How do I view and understand my Amazon EBS billing information?

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Understand Amazon EBS usage types

Amazon EBS billing includes charges for volumes and snapshots. Each usage type follows a specific naming format that shows the resource type and configuration.

Amazon EBS volumes have the following usage types:

• EBS:VolumeUsage.gp2 (GB-Month) provides storage for gp2 SSD volumes
• EBS:VolumeUsage.gp3 (GB-Month) provides storage for gp3 SSD volumes
• EBS:VolumeIOUsage (IOs) provides provisioned IOPS for SSD volumes

Amazon EBS snapshots have the following usage types:

• EBS:SnapshotUsage (GB-Month) Standard tier snapshot storage
• EBS:SnapshotArchiveStorage (GB-Month) Archive tier snapshot storage
• EBS:SnapshotArchiveRetrieval (GB) One-time fee to restore archived snapshots
• EBS:SnapshotArchiveEarlyDelete Fee to delete archived snapshots before 90 days

For more information, see Amazon EBS pricing.

Understand the billing format

The billing format is region-UsageType. For example, USW2-EBS:SnapshotUsage is for snapshot usage in US West (Oregon). EUC1-EBS:VolumeUsage.gp3 is for gp3 volume storage in Europe (Frankfurt).

Understand how snapshot billing works

The first snapshot stores all data blocks written to the volume. Subsequent snapshots store only changed blocks.

You're charged per GB-Month of the amount of data that you store, not volume size. AWS doesn't store or charge for empty blocks. AWS calculates charges as GB-Month, but your charges can appear as daily costs in reports. Snapshots in Recycle Bin continue to incur standard charges.

When you delete a snapshot, Amazon EBS removes only data that's unique to that snapshot. Shared data remains, and costs transfer to other snapshots.

To use AWS Cost Explorer to view snapshot costs, complete the following steps:

1. Open the AWS Billing and Cost Management console.
2. In the navigation pane, choose Cost Explorer.
3. For Service, choose EC2-Other.
4. For Usage Type, choose EBS:SnapshotUsage.
5. For Group by, choose Usage Type or Resource.
6. View the GB-month storage for your snapshots.

View billing details on the AWS Billing and Cost Management console

Complete the following steps:

1. Open the AWS Billing and Cost Management console.
2. In the navigation pane, choose Bills.
3. Choose Elastic Compute Cloud, and then choose the EBS section.
4. View snapshot charges by usage type.

Monitor resources with cost allocation tags

To use cost allocation tags to monitor Amazon EBS resource costs, complete the following steps:

1. Tag your snapshots with identifiers such as project name, environment, or cost center.
2. Open the AWS Billing and Cost Management console.
3. In the navigation pane, choose Cost Allocation Tags.
4. Activate the tags that you want to monitor.
5. Create cost and usage reports filtered by your tags.

Related information

How am I billed for my Amazon EBS snapshots?

Why am I charged for Amazon EBS storage when all my Amazon EC2 instances are stopped?

How are the charges for Amazon EBS volumes calculated on my bill?