DocumentDB
AWS DocumentDB — commitment brief
Data sourced: March 2026. Verify current figures at the AWS Pricing Calculator.
Coverage summary
Amazon DocumentDB (with MongoDB compatibility) does not offer traditional Reserved Instances. The primary commitment instrument is Database Savings Plans (1-yr, no upfront), which provide up to 35% savings across a portfolio of managed database services including DocumentDB provisioned instances and DocumentDB Serverless. Database Savings Plans were announced in December 2025 and provide portfolio-level flexibility — the same commitment automatically applies across DocumentDB, RDS, Aurora, DynamoDB, ElastiCache, Neptune, and other eligible managed database services.
What is covered: DocumentDB instance compute charges (the vCPU/RAM cost of provisioned cluster instances) and DocumentDB Serverless DCU-hours, both under Database Savings Plans.
What is not covered: DocumentDB storage (distributed, auto-scaling storage billed per GB-month), I/O charges, data transfer, and backup storage beyond the free tier.
Commitment instrument
Amazon DocumentDB uses Database Savings Plans as its cost commitment model — there are no per-instance Reserved Instances for DocumentDB. Terms: 1-year only, No Upfront payment. Discount: up to ~35% vs. on-demand. The commitment is an hourly spend rate ($/hour) that automatically applies to DocumentDB and other covered database services as usage changes. Best for teams managing DocumentDB alongside other AWS managed databases under a unified commitment strategy.
Instance / node / tier coverage
db.t3.medium (burstable)
✅ Yes
up to ~35%
Development/small workloads
db.r5 family (memory optimized)
✅ Yes
up to ~35%
Most common production class
db.r6g family (Graviton2, memory)
✅ Yes
up to ~35%
Graviton2; better price/performance
db.r6gd family (Graviton2 + NVMe)
✅ Yes
up to ~35%
NVMe-backed; announced December 2024
db.r7g family (Graviton3, memory)
✅ Yes
up to ~35%
Latest-gen; check region availability
db.t4g family (Graviton2, burstable)
✅ Yes
up to ~35%
DocumentDB Serverless
✅ Yes
up to ~35%
Database Savings Plans cover Serverless DCUs
Regional availability
Commitment scope: Region-flexible — Database Savings Plans apply automatically across all covered database services in any supported AWS region; no regional lock-in.
Available in all commercial AWS regions where Amazon DocumentDB is offered. DocumentDB has been expanding its regional footprint and as of late 2025 added support in additional Asia Pacific and Mexico regions.
Partition notes: Database Savings Plans are not available in China (cn-) regions. They can cover GovCloud (us-gov-) usage, but Savings Plans must be purchased from a linked standard AWS account — they cannot be purchased directly from GovCloud accounts.
⚠️ Regional and partition availability varies by instance type. Always verify at the AWS Pricing Console before purchasing.
Archera
Amazon DocumentDB is a core service within Archera's commitment management scope. Archera can automate Database Savings Plan commitments that cover DocumentDB instance and serverless usage, monitor utilization across DocumentDB workloads, and wrap commitments in a GRI/GSP — eliminating downside risk on over-commitment while preserving the Savings Plan discount. Database Savings Plans allow the commitment to flex across DocumentDB and other eligible managed database services if usage patterns shift.
Sources
⚠️ Discount percentages are approximate and region/instance-type-dependent. Always verify with the AWS Pricing Calculator.
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