CloudWatch Pricing Without the Confusion [Part 1]

CloudWatch Pricing & Cost Optimization Series Part 1 of 2 Next article: CloudWatch Cost Optimization Playbook [Part 2] Your CloudWatch bill is a combination of at least seven different feature buckets, each with its own billing unit, free-tier boundary, and per-region scope. Some features bill per GB, others per metric-hour, others per alarm, and a few per API making it difficult to plan and predict observability costs. In this guide, we unravel CloudWatch pricing by covering the main billing caveats that make CloudWatch pricing hard to predict and a simplified breakdown of every pricing bucket with rates and free tiers. Part 2 covers what to do about it including optimization moves, verification steps, and when CloudWatch alone stops being cost-effective. CloudWatch Pricing Details You Should Be Aware Of CloudWatch started as a simple metrics and alarms service. Over time, AWS added Logs, Insights queries, Container Insights, Application Signals, X-Ray, RUM, Synthetics, and more. Each