AWS bill line items
What is this line on my AWS bill?
Every line in an AWS bill, Cost and Usage Report or Cost Explorer export carries a usage type: a short code such as USE1-PublicIPv4:InUseAddress or NatGateway-Bytes that says what was metered. These pages explain one usage type each: what it measures, how to find it in your own data, what usually makes it grow, how its AWS list price has changed over time, and what to do about it.
Explainers
- Why did my AWS bill go up when I changed nothing? PublicIPv4:InUseAddress
If a new PublicIPv4:InUseAddress or PublicIPv4:IdleAddress line appeared on your AWS bill, it is the public IPv4 address charge AWS started on February 1, 2024. What it meters, how to find it, and how to reduce it.
- NatGateway-Bytes: why the NAT gateway line keeps growing NatGateway-Bytes
NatGateway-Bytes is the per-GB data processing charge of an AWS NAT gateway, billed under EC2-Other. What it meters, how to find which gateway drives it, why it grows, and how to cut it.
- DataTransfer-Out-Bytes: what you pay to send data to the internet DataTransfer-Out-Bytes
DataTransfer-Out-Bytes is data sent from an AWS region to the internet. What it meters, the free 100 GB, how to find what sends it, its dated price history by region, and how to reduce it.
- TimedStorage-ByteHrs: what your S3 Standard storage line measures TimedStorage-ByteHrs
TimedStorage-ByteHrs is Amazon S3 Standard storage, billed in GB-months. What a GB-month is, how to find which bucket grows, the hidden bytes that inflate it, and its dated list price history.
- Lambda-GB-Second: why your Lambda duration cost moved Lambda-GB-Second
Lambda-GB-Second is AWS Lambda compute time multiplied by the memory you configured. How it is calculated, how to find the function behind it, why it grows, and its dated price history.
Reading a usage type
Most usage types start with a region code followed by a hyphen, for example USE2- for US East (Ohio) or APN1- for Asia Pacific (Tokyo). AWS publishes the full list as AWS Region billing codes. For US East (N. Virginia) some services leave the prefix out (Amazon S3 does; Amazon VPC does not), so the same line reads TimedStorage-ByteHrs there and USE2-TimedStorage-ByteHrs in Ohio. Each page here covers every region: the part after the prefix is what it explains.
In a Cost and Usage Report the usage type is the line_item_usage_type column. In Cost Explorer, choose Usage type as the grouping dimension, or add a Usage type filter.
The price history on each page comes from every version of the AWS Price List since 2015, the same data as the AWS price change tracker. It lists changes to prices that already existed, with the date AWS published each one and the month it took effect.