which applies to PartnerOps billing, differs from the Cloud Intelligence Amortized cost metrics that apply to Cloud Intelligence plans.

Effective Cost and Billed Cost

AWS commitments are pricing models that lower your cloud costs in exchange for a 1-year or 3-year term, with three payment options: All Upfront, Partial Upfront, and No Upfront.

When you purchase a commitment:

• The used portion of the commitment is attributed to the usage it covered.

• The unused portion stays with the commitment fee (RIFee and SavingsPlanRecurringFee).

You can use the Charge Category dimension to separate unused commitment (waste) from covered usage in Cloud Analytics reports.

Over the life of a commitment, Effective Cost adds up to Billed Cost. This applies to RI and SP cash versus amortization, not to Tier-1 CustomCharge splits. In a single month they can differ by the amortized upfront: cash paid once is recognized across the months it covers.

• That difference is expected for Partial Upfront and All Upfront commitments, especially when the purchase was in an earlier month.

• For No Upfront commitments, monthly Effective Cost and Billed Cost usually match.

• Tier-1 percentage charge splits are not folded into usage, so the total Effective Cost of a report can be lower than the total Billed Cost by that amount.

Charge categories

Charge category	Effective Cost
Usage	Billed Cost with any surviving program discounts (for example, SPP) applied on the usage row, plus Tier 3 CustomCharge adjustments if applicable. The adjustment is added after EDP/SPP and not affected by those discount rates.
DiscountedUsage	Hour's share of the RI commitment, including amortized upfront, plus Tier 3 CustomCharge adjustments if applicable.
RIFee	The unused portion of that hour's RI commitment. Fully used hours are 0. Any Tier 3 CustomCharge split is scaled across the RI family with the commitment, not stacked on every hourly clone.
SavingsPlanCoveredUsage	Hour's share of the Savings Plan commitment, including amortized upfront, plus Tier 3 CustomCharge adjustments if applicable.
SavingsPlanRecurringFee	The unused portion of that hour's Savings Plan commitment, plus Tier 3 CustomCharge adjustments if applicable.
SavingsPlanNegation	Always 0. Negation rows only cancel On-Demand cash on covered usage.
SavingsPlanUpfrontFee	Always 0. The purchase is already amortized onto covered usage.
Fee (RI purchase, for example Heavy Usage or Exchange)	Always 0. The purchase is already amortized onto covered usage.
Fee (Marketplace, Professional Services, and other non-RI fees)	Same as Billed Cost.
EdpDiscount, SppDiscount	Always 0. The discount is applied on the related usage instead.
CustomCharge (generated split)	Always 0. For Tier-3 contracts with custom line items or price book rules stored as separate items, the Effective Cost stays with the source row instead. Tier-1 percentage charge splits are also 0, but are not folded into the source row.
CustomCharge (standalone fixed charge)	Same as Billed Cost.
FlatRateSubscription, Credit, Refund, Tax, and other charge categories	Same as Billed Cost.

Reserved Instances

AWS bills RI recurring fees once per month, usually on the first day. PartnerOps splits that monthly RIFee into hourly rows to show unused commitment on hours with no covered usage. Tier 3 CustomCharge on the monthly fee is taken from the original row and scaled across those hours.

• Covered usage (DiscountedUsage): Billed Cost is typically 0 because the RI already paid. Effective Cost is that hour's share of the commitment.

• Fully used hour (RIFee): Billed Cost shows the hourly cash charge. Effective Cost is 0 because that value sits on the usage it paid for.

• Idle hour (RIFee): Effective Cost is the unused commitment for that hour.

Most unused RI commitment occurs in hours with no DiscountedUsage row.

Savings Plans

Savings Plan recurring fees are charged per hour.

• Covered usage: Effective Cost is the share of the plan that paid for that usage, not the On-Demand amount and not zero.

• Negation rows: Effective Cost is 0.

• Recurring fee: Effective Cost is the unused portion of that hour's commitment. Hours with no covered usage already have a fee row and carry the unused amount.

Example

Charge category	Billed Cost	Effective Cost
RIFee, fully used hour	Hourly slice of the monthly fee	0. The commitment paid for usage; the value is on DiscountedUsage.
RIFee, idle hour	Hourly slice of the monthly fee	Unused commitment (waste) for that hour.
DiscountedUsage	0	Share of the RI commitment. What the covered instance actually cost that hour.
SavingsPlanCoveredUsage	On-Demand amount	Share of the Savings Plan commitment.
SavingsPlanNegation	Negative On-Demand offset	0. Cash offset only; no resource behind the row.
Usage	Billed amount	Billed Cost plus any Tier 3 CustomCharge on that source row.
CustomCharge (generated split)	Split amount (for example $10)	0. For Tier 3, the $10 sits on the source row instead.

See also

• Metrics and dimensions

• Examples