palaniappan p8 min
Reserved Instances vs Savings Plans on AWS (2026): The Three-Way Choice, the 22-Month Break-Even, and When to Skip Commitment Entirely
Most "RI vs Savings Plan" content treats them as peers. In mid-2026 they are not. A 3-year All-Upfront Compute Savings Plan saves a composite ~$60k/mo SaaS roughly $864k over 3 years vs a 1-year No-Upfront plan—but breaks even at ~22 months and locks instance-family flexibility. Buy the wrong commitment and a Graviton migration strands the discount. Here is the decision tree we use.