- A
AWS Budgets
Why wrong: Incorrect. AWS Budgets allows you to set custom budgets to track your cost and usage and alerts you when you exceed thresholds. It does not analyze historical usage to provide purchase recommendations for Reserved Instances or Savings Plans.
- B
AWS Cost Explorer
Correct. AWS Cost Explorer has a built-in tool that analyzes your historical EC2 (and other service) usage and provides recommendations for purchasing Reserved Instances and Savings Plans, including options with size flexibility to maximize savings.
- C
AWS Trusted Advisor
Why wrong: Incorrect. AWS Trusted Advisor inspects your AWS environment and provides best practice recommendations in five categories, including cost optimization. Its cost checks identify idle or underutilized resources, but it does not provide the specific Reserved Instance or Savings Plans purchase recommendations that come from Cost Explorer.
- D
AWS Pricing Calculator
Why wrong: Incorrect. AWS Pricing Calculator is used to estimate the cost of running AWS services before you provision them. It does not have access to your historical usage data and therefore cannot generate purchase recommendations based on your past usage patterns.
Quick Answer
The answer is AWS Cost Explorer. This tool is the correct choice because it analyzes a company’s historical EC2 usage and generates tailored recommendations for both Reserved Instances and Savings Plans, including support for instance size flexibility, which directly meets the CFO’s goal of committing to a consistent usage level to reduce compute costs. On the AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner CLF-C02 exam, this question tests your understanding of which native AWS service provides cost optimization recommendations based on actual usage patterns, rather than requiring manual calculations or third-party tools. A common trap is confusing AWS Cost Explorer with AWS Budgets or Trusted Advisor—while both offer cost insights, only Cost Explorer delivers specific, data-driven purchase recommendations for Reserved Instances and Savings Plans with size flexibility. Memory tip: think “Explore to save”—Cost Explorer explores your history to recommend the best savings commitment.
CLF-C02 Billing, Pricing, and Support Practice Question
This CLF-C02 practice question tests your understanding of billing, pricing, and support. Match the stated requirement to the specific cloud service, access model, or configuration option — many options are valid in isolation but not for this scenario. After answering, compare your reasoning against the explanation and wrong-answer breakdown below. Once you have made your selection, read the full explanation to reinforce the concept and understand why each distractor is designed to mislead on exam day.
A company runs a fleet of production Amazon EC2 instances that operate 24/7 throughout the year. The CFO wants to reduce compute costs by committing to a consistent usage level. The finance team needs a tool that analyzes the company's historical EC2 usage and provides recommendations for the most cost-effective purchase options, including recommendations for both Reserved Instances and Savings Plans, with support for instance size flexibility. Which AWS tool should the finance team use?
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
AWS Cost Explorer
AWS Cost Explorer provides a comprehensive analysis of historical EC2 usage and generates tailored recommendations for both Reserved Instances (RI) and Savings Plans, including support for instance size flexibility. This directly meets the CFO's requirement to commit to a consistent usage level while optimizing costs based on actual usage patterns.
Key principle: Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
AWS Budgets
Why it's wrong here
Incorrect. AWS Budgets allows you to set custom budgets to track your cost and usage and alerts you when you exceed thresholds. It does not analyze historical usage to provide purchase recommendations for Reserved Instances or Savings Plans.
- ✓
AWS Cost Explorer
Why this is correct
Correct. AWS Cost Explorer has a built-in tool that analyzes your historical EC2 (and other service) usage and provides recommendations for purchasing Reserved Instances and Savings Plans, including options with size flexibility to maximize savings.
Related concept
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
- ✗
AWS Trusted Advisor
Why it's wrong here
Incorrect. AWS Trusted Advisor inspects your AWS environment and provides best practice recommendations in five categories, including cost optimization. Its cost checks identify idle or underutilized resources, but it does not provide the specific Reserved Instance or Savings Plans purchase recommendations that come from Cost Explorer.
- ✗
AWS Pricing Calculator
Why it's wrong here
Incorrect. AWS Pricing Calculator is used to estimate the cost of running AWS services before you provision them. It does not have access to your historical usage data and therefore cannot generate purchase recommendations based on your past usage patterns.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
The trap here is that candidates confuse AWS Cost Explorer (an analysis and recommendation tool) with AWS Budgets (a cost tracking and alerting tool), or assume Trusted Advisor covers purchase recommendations when it only provides generic optimization checks.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
AWS Cost Explorer leverages the AWS Cost and Usage Report (CUR) to analyze granular historical data, then applies machine learning models to forecast future usage and recommend optimal RI/ Savings Plan combinations. Instance size flexibility in Savings Plans allows automatic application of discounts across different instance sizes within the same family (e.g., t3.large to t3.xlarge), which is critical for dynamic workloads. The tool also supports normalization factors (e.g., 1 t3.small = 0.5 normalized units) to ensure accurate cost comparisons across sizes.
KKey Concepts to Remember
- Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
- Find the constraint that changes the correct option.
- Eliminate answers that are true in general but not in this case.
TExam Day Tips
- Watch for words such as best, first, most likely and least administrative effort.
- Review why wrong options are wrong, not only why the correct option is correct.
Key takeaway
Answer the scenario, not the keyword: identify the specific constraint before choosing the most familiar-sounding option.
Real-world example
How this comes up in practice
A startup's cloud architect reviews their monthly bill and notices costs are higher than expected for a long-running batch job. Switching from on-demand instances to Reserved Instances — or using Spot/Preemptible VMs — can reduce compute costs by up to 72 %. Questions like this test whether you understand the tradeoffs between commitment, flexibility, and cost across cloud pricing models.
What to study next
Got this wrong? Here's your next step.
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
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FAQ
Questions learners often ask
What does this CLF-C02 question test?
Billing, Pricing, and Support — This question tests Billing, Pricing, and Support — Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer..
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: AWS Cost Explorer — AWS Cost Explorer provides a comprehensive analysis of historical EC2 usage and generates tailored recommendations for both Reserved Instances (RI) and Savings Plans, including support for instance size flexibility. This directly meets the CFO's requirement to commit to a consistent usage level while optimizing costs based on actual usage patterns.
What should I do if I get this CLF-C02 question wrong?
Identify which exam domain this question belongs to, review the core concept, then practise similar questions from the same domain.
What is the key concept behind this question?
Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.
About these practice questions
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Last reviewed: Jun 11, 2026
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.
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