$10/day is a pretty beefy RDS instance (an m6g.large Postgres RDS instance costs ~$3.81/day). What instance size did you provision? How much disk space did you provision? Did you enable Multi-AZ? a billing issue or random charges Highly doubtful that this is a billing issue or a 'random charge'. More likely you misconfigured something and didn't realize it. Answer from joelrwilliams1 on reddit.com
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AWS
aws.amazon.com › amazon rds › amazon rds for postgresql › pricing
Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL Pricing
1 week ago - Dedicated Log Volumes are priced ... attached to a Single-AZ instance in RDS for PostgreSQL would cost $0.125 x 1024 GiB plus $0.10 x 3000 IOPS, or $428/month....
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AWS
aws.amazon.com › products › database › amazon rds
Managed Relational Database - Amazon RDS Pricing - Amazon Web Services
1 week ago - If you signed up for AWS Free Tier prior to July 15, 2025, you can continue to use RDS for free for up to 12 months on select single-AZ instance databases with up to 750 hours per month. Your usage is aggregated across instance types if using more than one instance.
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Reddit
reddit.com › r/aws › why is rds so incredibly expensive
r/aws on Reddit: Why is RDS so incredibly expensive
May 23, 2022 -

I created an RDS postgres database with the lowest settings - literally free tier on everything, but apparently I don't qualify for that anymore.

I was never able to figure out how to create a table, put data into it, or connect to it.

However, I was charged $10 a day for a few days, so I killed it and won't be going back. I've had multiple similar experiences with AWS and I never get an explanation for the charged from AWS.

Is there any explanation for this? I use heroku and firebase and never have nearly as much difficulty using those and I've never had a billing issue or random charges.

Update:Here is a detail for the billing. How did this happen?

Update 2:
After feedback here that the costs came from the storage type, I went back and looked at the creation process to see what happened. In selecting the "Easy Create" process for a postgres RDS database, the more expensive storage type was the "default". That's pretty upsetting to me and I really wish that there was something that told you the project cost prior to activation, but at least I figured out what happened. I'm gonna recreate and see if I can't get it cheaper.

Thanks for the help.

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AWS re:Post
repost.aws › questions › QUrgQDdsONT_a_rwJpLmkN1w › pitr-cost-on-rds-postgres
PITR cost on RDS Postgres | AWS re:Post
July 1, 2024 - Cost Calculation: 55 GB×10 days×( 1 month/30 days ) ×$0.23772 per GB-month ... Free Tier: If your total backup storage usage is less than or equal to the size of your DB instance, AWS provides that storage for free.
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Cloudchipr
cloudchipr.com › blog › rds-pricing
The Ultimate Guide to AWS RDS Pricing: A Comprehensive Cost Breakdown 2025
We’ll examine how each database engine is priced, why two identically sized instances can bill very differently, and where storage choices quietly stack dollars over time. Real-world scenarios—from weekend prototypes to payment-heavy production clusters—show how to match configuration to need and sidestep surprise costs. When you drill into RDS Pricing, the first—and often largest—variable is the database engine itself ... AWS lets you pick from Amazon Aurora, MySQL, PostgreSQL, MariaDB, Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, and even IBM Db2.
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CloudZero
cloudzero.com › home › blog › a beginner’s guide to amazon rds pricing
A Beginner’s Guide To Amazon RDS Pricing
June 23, 2025 - Amazon RDS bills Aurora storage in per GB-month increments and I/Os usage per million request increments. No prior provisioning is required for either storage or I/O. They both scale automatically, too. Using features like Global Database, Snapshot Export, and Backtrack, and data transfers out of Aurora attract additional charges. MariaDB pricing, MySQL pricing, and PostgreSQL ...
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TigerData
tigerdata.com › blog › understanding-rds-pricing-and-costs
Why Is RDS So Expensive? Understanding RDS Pricing ...
February 7, 2024 - AWS support is priced separately and not included in your RDS pricing calculations. Support plans can range from $100 to $15,000 per month, depending on your needs, and with Enterprise Support starting at $5,500 per month, it can become a high cost.
Find elsewhere
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Reddit
reddit.com › r/aws › rds postgres - does summary from price calculator assume 100% usage
r/aws on Reddit: RDS Postgres - Does summary from price calculator assume 100% usage
January 31, 2024 -

Always been afraid to spin up a DB as a service on AWS. Want to bite the bullet so looked at price calculator for:
RDS Postgres
db.t3.micro

Single -AZ (On Demand)

20 GB (gp3) Storage

When I look under Show Calculations for "PostgreSQL instance specifications" it shows an estimate of
$3.29 per month

and under storage

$2.30 per month

However the summary after I click Save and View Summary it shows an estimated monthly cost of

$27.49

Does the summary assume 100% utilization 24/7 throughout the month?? Not sure what I might be missing and want to confirm that it would be around $5.59 if i only used it about 1/4 of the time in the month.

Top answer
1 of 2
1
Some of the cost components depend on your configuration. In addition to CloudWatch metrics and Performance Insights that the bot mentioned as separately charged optional features, you might also set RDS to send logs to CloudWatch logs, where both the log vending and storage would incur some costs. Since you're looking at costs and are running without commitments on on-demand capacity, you might also want to take the opportunity to grab some quick wins. db.m5.large is based on the Intel x86-64 processor architecture and fifth-generation EC2 instances launched in November 2017. db.m6i.large and db.m6i.xlarge are sixth-generation equivalents also based on Intel's processors. AWS has their own Graviton line of processors optimised for cloud workloads and based on the Arm64 processor architecture. With RDS, switching to them is super easy. You can switch between Intel and Graviton processors just as you could between two Intel processors: simply change the "instance type" selection for your database instance. RDS runs exactly the same software on both platforms, so for your applications, there's no difference between the processor options. It's even possible to switch an RDS cluster from Intel to Graviton one node at a time; since the software is the same, one cluster node can seamlessly run on Intel while the other runs on Graviton. AWS's general guidance is that the price-performance ratio can be up to 40% better over the comparable instance generation using Intel's processors, and given that your instance types are older ones, the improvement may even be greater. The m6g/c6g/r6g instance families use Graviton2 processors, and m7g/c7g/r7g use newer, more powerful Graviton3 processors. Graviton4 doesn't seem to be launched for RDS yet in us-east-2, but when it becomes available, it'll have the 8g suffix in the instance family identifier and again more power per dollar. Without considering the possibility that with the more powerful processors, you might be able to switch down to smaller instance families/types (such as from m5 to t4g or from m6i.xlarge to r7g.large), simply mapping your current Intel instances to the correspondingly sized Graviton instance types, you'd get cost savings right away. Quoting list pricing at https://aws.amazon.com/rds/postgresql/pricing/: db.m5.large and db.m6i.large (both at $0.356/h) would map to: - db.m7g.large: $0.337/h (Graviton3) - db.m6g.large: $0.318/h (Graviton2) db.m6i.xlarge ($0.712/h) would map to: - db.m7g.xlarge: $0.674/h (Graviton3) - db.m6g.xlarge: $0.636/h (Graviton2) Note that while the Graviton2 generation instances have cheaper price points, they are less powerful than Graviton3, so considering right-sizing, Graviton3 may easily outperform them cost-wise.
2 of 2
0
You're on the right track with your understanding of RDS PostgreSQL costs, but there are a few additional factors to consider beyond the three items you've mentioned. 1. To answer your first question: Yes, there are additional potential costs associated with RDS instances beyond compute, storage, and backup snapshots. These may include: - Data transfer costs: Inbound data transfer is typically free, but outbound data transfer may incur charges depending on the destination and volume. - I/O operations: If you're using Provisioned IOPS (SSD) storage, you'll be charged for the number of I/O operations you provision. - Enhanced Monitoring: If enabled, this feature incurs a small additional cost based on the amount of metrics data sent to CloudWatch. - Performance Insights: This optional feature for monitoring database performance may have additional costs depending on your usage. 2. Regarding your second question about storage and backup snapshot costs: Storage costs for RDS instances are determined by: - The type of storage you choose (General Purpose SSD, Provisioned IOPS SSD, or Magnetic) - The amount of storage provisioned in GB - The region where your RDS instance is located For backup snapshots: - Amazon RDS provides backup storage up to 100% of your total database storage for each region at no additional charge. - For backup storage beyond this amount, you're charged per GB-month. - The cost of backup storage varies by region. It's worth noting that with Multi-AZ deployments, you're effectively paying for two instances (primary and standby), which doubles your compute costs. However, you're not charged extra for data transfer between your primary and standby instances. To optimize costs, consider using Reserved Instances for long-term workloads, monitoring and adjusting your provisioned storage as needed, and leveraging AWS Cost Explorer and AWS Compute Optimizer for cost analysis and recommendations. **Sources** Viewing RDS DB instance recommendations - AWS Compute Optimizer Cost - Maintaining Personalized Experiences with Machine Learning Amazon EC2 cost breakdown - How AWS Pricing Works Analytics and storage - Cost Modeling Data Lakes for Beginners
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Reddit
reddit.com › r/aws › why is postgres rds instance more expensive than sql server (license included) rds instance?
r/aws on Reddit: Why is Postgres RDS instance more expensive than SQL Server (license included) RDS instance?
September 5, 2025 -

Question is in the Title. Only reason I'm considering Postgres is because of the "licensing costs" associated with SQL Server. Then I see this. What's up?

Postgres instance would be $86.51 USD:

db.t4g.micro

vCPU: 2

Memory: 1 GiB

SQL Server equivalent instance would be (license included): $67.71 USD

db.t3.micro

vCPU: 2

Memory: 1 GiB

Edit:

For those who asked for more information to better understand my perspective

  1. Go to https://aws.amazon.com/rds/pricing/?p=ft&c=db&refid=e21cc09f-34cd-4d7e-a012-ad97353eb4b4 and go to the "Pricing by Amazon RDS engines" section.

  2. Select either "Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL Pricing" or "Amazon RDS for SQL Server Pricing"

  3. Navigate to the "AWS Pricing Calculator" and click "Create your custom estimate now." Select the instance types that I have mentioned above without changing any of the filler info.

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AWS re:Post
repost.aws › questions › QUpcYh7dYAS7CN7Z7StSYDaw › need-help-in-understanding-rds-cluster-costs
Need help in understanding RDS Cluster Costs | AWS re:Post
February 16, 2025 - You'll also need to factor in storage costs, which depend on the type and amount of storage you provision, as well as potential costs for features like Performance Insights or Enhanced Monitoring if you choose to use them. To get an accurate estimate of costs for your specific use case, it's recommended to use the AWS Pricing Calculator, which can provide a detailed breakdown based on your exact configuration. Sources On-Demand DB instances for Amazon RDS - Amazon Relational Database Service Reviewing RDS cost break down | AWS re:Post Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL Pricing – Amazon Web Services
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CloudySave
cloudysave.com › aws › rds › aws-postgresql-pricing
AWS PostgreSQL Pricing - CloudySave
AWS PostgreSQL Partial DB instance-hours: calculated per 1-second increments along with a ten-minute minimum charge after a charged status change like starting, modifying or creating a DB instance class. In the following table, you will provide the AWS PostgreSQL pricing of a DB Instance that is spun up using a Single AZ deployment model. All the charges are considered in US-East-2 (Ohio) region. AWS PostgreSQL RDS ...
Published   February 8, 2023
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Learnaws
learnaws.io › aws-calculator › rds
RDS Pricing Calculator | AWS SQL Database Pricing
Keep a read only copy of database in different AZ to make sure your data is highly available. Storage (in GB) Data transfer out / download (in GB) You get 100 GB of free data every month per account.
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Sedai
sedai.io › blog › understanding-amazon-rds-costs-pricing
Reduce Amazon RDS Costs: 2026 Pricing Breakdown | Sedai
RDS supports seven engines: Aurora (MySQL and PostgreSQL compatible), MySQL, MariaDB, PostgreSQL, Oracle, and SQL Server. Aurora charges per GB-month for storage and per million I/Os. It offers flexibility with serverless or provisioned options and is priced higher for its performance and scalability benefits.
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PGS Clusters
pgsclusters.com › postgre-pricing
Free Cloud Postgresql, Postgres Cloud Hosting
Postgre Pricing
Cloud Clusters PostgreSQL RDS offers free 24/7/365 technical support with high-end service levels and no hidden fees. If you choose to enable high availability options such as Multi-AZ deployments, there will be additional costs. Such a configuration provides the ability to automatically switch to a backup Availability Zone in the event of a primary Availability Zone failure. For services with different performance levels, prices ... PostgreSQL pricing structure typically involves charges for compute resources (DB instance), storage provisioning, backup storage, and any additional features or
Rating: 4 ​
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NetApp
netapp.com › home › blog › aws-cvo-blg-aws-rds-pricing-explained
AWS RDS Pricing Explained | NetApp
April 25, 2025 - Your total AWS RDS pricing depends on the database engine you choose. AWS offers six database engines—Amazon Aurora, MySQL, PostgreSQL, MariaDB, Microsoft SQL Server, and Oracle. After choosing a database engine, you cannot usually change it. However, you can optimize performance, memory, performance, or input/output (I/O). Open-source databases MySQL, Postgres, and MariaDB open-source databases are priced ...
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AWS Fundamentals
awsfundamentals.com › blog › aws-rds-pricing
Understanding AWS RDS Pricing: A Comprehensive Guide
The size of general-purpose storage ... You can also differentiate general purpose into two versions: ... The actual costs are $0.115 per GB....
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Rapydo
rapydo.io › blog › aws-rds-pricing-a-comprehensive-guide
AWS RDS Pricing: A Comprehensive GuideDatabase
Open-source engines (MySQL, PostgreSQL, MariaDB) are generally less expensive than commercial engines (Oracle, SQL Server). ... Three types available: General Purpose (SSD), Provisioned IOPS (SSD), and Magnetic (legacy). Charged per GB-month of provisioned storage. ... For Magnetic storage and Provisioned IOPS, I/O operations are charged separately. General Purpose (SSD) includes a baseline of I/O operations in the storage price...
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Capterra
capterra.ca › home › database software › amazon rds
Amazon RDS Pricing, Reviews & Features - Capterra Canada 2025
Note: Customer support may not be accessible in that country. ... Amazon RDS has a free version and offers a free trial. Amazon RDS paid version starts at US$0.01/month. Get Price ...