OpenSearch Service
AWS OpenSearch Service — commitment brief
Data sourced: March 2026. Verify current figures at the AWS Pricing Calculator.
Coverage summary
Amazon OpenSearch Service supports Reserved Instances (1-yr and 3-yr terms) for all provisioned data node instance types, including standard data nodes, UltraWarm nodes, and dedicated master nodes. Reserved Instances offer discounts ranging from ~31% (No Upfront, 1-yr) up to ~52% (All Upfront, 3-yr) versus on-demand pricing. As of March 2026, OpenSearch Service is also covered by Database Savings Plans (1-yr, no upfront, up to 35% savings) alongside the existing RI options. OpenSearch Serverless is not covered by Reserved Instances but may be covered by Database Savings Plans.
What is covered: OpenSearch Service provisioned instance-hour charges for data nodes, UltraWarm nodes, and dedicated master nodes. Reservations are scoped to a specific instance type and region.
What is not covered: OpenSearch storage (EBS volumes for data nodes, S3-backed UltraWarm/Cold storage), data transfer, OpenSearch Serverless OCU-hours, OpenSearch Ingestion pipeline costs, and snapshot storage.
RI types
Amazon OpenSearch Service uses Reserved Instances with three payment options: All Upfront (maximum discount, up to ~52% for 3-yr, ~35% for 1-yr), Partial Upfront (~33% for 1-yr, ~50% for 3-yr), and No Upfront (~31% for 1-yr, ~48% for 3-yr). There are no Convertible RIs. As of March 2026, Database Savings Plans also apply to OpenSearch provisioned and serverless instances (1-yr, no upfront, up to ~35%). Reservations are locked to a specific instance type and region.
Database Savings Plan
As of March 2026, Amazon OpenSearch Service is covered by Database Savings Plans — a spend-based commitment ($/hour) that applies flexibly across OpenSearch, RDS, Aurora, DynamoDB, ElastiCache, DocumentDB, Neptune, and other eligible managed database services. Terms: 1-year only, No Upfront payment. Discount: up to ~35% vs. on-demand. Database Savings Plans apply to both provisioned OpenSearch instances and OpenSearch Serverless OCU-hours. For committed OpenSearch workloads, RIs still offer deeper discounts (up to 52% All Upfront, 3-yr); Database SPs provide flexibility across service types for more dynamic or mixed footprints.
Instance / node / tier coverage
r6g / r7g (Graviton, memory optimized)
Data node
✅ Yes
✅ Yes
~35%
~52%
~35%
Recommended for most production workloads
r5 (x86, memory optimized)
Data node
✅ Yes
✅ Yes
~35%
~52%
~35%
Previous-gen
m6g / m5 (general purpose)
Data node
✅ Yes
✅ Yes
~35%
~52%
~35%
c6g / c5 (compute optimized)
Data node
✅ Yes
✅ Yes
~35%
~52%
~35%
i3 / i3en (storage optimized)
Data node
✅ Yes
✅ Yes
~35%
~52%
~35%
NVMe-backed; RI covers compute, not storage
or1 (OpenSearch Optimized Instance)
Data node
✅ Yes
✅ Yes
~35%
~52%
~35%
Optimized for vector search and ML-heavy workloads
ultrawarm1.medium / ultrawarm1.large
UltraWarm node
✅ Yes
✅ Yes
~35%
~52%
~35%
S3-backed warm tier; RI covers node compute
any — dedicated master
Dedicated master
✅ Yes
✅ Yes
~35%
~52%
~35%
Same RI model as data nodes
Cold storage tier
Storage tier
❌ No
❌ No
—
—
—
Cold storage billed per S3 GB-month; not reservable
OpenSearch Serverless
Serverless
❌ No
✅ Yes
—
—
~35%
OCU-based pricing; not eligible for RIs; Database SP added March 2026
Regional availability
Commitment scope: Regional — Reserved Instances are locked to a specific instance type and AWS region; there is no cross-region or instance-type flexibility for OpenSearch RIs. Database Savings Plans are region-flexible and apply across all covered database services in any supported region.
Available in all commercial AWS regions where OpenSearch Service is offered. Not all instance types are available in every region — for example, Graviton2 instances (r6g, m6g) rolled out to additional regions in early 2024, and the new OR2/OM2 instance families became available in GovCloud regions in March 2026.
Partition notes: GovCloud (us-gov-) regions support OpenSearch Service Reserved Instances, including newer OR2 and OM2 instance families (added March 2026). Database Savings Plans cannot be purchased from GovCloud accounts (purchase via a linked standard account) and are not available in China (cn-) regions.
⚠️ Regional and partition availability varies by instance type. Always verify at the AWS Pricing Console before purchasing.
Archera
Amazon OpenSearch Service is a core service within Archera's commitment management scope. Archera can automate Reserved Instance purchases across data node, UltraWarm, and dedicated master node types, monitor utilization by instance type, and wrap commitments in a GRI/GSP — eliminating downside risk on over-commitment while preserving the full RI discount.
Sources
⚠️ Discount percentages are approximate and region/instance-type-dependent. Always verify with the AWS Pricing Calculator.
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