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Save up to 52 percent on your database compute costs with AlloyDB committed use discounts

October 24, 2023
Emir Okan

Senior Product Manager, AlloyDB

AlloyDB for PostgreSQL is a fully managed, PostgreSQL-compatible database service that offers high performance, scalability, reliability, and availability. It is a good choice for a wide range of workloads, including transactional and mixed workloads.

Each database user has unique needs, and they find different benefits from AlloyDB’s industry-leading performance. It can mean that your queries execute rapidly to deliver a snappy app experience, it can provide you the headroom to scale your application to support your growing business, or in other cases, it can mean that you can run your existing database workload in smaller instances on AlloyDB, and decrease your costs.

Committed use discounts (CUDs) provide additional ways for you to save money on your database costs. By committing to a consistent amount of compute usage for a one- or three-year period, you can get deep discounts: a 25% discount for a one-year commitment and a 52% discount for a three-year commitment.

CUDs are spend-based commitments, and apply to all vCPU and memory usage in AlloyDB across all projects or regions that are associated with a single Cloud Billing account. You can purchase a CUD today from your Cloud Console.

How to use CUDs to save money

To illustrate how CUDs can save you money, let's look at an example. Suppose you have an AlloyDB cluster with a highly available primary instance with 8 vCPUs and 64 GB of memory in Iowa. You expect to use this cluster consistently for the next year.

The on-demand prices for compute resources in Iowa are $0.066 per vCPU per hour and $0.011 per GB of memory per hour. This means that the total on-demand cost for the instance is $2.49 per hour.

If you purchase a one-year CUD for this instance, you will get a 25% discount. This means that the cost of the instance will be reduced to $1.87 per hour.

Over the course of a year, this will save you $5,455.

If you purchase a three-year CUD for this instance, you will get a 52% discount. This means that the cost of the instance will be reduced to $1.20 per hour.

Over the course of three years, this will save you $34,025.

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When to use CUDs

CUDs are ideal for workloads with predictable resource needs. For example, if you have a production database that you expect to use consistently for the next year or more, you can purchase a CUD to save money.

CUDs are also a good choice for workloads that are growing steadily. For example, if you expect your database usage to grow by 30% each year, you can purchase a three-year CUD at your current usage levels to lock in a 52% discount. As your workload grows, you can purchase additional CUDs to cover more of your spend with attractive discounts.

How to purchase CUDs

To purchase a CUD, go to the Committed use discounts page in the Cloud console. You can make your commitment based on the on-demand prices of the instances you would like to cover with your commitment. Once you choose your commitment period, you will see the cost of your commitment after the discounts and how much you’re saving. It’s that easy!

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Conclusion

AlloyDB provides both a performant and a cost-effective platform to run your database workloads. With committed use discounts, you can save even more on your compute costs! Check out our documentation and pricing page for more details on AlloyDB CUDs.

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