Reservations & Savings Plans
Reserved Instances (RIs) and Savings Plans both trade a usage commitment for a lower rate on steady-state consumption. CloudQuell tracks both types side by side in your commitment inventory.
RIs vs. Savings Plans
Section titled “RIs vs. Savings Plans”Both discount predictable, always-on usage in exchange for a term commitment — the difference is how the discount is scoped.
- Reserved Instances apply to a specific resource shape (for example an instance family in a Region). They’re a good fit when your usage pattern is stable and well understood.
- Savings Plans commit to an hourly spend amount and apply the discount more flexibly across matching usage. They tend to suit workloads whose exact shape shifts over time.
CloudQuell labels each commitment by type so you can see the mix at a glance; it does not purchase or modify commitments for you.
Utilization
Section titled “Utilization”Utilization is how much of what you’ve already committed to you’re actually using. A commitment you underuse still costs you, so a low utilization % is a waste signal worth investigating. CloudQuell reports utilization per commitment and as an overall rollup, alongside the dollars each commitment has saved and its effective cost — all measured over a trailing 30-day window (expiry, by contrast, reflects the commitment’s full lifetime).
The healthy target is high utilization on the commitments you hold, so you’re not paying for discounted capacity you aren’t consuming.
Improving your position
Section titled “Improving your position”When a lot of steady-state usage is still running at on-demand rates, CloudQuell can recommend new commitment purchases sized to your usage.
- See Savings & recommendations for purchase recommendations with estimated monthly savings.
- See Expiring coverage to renew before existing commitments lapse.
Only AWS is live today; other providers are in development.