Understanding RDS pricing

RDS pricing is dependent on many things that make up its total cost:

• What instance class are you using and what is its size?
• Which database engine are you using?
• Are the license costs included or are you using your own license?
• How large is the storage that's been allocated?
• Are you using gp2 or io1 storage?
• Are you using a multi-AZ deployment or read replicas?

The instance class and its size are often the largest cost of your database. As the instance class increases and you are using more compute, the costs will also increase. The instance class costs increase linearly, so if you double the compute, you'll also double the cost. If you have a performance problem with your database, increasing the instance size can alleviate it but at a great cost. So, before you increase the instance sizing, you should look at other potential ways to improve performance. The instance sizing can also affect the costs of the database...