RDS Pricing Calculator - All Database Engines

Multi-AZ is recommended for production workloads. Multi-AZ provides automatic failover to a standby replica in a different Availability Zone, ensuring high availability. While it roughly doubles your compute cost, it provides sub-minute failover, automated backups, and enhanced durability. Use Single-AZ for development, testing, or cost-sensitive workloads where downtime is acceptable.

gp3 is recommended for most workloads. gp3 offers a baseline of 3,000 IOPS and 125 MB/s throughput included in the price, with the ability to scale independently. gp2 is legacy and scales IOPS with storage size. io1/io2 are for high-performance workloads requiring consistent, provisioned IOPS up to 64,000. Use io2 over io1 for better durability (99.999% vs 99.9%).

RDS Reserved Instances offer significant savings for long-term commitments. 1-year No Upfront terms save approximately 25-35% compared to On-Demand pricing. 3-year No Upfront terms save approximately 40-50%. Choosing "All Upfront" payment increases savings further. Reserved Instances are tied to a specific instance type, region, and database engine.

Yes, Graviton instances are recommended for most workloads. Graviton-based instances (db.m6g, db.r6g, db.t4g) offer up to 20% better price-performance than equivalent x86 instances. They're fully compatible with MySQL, PostgreSQL, and MariaDB. Only use x86 instances if you have specific compatibility requirements.

IOPS pricing varies by storage type. gp3 includes 3,000 IOPS baseline; additional IOPS above this are charged per IOPS-month. gp2 scales IOPS with storage at 3 IOPS per GB (up to 16,000 max). io1/io2 charge per provisioned IOPS-month. For high-IOPS workloads, gp3 is often more cost-effective than io1 up to around 16,000 IOPS.

RDS provides free backup storage equal to your provisioned database storage. Additional backup storage beyond this is charged per GB-month. Automated backups are retained for 1-35 days (configurable). Manual snapshots are retained until you delete them and count toward your backup storage usage.

All three are open-source with no license fees. MySQL is simpler and faster for read-heavy workloads. PostgreSQL offers advanced features like complex queries, JSON support, and extensions. MariaDB is a MySQL fork with additional storage engines and performance improvements. Choose based on your team expertise and feature requirements.

SQL Server Express is free (license included) and supports databases up to 10GB. SQL Server Web is for public-facing websites. SQL Server Standard offers full features for most workloads. SQL Server Enterprise provides advanced features like Always On availability groups. Choose Standard for production apps or Express for small workloads under 10GB.

License Included is simpler for new deployments. AWS handles licensing and you pay per hour. BYOL (Bring Your Own License) is cost-effective if you already own Oracle licenses, as you only pay for infrastructure. Oracle Standard Edition 2 (SE2) supports up to 16 vCPUs. Enterprise Edition (EE) has no limits.

Choose based on your application requirements and team expertise. MySQL and PostgreSQL are popular open-source options with no license fees. MariaDB is a MySQL fork with additional features. Oracle offers enterprise features for migrating from on-premises. SQL Server integrates well with Microsoft ecosystems. PostgreSQL offers the most advanced SQL features. For MySQL or PostgreSQL workloads needing higher performance, consider Amazon Aurora.