Budget methods

With a fixed budget, you can monitor the same amount every budget period. For example, you can use a cost budget with the fixed method to monitor your costs against $100 every budget period.

The planned budgeting method is available for only monthly or quarterly budgets. With a planned budget, you can set a different amount to monitor each budget period. For example, you can use a monthly cost budget with the planned method to monitor your costs against $100 in the first month, $110 in the second month, and other amounts in the remaining months.

With a planned budget, you can set the budget amount for up to 12 months or 4 quarters. After 12 months or 4 quarters, your budget amount is fixed at the last budget amount.

An auto-adjusting budget dynamically sets your budget amount based on your spending or usage over a time range that you specify. The historical or forecast time range that you select is the auto-adjustment baseline for your budget.

At the beginning of each new period, AWS Budgets calculates your budget amount from your cost or usage data within the baseline time range. Make sure to select a time range that best matches your expectations for your account’s AWS costs or usage. If you select a time range with lower usage than you typically expect, then you might get more budget alerts than you need. If you select a time range with higher usage than you typically expect, then you might not get as many budget alerts as you need.

For example, you can create an auto-adjusting cost budget with a baseline time range of the last six months. In this scenario, if your average spending each budget period in the last six months was $100, your auto-adjusted budget amount in the new period is $100.

If AWS Budgets updates your budget amount based on changes in your spending or usage, all budget alert notification subscribers get a notification that the budget amount changed.