AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner (CLF-C02)Billing, Pricing, and SupportMedium
A holding company uses AWS Organizations with consolidated billing across five member accounts. One member account purchases a Reserved Instance for a specific EC2 instance type. How does consolidated billing typically affect the RI discount across the organization?
- AEach account must separately purchase its own RI to receive any discount
- BThe discount applies only to the account that purchased the RI
- CThe discount is shared across all accounts in the organization that have matching usage, by default
- DThe discount is converted into a Savings Plan automatically for all accounts
Show answer & explanationAnswer & explanation
Correct answer: C. The discount is shared across all accounts in the organization that have matching usage, by default
With consolidated billing under AWS Organizations, RI (and Savings Plans) discounts are shared by default across all accounts in the organization that have matching usage, maximizing the benefit at the payer account level.
Why the other options are wrong
- A. Separate purchases are unnecessary since RI benefits are shared by default.
- B. This contradicts the default RI sharing behavior in consolidated billing.
- D. RIs and Savings Plans are distinct discount mechanisms and are not automatically converted.
Consolidated Billing RI Sharing
A feature of AWS Organizations where Reserved Instance and Savings Plans discounts purchased by one account are automatically shared with other accounts having matching usage.
- Sharing is enabled by default but can be turned off per account.
- Applies to RIs and Savings Plans, not just usage aggregation for volume pricing.
- Consolidated billing also combines usage to reach volume pricing tiers faster.
Memory trick: One family bill, shared discounts for everyone in the household.