- A
Switch the instances to Spot Instances and use interruption handling because it is the largest discount.
Why wrong: Spot Instances provide strong discounts, but interruption tolerance is required, which the workload lacks.
- B
Purchase a Compute Savings Plan for the expected steady hourly usage in that Region.
Compute Savings Plans discount the usage while allowing flexibility across instance families and sizes in the Region.
- C
Purchase a Standard Reserved Instance tied to a single specific instance type for the next 3 years.
Why wrong: Standard RIs can reduce cost, but they are less flexible when the team needs instance-type changes.
- D
Keep On-Demand and rely on Auto Scaling to reduce capacity when utilization is low.
Why wrong: Auto Scaling can help, but for interruption-intolerant 24/7 usage it usually cannot match Savings Plans.
SAA-C03 Design Cost-Optimized Architectures Practice Question
This SAA-C03 practice question tests your understanding of design cost-optimized architectures. 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. A key principle to apply: compute Savings Plans offer flexible discounts across EC2 instance families, sizes, OS, and tenancy.. 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 media company runs a 24/7 recommendation engine on EC2 in one AWS Region. The workload is interruption-intolerant, and the team expects steady usage but may change instance families and sizes during planned optimizations. Compared to the current On-Demand setup, they want the lowest cost while avoiding the rigidity of locking to a specific instance type.
What should the solutions architect recommend?
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
Purchase a Compute Savings Plan for the expected steady hourly usage in that Region.
A Compute Savings Plan offers the lowest cost for steady-state usage without locking to a specific instance type, providing up to 66% discount over On-Demand while allowing flexibility to change instance families, sizes, OS, or tenancy within a Region. This matches the requirement for cost savings with instance flexibility during planned optimizations.
Key principle: Compute Savings Plans offer flexible discounts across EC2 instance families, sizes, OS, and tenancy.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Switch the instances to Spot Instances and use interruption handling because it is the largest discount.
Why it's wrong here
Spot Instances provide strong discounts, but interruption tolerance is required, which the workload lacks.
- ✓
Purchase a Compute Savings Plan for the expected steady hourly usage in that Region.
Why this is correct
Compute Savings Plans discount the usage while allowing flexibility across instance families and sizes in the Region.
Related concept
Compute Savings Plans offer flexible discounts across EC2 instance families, sizes, OS, and tenancy.
- ✗
Purchase a Standard Reserved Instance tied to a single specific instance type for the next 3 years.
Why it's wrong here
Standard RIs can reduce cost, but they are less flexible when the team needs instance-type changes.
- ✗
Keep On-Demand and rely on Auto Scaling to reduce capacity when utilization is low.
Why it's wrong here
Auto Scaling can help, but for interruption-intolerant 24/7 usage it usually cannot match Savings Plans.
Common exam traps
Common exam trap: answer the scenario, not the keyword
The trap here is that candidates often confuse Reserved Instances with Savings Plans, assuming a Standard Reserved Instance is the only way to get significant discounts, but the question explicitly requires flexibility to change instance families, which a Compute Savings Plan provides while a Standard Reserved Instance does not.
Detailed technical explanation
How to think about this question
Compute Savings Plans apply to any EC2 instance, including those in AWS Fargate and Lambda, and automatically cover usage across instance families within the same Region. The discount is applied to the first portion of usage up to the committed hourly spend, and any usage beyond that is charged at On-Demand rates. This flexibility is ideal for workloads that undergo planned instance type changes, as the plan adjusts without manual intervention.
KKey Concepts to Remember
- Compute Savings Plans offer flexible discounts across EC2 instance families, sizes, OS, and tenancy.
- Savings Plans require a commitment to a consistent spend (USD/hour) for 1 or 3 years.
- They provide significant cost savings for steady-state workloads compared to On-Demand.
- Compute Savings Plans also cover Fargate and Lambda usage.
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
Compute Savings Plans offer flexible discounts across EC2 instance families, sizes, OS, and tenancy.
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.
Quick reference
Cloud Service Model Comparison
| Model | You Manage | Provider Manages | Examples |
|---|---|---|---|
| IaaS | OS, runtime, apps, data | Hardware, hypervisor, networking | EC2, Azure VMs, GCP Compute Engine |
| PaaS | Apps and data | OS, runtime, middleware, hardware | Elastic Beanstalk, Azure App Service |
| SaaS | Data and settings only | Everything else | Microsoft 365, Salesforce, Workday |
| FaaS / Serverless | Function code only | Infra, scaling, runtime | Lambda, Azure Functions, Cloud Run |
| CaaS | Containers and apps | Kubernetes, OS, hardware | EKS, AKS, GKE |
What to study next
Got this wrong? Here's your next step.
Review compute Savings Plans offer flexible discounts across EC2 instance families, sizes, OS, and tenancy., then practise related SAA-C03 questions on the same topic to reinforce the concept.
- →
Design Cost-Optimized Architectures — study guide chapter
Learn the concepts, then practise the questions
- →
Design Cost-Optimized Architectures practice questions
Targeted practice on this topic area only
- →
All SAA-C03 questions
1,040 questions across all exam domains
- →
SAA-C03 study guide
Full concept coverage aligned to exam objectives
- →
SAA-C03 practice test guide
How to use practice tests most effectively before exam day
Related practice questions
Related SAA-C03 practice-question pages
Use these pages to review the topic behind this question. This is how one missed question becomes focused revision.
Design Secure Architectures practice questions
Practise SAA-C03 questions linked to Design Secure Architectures.
Design Resilient Architectures practice questions
Practise SAA-C03 questions linked to Design Resilient Architectures.
Design High-Performing Architectures practice questions
Practise SAA-C03 questions linked to Design High-Performing Architectures.
Design Cost-Optimized Architectures practice questions
Practise SAA-C03 questions linked to Design Cost-Optimized Architectures.
SAA-C03 VPC practice questions
Practise SAA-C03 questions linked to SAA-C03 VPC.
SAA-C03 S3 lifecycle policy questions
Practise SAA-C03 questions linked to SAA-C03 S3 lifecycle policy questions.
SAA-C03 RDS Multi-AZ questions
Practise SAA-C03 questions linked to SAA-C03 RDS Multi-AZ questions.
SAA-C03 IAM policy practice questions
Practise SAA-C03 questions linked to SAA-C03 IAM policy.
SAA-C03 Route 53 failover questions
Practise SAA-C03 questions linked to SAA-C03 Route 53 failover questions.
SAA-C03 CloudFront practice questions
Practise SAA-C03 questions linked to SAA-C03 CloudFront.
SAA-C03 NAT gateway questions
Practise SAA-C03 questions linked to SAA-C03 NAT gateway questions.
SAA-C03 VPC endpoint questions
Practise SAA-C03 questions linked to SAA-C03 VPC endpoint questions.
Practice this exam
Start a free SAA-C03 practice session
Short sessions build daily habit. Longer sessions build exam-day stamina. Try a timed session to simulate real conditions.
FAQ
Questions learners often ask
What does this SAA-C03 question test?
Design Cost-Optimized Architectures — This question tests Design Cost-Optimized Architectures — Compute Savings Plans offer flexible discounts across EC2 instance families, sizes, OS, and tenancy..
What is the correct answer to this question?
The correct answer is: Purchase a Compute Savings Plan for the expected steady hourly usage in that Region. — A Compute Savings Plan offers the lowest cost for steady-state usage without locking to a specific instance type, providing up to 66% discount over On-Demand while allowing flexibility to change instance families, sizes, OS, or tenancy within a Region. This matches the requirement for cost savings with instance flexibility during planned optimizations.
What should I do if I get this SAA-C03 question wrong?
Review compute Savings Plans offer flexible discounts across EC2 instance families, sizes, OS, and tenancy., then practise related SAA-C03 questions on the same topic to reinforce the concept.
What is the key concept behind this question?
Compute Savings Plans offer flexible discounts across EC2 instance families, sizes, OS, and tenancy.
About these practice questions
Courseiva creates original exam-style practice questions with explanations and wrong-answer analysis. It does not publish real exam questions, exam dumps, or protected exam content. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
Keep practising
More SAA-C03 practice questions
- A content publishing system uses Lambda functions that call an unreliable third-party API. Failed events must be retaine…
- A startup runs two EC2-based workloads in the same AWS Region. Its customer-facing API is always on, and its nightly vid…
- A warehouse integration service must use shared file storage across Linux EC2 instances in multiple Availability Zones.…
- A team runs a stateless web app on Amazon EC2 behind an Application Load Balancer. During traffic spikes, new EC2 instan…
- A service in private subnets downloads product images from Amazon S3 and stores job state in DynamoDB. A NAT Gateway is…
- A static site is hosted in Amazon S3 and delivered by CloudFront. After a frontend release, the same JavaScript bundles…
Last reviewed: Jun 11, 2026
This SAA-C03 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 SAA-C03 exam.
Question Discussion
Share a tip, memory trick, or ask about the reasoning behind this question. Do not post real exam questions, leaked content, braindumps, or copyrighted exam material. Comments are moderated and may be removed without notice.
Sign in to join the discussion.