I have a payment plan for the EC2 instance, but apparently am somehow using free tier options that expire this month?

Question

We have a yearly payment savings plan for a small EC2 instance with an elastic IP. I was under the impression that we were paying for all the services being used, but I just got a notice that our "Free Tier" options are about to expire and we will be charged for them.

Two of them are showing as "AWS Data Transfer" with zero usage.

The third is for AWS Elastic Compute Cloud , which I assume is my EC2 instance. We pay about $35 a month for this, and it is barely being used, but after trying to navigate all the billing/help pages, I have no idea if this is being covered by our savings plan or not?

AWS Support - Randi · Answer

Sorry to hear about all this confusion.

You can confirm which Savings Plan, and what they cover, in this faq: https://aws.amazon.com/savingsplans/faq/.

For additional Billing assistance, reach out to our Billing and Accounts experts using your Support Center:  https://go.aws/support-center.

They'll be able to run through your coverage and ensure you are using the plan best suited for your needs.

\- Randi S.

Carlos del Castillo · Answer

The Reserved Instance plan or Savings plan will cover the instance if it matches the purchased type (for the RI) and the region.
The applications of RI and Savings Plans cascade, so if the instance qualifies for free tier, it will apply that credit first.
Keep in mind that these programs you pay regardless of if the instances are active or not.

Mars · Answer

AWS is so confusing and this question pops up a lot. I recently posted it myself. Obviously AWS is not clear enough about it and both Randi and Carlos Castillo always reply with the exact same unclear response.

I have a payment plan for the EC2 instance, but apparently am somehow using free tier options that expire this month?

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