Optimize and execute commitment plans

PerfectScale for Commitments analyzes your cloud usage and generates updated purchase recommendations throughout the month. Instead of one large purchase, PerfectScale for Commitments builds a commitment ladder, a sequence of incremental purchases spread over time. This approach maximizes savings while reducing the risk of over-commitment.

This page describes how to select your recommendation strategy, choose how purchases run, and work with purchase plans.

Before you begin

• To explore commitment targets before onboarding, use Commitment Simulator. It requires Cloud Intelligence connectivity, but no PerfectScale for the Commitments contract. See also how the two tools differ.

• After onboarding:

  • First-time Recommendation data typically appears within 90 minutes on AWS and within a few hours on Google Cloud. Until then, those tabs may show empty or loading states.

  • Once data is available, recommendations and purchase plans refresh automatically as usage, portfolio, and pricing signals change.

Required permissions

• To view recommendations, planned purchases, and settings: PerfectScale Commitments Read Only or PerfectScale Commitments Admin permission.

• To change settings, policy, or purchase state: PerfectScale Commitments Admin permission.

Review current savings

The Recommendation tab compares your active commitments to PerfectScale's recommended commitments. Recommendations reflect your inventory, expired commitments, planned purchases, settings, and cloud provider data.

The Auto-updated indicator in the page header shows when the recalculation was last run. Hover over it for the usage, portfolio, and pricing signals behind the update.

If your account has multiple commitment types enabled, use the tabs at the top of the page to view recommendations for a specific commitment type.

• Recommended Commitment ($/hour): The target hourly commitment. The sum of the current commitment plus the additional hourly amount that PerfectScale recommends purchasing. When additional commitment is needed, the card also shows Additional commitment required with the delta in $/h.

• Current Commitment ($/hour): Sum of active hourly commitment rates for the selected payer or billing account and commitment type.

• Potential Additional Savings ($/month): Estimated monthly savings from reaching the recommended commitment. Based on your commitment policy, term, and prepayment settings. When no additional savings are available, this card displays an Optimized indicator instead of a dollar amount. This status is evaluated per commitment type tab, so one commitment type may show as optimized while another still has potential savings.

If your account uses Flexsave for Compute, select Include Flexsave to add Flexsave commitments to Current Commitment and the chart. Recommended Commitment, laddering, and auto-purchase always exclude Flexsave commitments.

Recommended Commitment and Eligible Usage chart

This chart plots eligible usage against your commitment levels. Eligible usage is on-demand spend on commitment-eligible services from your billing data, before commitment discounts. Commitment series uses post-discount $/h. Hover the info icon next to the chart title for pricing details.

• Hourly Eligible Usage Range ($/h) and Hourly Median Eligible Usage ($/h): Minimum, maximum, and median eligible usage when Duration is Day, Week, or Month.

• Hourly Eligible Usage ($/h): Eligible usage at hourly granularity when Duration is Hour. Replaces the Hourly Eligible Usage Range ($/h) and Hourly Median Eligible Usage ($/h) series.

• Current Commitment: Flat line matching the Current Commitment metric card.

• Recommended Commitment: Dashed line matching the Recommended Commitment metric card. Updates when you change the commitment policy or use Preview Mode.

• Est. Equivalent Recommended Commitment: Dashed on-demand $/h equivalent of the recommendation for comparison with eligible usage. Derived from the median hourly eligible usage over the trailing 60 days, multiplied by the estimated average coverage percentage. Because it uses a 60-day median, the line is a constant flat value and does not change when you switch chart granularity. Hidden when there is no eligible usage in the trailing window. Updates with policy changes and Preview Mode.

Use the Duration dropdown for Hour, Day, Week, or Month views. Each option changes the time bucket size and how much historical eligible usage the chart includes. For example, the last 24 hours at hourly granularity, the last 21 days by day, the last 16 weeks by week, or the last 6 months by month.

Customize in the chart toolbar toggles series visibility. Hover the chart for exact $/h values at any point in time.

Commitment policy

The Commitment policy dropdown lets you simulate how a different risk profile would affect the recommendation.

• Conservative (Low risk): Commits only to your most stable usage, reducing the risk of underutilization. Reaches the target commitment more gradually.

• Balanced (Recommended): Balances savings with a healthy buffer to absorb usage dips. Suitable for most workloads.

• Max Savings: Targets higher coverage faster with the highest savings potential, but uses a smaller buffer that may increase underutilization risk if your usage decreases.

Selecting a different policy puts the page into Preview Mode. The metric cards and chart update immediately to reflect the new policy.

To review the full impact and apply the change, select Review Changes. This opens the confirmation dialog.

The dialog compares your current and proposed settings side by side: commitment policy, prepayment option (AWS only), commitment period, and purchase ladder. If the proposed ladder is still calculating, the new-policy column shows Calculating scheduled purchases instead of steps.

Select Confirm to apply the change.

• In Requires Approval mode, if the updated purchase amount is higher than the previously approved amount, go to Planned Purchases and select Approve Target Commitment to re-approve the higher target.

• In Autonomous Execution mode, PerfectScale continues purchasing toward the new target within your guardrails without requiring re-approval.

Understand laddering

Laddering is a risk-mitigation strategy where commitments are purchased in smaller, staggered chunks with different start and end dates, rather than one large lump sum. This creates a "ladder" of overlapping commitments.

Key principles of laddering commitments:

• Smaller commitments do not lock you into a massive spend if your workload decreases.

• Commitments expire gradually and avoid "renewal shock" where a large portion of your coverage drops overnight.

• Each step of the ladder is an opportunity to re-evaluate your usage and optimize the next purchase.

Before every purchase step, the system re-evaluates your current usage. If a dip is detected, it will naturally pause or reduce the size of the next purchase to prevent locking you into unneeded commitments. When eligible spend drops significantly week over week, PerfectScale places the next purchase on hold to avoid over-committing. Once usage stabilizes, the laddering plan is re-evaluated and purchasing resumes automatically.

Planned Purchases

The Planned Purchases tab shows the commitment ladder that PerfectScale has generated based on your current commitment policy. The page header shows an Auto-updated indicator when the purchase ladder is refreshed automatically.

Summary at the top shows Recommended Commitment and Current Commitment ($/h). A ladder chart visualizes each scheduled step; hover over a bar to see the cumulative commitment at that point.

The chart highlights the No Purchase Window; the shaded period at the end of each month when new purchases are not scheduled, based on your Latest monthly purchase date in Settings. When a Commitment ceiling is configured, a dashed Commitment ceiling reference line appears on the chart at that $/h value. If the ceiling constrains the laddering plan, the chart tooltip includes a note explaining the cap.

When a week-over-week drop in eligible spend triggers a purchasing hold, the chart also shows a gray Purchasing on hold band with dashed boundaries, marking the held planning cycle. This band is visually distinct from the amber No Purchase Window band. A Purchasing on hold chip appears next to the commitment type icon in the chart header. Hover over the chip to see the previous and current weekly eligible spend and the next evaluation date.

• Purchase Steps ($/h): The commitment amount added at each step.

• Commitment Term: 1 Year or 3 Years.

• Max Single Purchase (% of total): The ceiling on how large any single step can be.

• Prepayment Option (AWS only): No Upfront spreads the full cost across monthly payments with no money due at purchase. Partial Upfront requires at least half the total cost upfront and bills the rest monthly, in exchange for a lower rate. All Upfront charges the entire amount at purchase and offers the deepest discount. For more information, see AWS Savings Plans FAQ.

  Google Cloud CUDs do not have a prepayment option; they are always billed monthly (equivalent to No Upfront), so the Payment Option column and Prepayment Option setting do not appear for Google Cloud accounts.

• Recommended Commitment ($/h): The target commitment the ladder is building toward.

• Commitment ceiling ($/h): The configured maximum commitment value, or No Limit if no ceiling is set. This corresponds to the Commitment ceiling field in Settings.

• Total Laddering Cost ($/h): The cumulative commitment cost once all steps are complete.

The Scheduled purchases table below the chart lists every step with its purchase date, commitment type, commitment amount, days until purchase, current status, and potential monthly savings.

When a week-over-week spend drop triggers a purchasing hold, the first scheduled step displays a Purchasing on hold status chip. Hover over the info icon on the chip to see the spend values that triggered the hold and the next evaluation date. If you manually pause purchases, the paused status takes precedence over the automatic hold.

Google Cloud read-only access

If your Google Cloud organization's Cloud Connect connection has only read access, a banner on this tab states that CUD purchasing is disabled, and the Approve Target Commitment and Manage actions stay disabled until you grant write access in Cloud Connect.

Your next step depends on your Commitment Execution settings.

Requires Approval

When you approve purchases, you allow PerfectScale to buy commitments one step at a time, following the laddering plan, up to the ladder's ending hourly total (Total Laddering Cost, $/h) at the time of approval. The next purchase runs automatically only if it keeps your cumulative hourly commitment within that approved total. If the next purchase would push you above this amount, that step waits until you approve the higher cost.

To approve purchases:

1. Look for the orange dot on the commitment type tab or Planned Purchases in the sidebar. This indicates a new plan is waiting for your approval.

2. At the top of the Planned Purchases tab, select Approve Target Commitment $X/h to open the approval dialog. The amount is the recommended target commitment rate.

3. Review the Approve target commitment dialog, which summarizes what you are approving. When you have multiple commitment types enabled, the dialog shows a row for each type with an aggregated total:

   • Total Recommended Commitment (you are approving this rate): The target hourly commitment ($/h) the ladder is building toward. If you previously approved a lower rate, the dialog also shows Previously approved.

   • Current Commitment (Inventory): Your existing active commitment at the time of approval.

   • Purchase Steps: The number of individual purchases that will be scheduled.

   • Potential Savings (may change): Estimated monthly savings once the ladder is complete.

   A commitment breakdown bar visualizes the proportion of your current inventory versus new purchases for each commitment type.

4. Select Approve Target Commitment $X/h to confirm. The status updates to green and the orange dot disappears.

Note

After approval, scheduled purchases execute automatically on their dates. You can pause at any time. On AWS, when a commitment plan expires, coverage can be renewed through laddering based on your Recommended Commitment at that time.

Autonomous Execution

In Autonomous Execution mode, PerfectScale sets commitment targets and purchases ladder steps automatically based on your commitment policy and eligible usage. You do not approve each target.

Use Planned Purchases to monitor the ladder and scheduled steps, confirm that your guardrails still match your risk tolerance, or pause purchases when you need to stop new commitments temporarily.

Purchases remain binding once completed. Switch back to Requires Approval in Commitment Execution if you want PerfectScale to wait for approval before future purchases.

Notifications

PerfectScale for Commitments notifications are enabled by default. You receive a notification each time PerfectScale completes a commitment purchase. As each scheduled step is its own purchase, you receive one notification per ladder step.

In Requires Approval mode, you are also notified when purchases need approval. Approval notifications do not apply in Autonomous Execution mode. You can change these preferences in notification settings.

Pause and resume purchases

You can pause execution at any time in either automation mode, for example, due to an upcoming workload migration, or a decommission that will reduce eligible usage. Pausing prevents new commitments from being purchased while you review the situation.

Pause and resume apply at the cloud provider and commitment type (product) level for the account you are viewing (for example, AWS Compute or Database, or Google Cloud Compute Flexible CUD), not across every type at once. Confirm you are on the correct commitment type tab before pausing.

To pause, open Manage Purchases in the header of the Planned Purchases tab, then select Pause Purchases. In the dialog, optionally enter a note explaining the reason. The note is saved and visible in the scheduled purchases table. Select Pause to confirm. All remaining scheduled purchases for that type are stopped immediately.

To resume, open Manage Purchases and select Resume Purchases. PerfectScale continues from the next scheduled step for that type, executing remaining purchases on their original dates. In Requires Approval mode, purchasing continues within your previously approved target. In Autonomous Execution mode, purchasing continues toward the current recommended target within your guardrails.

Note

Purchasing on hold is separate from a manual pause. A hold is triggered automatically when eligible spend drops week over week and resolves on its own once usage stabilizes. A manual pause, set through Manage Purchases, stops all remaining purchases until you explicitly resume. If both conditions apply at the same time, the manual pause takes precedence.

Commitment settings

The Settings tab on an onboarded account lets you configure recommendation and automation preferences. When multiple commitment types are enabled, select the sub-tab for the commitment type you want to configure.

Note

To view onboarded accounts, set purchasing accounts, or add accounts, see Manage account settings.

Recommendation settings

These fields define the target and constraints for recommendations:

• Commitment policy: How aggressively PerfectScale reaches the recommended commitment. See Preview and apply commitment policy for the three risk profiles.

• Commitment ceiling ($/h): PerfectScale will not recommend commitments above this amount. Leave the field empty for No Limit. When set, this value appears as the Commitment ceiling in the Laddering Policy Summary and as a dashed reference line on the Planned Purchases chart.

• Prepayment option (AWS only): the payment structure for purchased Savings Plans: No Upfront, Partial Upfront, or All Upfront. See Approve purchases for explanations. On the Database tab, only No Upfront is available. Google Cloud CUDs are billed monthly and do not have a prepayment option, so this field is not shown for Google Cloud.

• Upfront percentage (%) (AWS Compute only): when Partial Upfront is selected, the share of the total cost paid upfront (50–99%). A higher upfront percentage lowers the hourly rate.

• Preferred commitment period: 1 Year or 3 Years. PerfectScale uses this as the default term when generating purchase recommendations. On the AWS Database tab, only 1 Year is available.

Commitment Execution

There are two automation modes:

• Requires Approval (default): PerfectScale for Commitments prepares commitment purchases automatically, then waits for your approval before execution.

• Autonomous Execution: PerfectScale sets commitment targets and purchases commitments automatically based on your commitment policy and eligible usage, without requiring approval. Your configured guardrails (commitment ceiling, minimum commitment purchase, and latest monthly purchase date) still apply.

  If you choose Autonomous Execution:

  • Commitment targets are set automatically based on your commitment policy and eligible usage.

  • PerfectScale purchases binding Savings Plans and CUDs in weekly laddered steps toward each target.

  • Your guardrails still apply: commitment ceiling, minimum purchase, and latest monthly purchase date.

  You must select the acknowledgment checkbox to confirm before you can proceed. Select Enable Autonomous Execution to apply the change, or Cancel to keep the current mode.

You can switch back to Requires Approval at any time without a confirmation step, but commitments already purchased cannot be undone.

Minimum purchase and latest date

• Latest monthly purchase date: The cutoff day of the month after which no new purchases are scheduled until the following month. This controls the No Purchase Window shown on the Planned Purchases ladder chart.

  • By default, the 25th of the month is the last purchase date.

  • The latest configurable day is the 28th, leaving a buffer before month-end to avoid conflicts with billing cycles.

• Minimum commitment purchase ($/h): The minimum step size in the purchase ladder. Purchases below this threshold are skipped.

Select Save changes to apply updates. This triggers a full recalculation of the recommendations and purchase ladder for the selected commitment type.