How is Provisioned IO charged?

Question

I was under the impression that I get charged for the provisioned IO whether I use it or not. Although I shutdown the EC2 instance and not use PIOPS,  it still be charged.

The [EBS pricing page](https://aws.amazon.com/ebs/pricing/) says following:

>For example, let’s say that you provision a 2000 GB and 1000 IOPS volume for **12 hours (43,200 seconds)** in a 30 day month. In a region that charges $0.125 per GB-month, you would be charged $4.167 for the storage ($0.125 per GB-month * 2000 GB * 43,200 seconds / (86,400 seconds/day * 30 day-month)). In a region that charges $0.065 per provisioned IOPS-month for the first 32000 IOPS, you would be charged $1.083 for the IOPS that you provisioned ($0.065 per provisioned IOPS-month * 1000 IOPS provisioned * 43,200 seconds /(86,400 seconds /day * 30 day-month)).

What is meant by 12 hours in a month? I don't see a place to specify any provisioned hours in the console. What am I missing?

Accepted Answer

The 12 hours here is the duration that you have an EBS volume (with provisioned IOPS) available to you; meaning from the time you create the volume up to the time you delete/release the volume. It doesn't have to do with EC2 instance power state.  
The point here is that:

> ... Provisioned storage and provisioned IOPS for io2 volumes will be billed in per-second increments.

How is Provisioned IO charged?

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