Amazon Web Services provides new payment options for reserved cloud-computing capacity

For five years now, companies have had the option to get discounts on computing resources in the market-leading Amazon Web Services public cloud when they pay up ahead of time. Now, Amazon has come out with more options for that buying model, known as Reserved Instances — namely, that you can get a discount but hold off on paying.

One thing that hasn’t changed, though, is that Reserved Instances will continue to offer savings when compared with buying for compute power anytime you need it.

[aditude-amp id="flyingcarpet" targeting='{"env":"staging","page_type":"article","post_id":1616611,"post_type":"story","post_chan":"none","tags":null,"ai":false,"category":"none","all_categories":"business,cloud,","session":"C"}']

“All of the options continue to provide capacity assurance and discounts that are typically around 63 percent for a three-year term when compared to On-Demand prices,” Amazon Web Services evangelist Jeff Barr wrote in a blog post today.

Clearly, Amazon wants to keep articulating its cost advantages over other public clouds in the market, which is as competitive as ever.

Here are the new options for Amazon’s Reserved Instances, according to Barr’s post:

All Upfront – You pay for the entire Reserved Instance term (one or three years) with one upfront payment and get the best effective hourly price when compared to On-Demand.
Partial Upfront – You pay for a portion of the Reserved Instance upfront, and then pay for the remainder over the course of the one or three year term. This option balances the RI payments between upfront and hourly.
No Upfront – You pay nothing upfront but commit to pay for the Reserved Instance over the course of the Reserved Instance term, with discounts (typically about 30%) when compared to On-Demand. This option is offered with a one year term.

Amazon likely wouldn’t do this without people asking for more choices. Don’t act surprised to see other public clouds expand their own reserved-pricing options.