Cloud Native Persistent Desktop Virtualization – Amazon WorkSpaces Pricing – Amazon Web Services

How pricing works

Pricing across the Amazon WorkSpaces Family services is designed to be flexible and cost-effective, allowing you to pay for the resources you need without over provisioning.

Amazon WorkSpaces pricing provides monthly subscription or hourly metering options per virtual desktop instance, and includes everything you need to provide cloud-based virtual desktops to a broad range of workers.

Amazon WorkSpaces Core pricing provides monthly subscription and hourly metering options per virtual desktop instance. You purchase your third-party VDI software licensing separately.

Amazon WorkSpaces Web pricing is based on a flat fee per monthly active user, including up to 200 hours of streaming per user, with a nominal fee charged for every hour over 200.

Amazon WorkSpaces pricing

WorkSpaces allows you to pay for usage based on monthly subscriptions or hourly meters. With the monthly subscription option, you pay a fixed monthly fee per virtual desktop for unlimited usage during the month. Unlimited usage pricing is ideal for workers who use the service as their primary desktop.

With the hourly metering option, you pay a small, fixed monthly fee per virtual desktop to cover infrastructure and storage costs, and a low flat rate for each hour of usage during the month. Hourly metering is better suited for workers who only require part-time access to their virtual desktop.

You can mix the monthly subscription and hourly metering options within your AWS account, and you can switch between these billing options at any time within a billing period. Use our Cost Optimizer tool to select the appropriate option for each type of worker. Visit the Amazon WorkSpaces FAQ for more information.

• Ubuntu Linux Bundle Options

• Linux Bundle Options

• Windows Bundle Options

• Windows Bundle Options – Bring Your Own License (BYOL) *

• Ubuntu Linux Bundle Options

• Linux Bundle Options

• Windows Bundle Options

• Each Windows Bundle Option includes a Microsoft Remote Desktop Services (RDS) Subscriber Access License (SAL) per WorkSpace

• Windows Bundle Options – Bring Your Own License (BYOL) *

* Must be eligible for License Portability. For more information about BYOL, visit this page.

Note:

• For the best experience with video conferencing we recommend using Power or PowerPro bundles only.
• Standard, Performance, Power and PowerPro bundles are the only supported bundles for Windows 11 BYOL
• Monthly fees are prorated for first month only; in subsequent months, monthly fees are incurred for the full month.
• Hourly billing consists of an hourly rate charged while your Amazon WorkSpaces are running, and a monthly fee for fixed infrastructure costs. With hourly billing, Amazon WorkSpaces that are not being used automatically stop after a specified period of inactivity, and hourly charges are suspended.
• Amazon WorkSpaces pricing includes the use of AWS Directory Service for Simple AD and AD Connector (where available). The use of AWS Directory Service for Microsoft AD is not included. Details about AWS Directory Service pricing can be found here.

For more information, please see the Amazon WorkSpaces FAQs.

Amazon WorkSpaces pricing example

Using the US West (Oregon) Region, you launch virtual desktops for two sets of users. The first group of 100 users requires the monthly subscription option because they will use WorkSpaces as their full-time desktop for general productivity, while the second group of 10 users is better suited to hourly metering as they require occasional access to higher-performance machines.

For the first group of 100 users, you select the Windows Value Bundle with 1vCPU, 2 GB memory, 80 GB root volume and 10 GB user volume, running on Windows with a fixed price of $25 per machine per month. With the monthly subscription option, users have unlimited access to their virtual desktops. Monthly spend for this group of users is 100 users x $25 per virtual desktop for a total of $2,500 per month.

For the second group of 10 part-time users, you select a Linux Power Bundle with 4 vCPU, 16 GB memory, 80 GB root volume, 10 GB user volume, and hourly metering. With hourly metering, this virtual desktop has a fixed price of $7.25 per month + $0.64 per hour. Let’s assume each of the 10 users spends 5 hours a week on their virtual desktop (20 hours a month). Monthly spend for this group of users is calculated as follows:

10 users x $7.25 access cost = $72.50 flat access cost

200 hours of usage x $0.64 = $128 variable hourly usage cost

$72.50 access cost + $128 hourly usage cost = $200.50 total bill

Note, this Linux machine has a monthly subscription rate of $66. By using hourly metering, you saved $459.50 a month when compared to the $660 it would cost for the monthly subscription.

For more pricing and billing details for WorkSpaces, please access the pricing section of our FAQ.

Additional bundle options

WorkSpaces virtual desktops come with a set of applications at no additional cost. For an additional monthly fee, you can choose to have 32-bit Microsoft Office 2016 Professional Plus and Trend Micro Worry-Free Business Security installed on your virtual desktop powered by Windows Server 2016. Alternatively, you can install 64-bit Microsoft Office 2019 Professional Plus on your virtual desktops powered by Windows Server 2019.

WorkSpaces users also receive access to Amazon WorkDocs document sharing and content collaboration service with 50 GB of storage for no additional charge. You can upgrade to 1 TB of storage per WorkSpaces user for a discounted price. For more information, see Amazon WorkDocs Pricing.