Question 585 of 1,024
Billing, Pricing, and SupportmediumMultiple ChoiceObjective-mapped

Quick Answer

The answer is Standard Reserved Instances with a 3-year, All Upfront payment option. This purchasing choice delivers the highest discount for steady-state workloads because it locks in a specific instance family, size, and region—here, m5.large in us-east-1—in exchange for a full upfront payment and a long-term commitment, maximizing the discount over On-Demand pricing. On the AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner CLF-C02 exam, this scenario tests your understanding of how Reserved Instances are optimized for predictable, 24/7 workloads, with the key trap being that Convertible RIs or partial upfront options offer lower savings due to added flexibility. Remember that for a fixed, unchanging configuration, Standard RIs with all upfront payment are the most cost-effective choice. A helpful memory tip: “Standard and steady, all upfront and ready” ties the highest discount to a rigid, predictable workload.

CLF-C02 Billing, Pricing, and Support Practice Question

This CLF-C02 practice question tests your understanding of billing, pricing, and support. This is a configuration task: choose the command set that satisfies every stated requirement. Small differences — like 'secret' vs 'password' or 'transport input ssh' vs 'all' — change whether the answer is correct. 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 steady-state production workload on a fixed number of m5.large EC2 instances in the us-east-1 region. The workload runs 24/7 and the instance type and region are not expected to change. The company wants to obtain the highest possible discount for this workload with a 3-year commitment. Which purchasing option should the company choose?

Question 1mediummultiple choice
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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

Standard Reserved Instances (3-year, All Upfront)

Standard Reserved Instances (3-year, All Upfront) offer the highest discount for a steady-state workload with a fixed instance type and region because they provide a significant discount over On-Demand pricing in exchange for a commitment to a specific instance family, size, and Availability Zone. Since the workload runs 24/7 on m5.large instances in us-east-1 and the configuration is not expected to change, Standard RIs maximize savings without the flexibility trade-offs that reduce discount rates.

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.

  • Compute Savings Plan

    Why it's wrong here

    Incorrect. Compute Savings Plans provide flexibility across EC2 instances, Fargate, and Lambda, but they offer the lowest discount among the options because of this flexibility.

  • EC2 Instance Savings Plan

    Why it's wrong here

    Incorrect. EC2 Instance Savings Plans offer discounts for a specific instance family in a region, with flexibility across instance sizes within that family. However, Standard Reserved Instances offer a slightly higher discount for committing to a specific instance type.

  • Convertible Reserved Instances (3-year, All Upfront)

    Why it's wrong here

    Incorrect. Convertible Reserved Instances allow you to change the instance family, which provides some flexibility but results in a lower discount compared to Standard Reserved Instances.

  • Standard Reserved Instances (3-year, All Upfront)

    Why this is correct

    Correct. Standard Reserved Instances with a 3-year term and All Upfront payment offer the highest possible discount for a fixed, predictable workload because they lock in a specific instance type and region with no flexibility.

    Related concept

    Read the scenario before looking for a memorised answer.

Common exam traps

Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword

The trap here is that candidates often confuse Savings Plans with Reserved Instances, assuming the flexibility of Savings Plans always yields the best discount, but for a fixed, unchanging workload, Standard RIs provide the highest possible savings due to the stricter commitment.

Detailed technical explanation

How to think about this question

Standard Reserved Instances provide a capacity reservation in a specific Availability Zone and offer discounts up to 72% compared to On-Demand, while Convertible RIs offer up to 54% and Savings Plans up to 66% for a 3-year All Upfront commitment. The All Upfront payment option maximizes the discount by paying the entire term upfront, eliminating monthly payments and reducing total cost. In real-world scenarios, if the workload were to change instance types or regions, Standard RIs would incur exchange fees or forfeiture, but for a steady-state workload, they are the most cost-effective choice.

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: Standard Reserved Instances (3-year, All Upfront) — Standard Reserved Instances (3-year, All Upfront) offer the highest discount for a steady-state workload with a fixed instance type and region because they provide a significant discount over On-Demand pricing in exchange for a commitment to a specific instance family, size, and Availability Zone. Since the workload runs 24/7 on m5.large instances in us-east-1 and the configuration is not expected to change, Standard RIs maximize savings without the flexibility trade-offs that reduce discount rates.

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.

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Last reviewed: Jun 11, 2026

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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.