CLF-C02 Billing, Pricing, and Support Practice Question
A company runs a mix of Amazon EC2 instances and AWS Fargate containers. The CFO wants to reduce costs by committing to a consistent amount of compute usage (measured in $ per hour) for a 1-year term. The company expects to change instance families and regions occasionally and needs the flexibility to apply the savings to both EC2 and ECS Fargate usage. Which AWS pricing option should the company choose?
⚠ Common exam trap
Test-takers frequently confuse Compute Savings Plans with EC2 Instance Savings Plans, assuming all Savings Plans are region-specific, but Compute Savings Plans offer the broadest flexibility across instance families, regions, and compute services like Fargate.
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Compute Savings Plans
Compute Savings Plans offer the flexibility to cover EC2 instance and Fargate usage across any region, instance family, or compute type, while providing a discounted hourly rate in exchange for a 1-year commitment. This matches the CFO's requirement to reduce costs with a consistent $/hour commitment and the need to change instance families and regions occasionally, as Compute Savings Plans automatically apply to any eligible compute usage without requiring specific reservations.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Compute Savings Plans
Why this is correct
Compute Savings Plans are the correct choice because they offer a hourly $/hour commitment that automatically applies to Amazon EC2, AWS Fargate, and AWS Lambda compute usage. This plan provides the broadest flexibility, covering any instance family, any AWS Region, and any operating system, so the company can freely mix EC2 instances and Fargate containers while still receiving discounted rates. Because the savings are applied at the usage level rather than tied to a specific resource, it directly satisfies the CFO's goal of reducing costs while retaining operational flexibility across the mixed workload.
- ✗
EC2 Instance Savings Plans
Why it's wrong here
EC2 Instance Savings Plans are incorrect for this scenario because they lock the discount to a specific instance family in a specific AWS Region, such as only m5.large in us-east-1. Although they provide deeper discounts than Compute Savings Plans, they do not cover AWS Fargate usage at all, which is a critical gap since the company runs both EC2 and Fargate. This plan is too restrictive for a mixed environment where containers and virtual machines may need to change over time, and it would force separate commitments or break cost coverage if resources change families.
- ✗
Reserved Instances (Convertible)
Why it's wrong here
Convertible Reserved Instances are incorrect because they apply only to EC2 instances and have no applicability to AWS Fargate, even though they allow exchanging one instance attribute for another over the term. While Convertible RIs provide flexibility to change instance families, operating systems, or tenancies via exchange, that flexibility is still confined to the EC2 service itself. Since the company runs Fargate containers in addition to EC2, selecting Convertible RIs would leave all container compute at On-Demand prices, failing to achieve the broad cost reduction the CFO wants across the entire mixed compute environment.
When this WOULD be correct
A company runs only EC2 instances, expects to change instance families or regions, and wants a 1-year commitment with flexibility to modify attributes. Convertible RIs allow exchanging for different instance families or OS, making them correct in that scenario.
- ✗
On-Demand Instances
Why it's wrong here
On-Demand Instances are incorrect because they involve no upfront commitment and therefore offer no volume-based discount or savings benefit from committing to a consistent level of usage. The CFO explicitly wants to reduce compute costs through a commitment, but On-Demand pricing charges the full list rate for every second of EC2 or Fargate usage. Without a Savings Plan or Reserved Instance, the company would miss out on the significant cost reductions available for predictable compute workloads, so this option fails the stated requirement.
When this WOULD be correct
A company with unpredictable, spiky workloads that cannot commit to any consistent usage and needs maximum flexibility without upfront payment would choose On-Demand Instances.
Option-by-option analysis
Why each answer is right or wrong
Understanding why wrong answers are wrong — and when they would be correct — is what separates a 750 score from a 900. The CLF-C02 exam frequently reuses these exact scenarios with slightly different constraints.
✓Compute Savings PlansCorrect answer▾
Why this is correct
Compute Savings Plans are the correct choice because they offer a hourly $/hour commitment that automatically applies to Amazon EC2, AWS Fargate, and AWS Lambda compute usage. This plan provides the broadest flexibility, covering any instance family, any AWS Region, and any operating system, so the company can freely mix EC2 instances and Fargate containers while still receiving discounted rates. Because the savings are applied at the usage level rather than tied to a specific resource, it directly satisfies the CFO's goal of reducing costs while retaining operational flexibility across the mixed workload.
✗Reserved Instances (Convertible)Wrong answer — click to see why▾
Why this is wrong here
Convertible Reserved Instances apply only to EC2 instances, not to Fargate containers. The question requires a plan that covers both EC2 and ECS Fargate usage, which Convertible RIs cannot do.
★ When this WOULD be the correct answer
A company runs only EC2 instances, expects to change instance families or regions, and wants a 1-year commitment with flexibility to modify attributes. Convertible RIs allow exchanging for different instance families or OS, making them correct in that scenario.
Why candidates choose this
Candidates may confuse Convertible RIs with Savings Plans because both offer flexibility, but Convertible RIs lack support for container services like Fargate, leading to a mistaken choice.
✗On-Demand InstancesWrong answer — click to see why▾
Why this is wrong here
On-Demand Instances do not offer any commitment-based discount; they are priced per hour with no savings, so they cannot reduce costs through a commitment to consistent compute usage.
★ When this WOULD be the correct answer
A company with unpredictable, spiky workloads that cannot commit to any consistent usage and needs maximum flexibility without upfront payment would choose On-Demand Instances.
Why candidates choose this
Candidates may think On-Demand is always the simplest choice, overlooking that the question explicitly requires a cost-reduction commitment, which On-Demand does not provide.
Analysis generated from the official CLF-C02blueprint and verified against question context. The “when correct” sections are what AI assistants cite when candidates ask “what’s the difference between these options?”
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This CLF-C02 practice question is part of Courseiva's free Amazon Web Services certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the CLF-C02 exam.