Commitment Planner Metrics
What every number on a commitment plan means: plan summary tiles, service breakdown, commitment line items, and resource detail.
This page defines the metrics shown in the Commitment Planner, working from the plan summary down to individual resources.
Two things that apply to almost every number here
Projections assume 100% utilization. Cost and savings figures in the Planner model what happens if every commitment in the plan is fully used for the entire period. Real utilization is rarely exactly 100%, so treat these as the projected best case for the plan as configured, not a guaranteed outcome. This is the single most common source of confusion when a realized invoice doesn't match a plan projection.
"Monthly" means the next 30 days. Where a metric is described as monthly, the calculation window is the next 30 days, not a calendar month.
Plan summary
Current Coverage
What it is: The percentage of all reservable spend, across all your resources, that is already covered by a commitment.
Important: Archera measures coverage in dollars of spend, not in resource hours. AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud all measure it in hours. This produces meaningfully different numbers, and Archera's choice is deliberate. See How Does Archera Calculate Commitment Coverage for a worked example of why.
Where you'll see it: Dashboard, Commitment Planner plan summary.
Minimum Commitment
Shown in the product as: Min Commitment
What it is: The floor spend obligation you take on if this plan is applied. It is the minimum you are committing to spend, regardless of whether you end up using the capacity.
Definition under review. The precise basis for this figure, in particular whether the displayed value represents a monthly rate or the total across the full commitment term, is being confirmed and is not yet published. Those two readings produce very different numbers on a multi-year plan.
If this number matters to your decision, ask us rather than inferring it. Contact your Archera representative or support and we will confirm the exact basis for your plan. We would rather answer the question directly than have you act on an assumption.
What it does not include: Upfront costs, which are one-time at signing and reported separately as Upfront Cost. It also excludes Archera premiums on Guaranteed Commitments, which are shown as a separate breakdown. See Premiums and Term Lengths.
Upfront Cost
API field: commitment_upfront_cost
What it is: The one-time payment due to the cloud provider at the time the commitments in the plan are applied.
What it does not include: Any recurring or hourly charges over the life of the commitment. Upfront Cost is paid once. It is not a monthly figure and is never annualized.
Note: A plan built entirely from No Upfront commitments, including all 30-day Archera Guaranteed Commitments, will show an Upfront Cost of zero.
Monthly Cost
What it is: The projected cost of the commitments included in this plan for the next 30 days, assuming 100% utilization.
What it does not include: Upfront costs. A plan with a large upfront payment and a low Monthly Cost is not cheaper than it appears, so read the two figures together.
Monthly Savings
What it is: The projected savings of the commitments included in this plan for the next 30 days, assuming 100% utilization.
Savings are measured against what the same usage would have cost at On-Demand rates (Pay-as-you-go on Azure).
What it does not include: Deductions for Archera premiums on Guaranteed Commitments, which are reported separately.
Service breakdown
Each service in the plan reports its own cost, savings, and coverage.
Service Covered
Shown in the product as: % Service Covered
What it is: The percentage of spend within a specific service, across all resources in that service, that will be covered once the plan is applied.
Unlike Current Coverage, this is a projected post-plan figure. It reflects the state after the plan is applied, not today's state.
At the service level, Monthly Cost and Monthly Savings carry the same definitions as the plan-level metrics above, scoped to the commitments for that one service.
Commitment line items
Each individual commitment in a plan is listed with the following fields.
Included
API field: is_selected
What it is: Whether this commitment is part of the plan. Clearing the checkbox removes the commitment from every rolled-up total on the plan: cost, savings, coverage, and upfront.
This is the most direct way to see how a single commitment affects a plan. Toggle it and watch the summary tiles move.
Commitment Info
What it is: The name and specifications of the commitment, including the instance family, size, region, platform, and other attributes that determine what the commitment applies to.
Commitments
What it is: The commitment's term and payment option, for example 1 Year GRI | No Upfront or 30 Day GC.
Term is how long you are committed. Payment option is how you pay for it (No Upfront, Partial Upfront, or All Upfront). See What Contract Terms Are Available for AWS?.
Amount
What it is: How much of a commitment to purchase. The unit depends on the commitment type:
Standard commitments (Reserved Instances, Azure Reservations): a number of instances
Hourly spend-based commitments (Savings Plans, CUDs): a dollars-per-hour figure
Comparing the Amount of a Reserved Instance to the Amount of a Savings Plan is not meaningful. They are different units.
Discount Rate
What it is: The percentage discount a particular commitment provides over On-Demand pricing (Pay-as-you-go on Azure).
What it does not include: Archera premiums. For Guaranteed Commitments, the rate shown is the discount of the underlying native commitment.
Breakeven
What it is: The point in time after which accumulated savings from the commitment surpass the remaining obligation on it.
Breakeven is most useful for commitments with an upfront payment: it tells you how long you need to hold the commitment before it has paid for itself. For No Upfront commitments, breakeven is typically immediate.
At the line-item level, Monthly Cost and Monthly Savings carry the plan-level definitions above, scoped to that single commitment.
Resource detail
Expanding a commitment shows the individual resources it applies to.
Before Rate and After Rate
Before Rate: The current hourly rate of the resource, including any savings it already receives from existing commitments. This is not necessarily the On-Demand rate. If the resource is already partly covered, Before Rate reflects that.
After Rate: The hourly rate for the instance after it is covered by this plan.
The gap between the two is the per-hour rate improvement the plan delivers for that resource.
Historical Usage
What it is: The usage and existing coverage of the resource over the past month, shown as a chart.
Green areas: the percentage of existing coverage
Blue lines: the usage
This is the evidence behind a recommendation. A resource with flat, sustained blue and little green is a strong commitment candidate.
Instance Covered
Shown in the product as: % Instance Covered
What it is: The percentage of On-Demand spend for one specific instance that will be covered once the plan is applied.
Related resources
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