AWS Cloud Practitioner Study Session Eleven

January 03, 2026

I am taking the AWS Cloud Practitioner Exam in approximately one day and want to ensure I am prepared. This series will serve as non-exhaustive note taking for the information that I am internalizing as I go.

ChatGPT Summary

AWS Pricing, Cost Management, and Support

Exam-Focused Summary with Tips & Memory Aids

This section is key for the AWS Cloud Practitioner exam, especially for questions about billing models, cost optimization, and support tiers. Focus on paying, tracking, and managing costs.

AWS Pricing Concepts

AWS uses flexible pricing models. Remember the three main ways you pay:

Pay-as-you-go (PAYG)
- No upfront cost, pay only for what you use.
Save when you commit
- Savings Plans or Reserved Instances (RI) for 1- or 3-year commitments.
Pay less by using more
- Tiered pricing: higher usage can reduce per-unit cost.

Billing by Resource Type

Resource Type	Billing Approach
Compute (EC2, Lambda)	By time (hour/second)
Storage (S3, EBS)	By storage provisioned or used
Data Transfer (Outbound)	Charged only for outbound; inbound and same-region transfers usually free

🧠 Memory Tip:

Compute by time, Store by size, Outbound costs extra

Cost Management Services

1. AWS Organizations

Centralized account management & policy enforcement
Consolidated billing across multiple accounts

Use Cases

Group accounts, manage org-wide policies
Single payment method for multiple accounts

2. AWS Billing and Cost Management Dashboard

Centralized view of current charges, usage, forecasts
Tools for managing payments, invoices, budgets

Use Cases

Visualize monthly spend
Manage payment methods

3. AWS Budgets

Set custom budgets with alerts
Track costs, usage, Savings Plans, RI utilization

Use Cases

Alert when projected cost exceeds threshold
Forecast future expenses

4. AWS Cost Explorer

Visualize and analyze historical costs & usage
Forecast future costs

Use Cases

Identify cost-saving opportunities
Predict future spending trends

5. AWS Pricing Calculator

Input configuration (instances, storage, data transfer)
Estimate cost breakdown before deployment

Use Cases

Compare costs of different service configurations
Estimate monthly or yearly costs

🧠 Memory Tip:

Budget → Cost Explorer → Pricing Calculator = track, analyze, estimate

AWS Support Plans

Plan	Description	Target Users
Basic	Free, includes 24/7 access to docs & forums	Everyone
Developer	Business hours email support	Individual devs
Business	24/7 support via email/phone/chat	Production workloads
Enterprise On-Ramp	24/7 support + technical guidance	Growing enterprises
Enterprise	Full support + TAM (Technical Account Manager)	Large organizations

TAM: Included with Enterprise On-Ramp & Enterprise Support

Provides personalized technical guidance

AWS Self-Service & Additional Resources

AWS re:Post – Community Q&A
AWS Trust & Safety Center – Report abusive activity
AWS Solutions Architects – For Business/Enterprise Support customers
AWS Professional Services – Consulting for large deployments
AWS Documentation & Self-Support – Extensive guides

🧠 Memory Tip

Self, Community, Professional = 3 tiers of help

AWS Marketplace

Digital catalog of software that runs on AWS. Categories:

Category	Examples
SaaS	PM tools, Marketing platforms, Collaboration apps
ML & AI	Prebuilt models: image recognition, NLP
Data & Analytics	BI platforms, reporting, data integration

Use Case: Quickly discover, test, and buy software for AWS workloads

AWS Partner Network (APN)

Global community of partners building solutions with AWS
Access to funding benefits: financial incentives, marketing support, go-to-market funding

🧠 Memory Tip

Marketplace = software store, APN = community + support network

Quick Exam Memory Cheats

Pricing Models: PAYG → Savings → Tiered discounts
Compute vs Storage vs Data Transfer: Time → Size → Outbound
Cost Management: Dashboard → Budget → Cost Explorer → Pricing Calculator
Support Levels: Basic → Developer → Business → Enterprise On-Ramp → Enterprise
Marketplace vs APN: Marketplace = buy software, APN = community & funding

💡 Exam Tip:

Questions about estimating or forecasting costs → Pricing Calculator, Cost Explorer, Budgets
Questions about account management and policy enforcement → Organizations
Questions about support & guidance → match plan to workload size and TAM availability

Study materials:

Raw Input Notes:

AWS Pricing Concepts:

PAYG
Save when you commit - Certain services such as Compute services on AWS, have Savings Plans when you commit to 1-year or 3-year plan
Pay less by using more - Some services have tiered pricing, meaning the more you use, the less you pay.
Compute - Pay by certain span of time, like by the hour or by the second.
Storage - Largely depends on how much storage you have provisioned or how much you are using.
Data Transfer (Outbound) - In most cases, no charge for inbound data transfer or for data transfer between AWS services within same Region. Outbound data transfer is aggregated across services then charged at the outbound data transfer rate.
AWS Organizations - Can create, group, manage accounts. Can apply security policies at the account level and consolidate billing with multiple accounts using single payment method. Use Cases:
Consolidate multiple AWS accounts into one central organization.
Implement org-wide policies.
AWS Billing and Cost Management Dashboard - Centralizes cost management, showing current charges, usage, forecasts, detailed breakdowns. Provides tools to manage payments, view invices, set budgets, consolidate billing. Use Cases:
Use helpful visualizations and billing reports of monthly AWS spend.
Set up and manage payment methods.
AWS Budget:
Helps set custom budgets and sends alerts when cost, usage, Savings Plans, Reserved Instances (RIs) utlization or coverage exceed defined thresholds. Use Cases:
Set up alerts for when projected costs exceed predefined thresholds.
Forecast future expenses based on current usage trends.
AWS Cost Explorer:
Helps visualize, analyze, manage AWS costs / usage. Use Cases:
Analyze historical spending trends to identify cost-saving opportunities.
Forecast future AWS costs based on current usage patterns to budget effectively.
AWS Pricing Calculator:
Input specific configs such as instance types, storage options, data transfer volumes. Then based on config, receive detailed cost breakdown. Use Cases
Estimate potential costs before deployment.
Compare costs of different AWS services and configs.

AWS Support Plans:

Types of AWS Support:

Basic Support
Developer Support
Business Support
Enterprise On-Ramp Support
Enterprise Support

A TAM is included with the Enterprise On-Ramp and Enterprise Support plans.

Additional Resources:

AWS re:Post Community-driven question and answer
AWS Trust and Safety Center provides information on how to report activity or content on AWS that you suspect is abusive.
AWS Solutions Architects (for Business and Enterprise Support Customers)
AWS Professional Services: Consulting
Self-support at AWS: Extensive documentation and self-support resources that you can use to research.

AWS Marketplace

Digital catalog that includes thousands of software listings from independent software vendors. Can use AWS Marketplace to find, test, buy softwware that runs on AWS.
Software as a service (SaaS): Business applications such as PM tools, Marketing tools such as customer engagement platforms, Collaboration tools such as file sharing services
Machine Learning (ML) and AI: Prebuilt models for image recognition, natural language processing…
Data and Analytics: Business intelligent platforms for visualization and reporting, data integration tools

AWS Partner Network

Global community that uses AWS technologies, programs, expertise, tools to build solutions and services for customers
One of the key benefits is access to various funding benefits: financial incentives, marketing support, go-to-market funding.