Amazon DynamoDB Pricing
Amazon DynamoDB is a fully managed, serverless NoSQL database offering single-digit millisecond performance. Compare On-Demand vs. Provisioned throughput, Standard vs. Standard-IA storage classes, PITR backups, and Vector Search across all 36 AWS regions.
Alternatives to DynamoDB
| Option | Price vs DynamoDB | Why look at it |
|---|---|---|
| ElastiCache for Redis | No like-for-like unit | Different database service |
| RDS for PostgreSQL | No like-for-like unit | Different database service |
| Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL | No like-for-like unit | Different database service |
What to know about Amazon DynamoDB
Serverless key-value and document database billed per request or by provisioned capacity, plus storage.
DynamoDB has no instances to size. You pay for reads, writes and storage, and you pick one of two capacity modes.
On-demand charges per request: $0.125 per million read units and $0.625 per million write units in us-east-1. You pay nothing when idle and never throttle for lack of provisioned capacity, so it suits new or spiky workloads. Provisioned mode charges per capacity unit-hour, $0.00013 per read unit and $0.00065 per write unit, or about $0.09 and $0.47 per unit per month. It gets cheaper when traffic is steady and predictable.
In both modes writes cost 5 times as much as reads, so a write-heavy design costs far more than a read-heavy one. Item size and write patterns matter more than table count.
Storage is $0.25 per GB-month on the standard table class. The Standard-IA class cuts that to $0.10 but raises request prices by about 25%. It pays off only for large tables that are mostly stored, not read.
Point-in-time recovery is billed separately, at $0.20 per GB-month on top of storage.
Good for
- Spiky or unpredictable traffic on on-demand mode
- Steady, well-understood traffic on provisioned capacity
- Large tables of rarely read data using the Standard-IA table class
Watch for
- Writes cost 5 times as much as reads
- Standard-IA tables cost more per request, so they only pay off when storage dominates
- Point-in-time recovery adds $0.20 per GB-month
Table Classes & Capacity Architecture
DynamoDB bills along two primary dimensions: Storage (Standard vs. Standard-IA) and Throughput (On-Demand vs. Provisioned).
General-Purpose Workloads
Default table class for applications with balanced or throughput-heavy access patterns. Lowest request pricing with standard storage rates.
- Storage: $0.25/GB-mo (us-east-1)
- On-Demand Reads: $0.125 / million RRU
- On-Demand Writes: $0.625 / million WRU
- Best when: Storage is < 50% of total table cost
Storage-Heavy Workloads
Reduces storage costs by 60% in exchange for 25% higher read/write throughput rates. Seamlessly switchable without downtime.
- Storage: $0.10/GB-mo (-60% savings)
- On-Demand Reads: $0.155 / million RRU
- On-Demand Writes: $0.780 / million WRU
- Best when: Storage is > 50-60% of total table cost
Pay-Per-Request Throughput
Instantly accommodates spiky, unpredictable workloads with zero capacity provisioning and scales to zero when idle.
- Unit: Read Request Units (RRU) & Write Request Units (WRU)
- Billing: Purely per-request execution
- Sizing: 1 RRU = 4 KB read, 1 WRU = 1 KB write
- Best for: Spiky, new, or unforecasted traffic
Reserved Throughput + Auto Scaling
Specify target Reads/Sec (RCU) and Writes/Sec (WCU). Substantially cheaper per request when sustained utilization exceeds 13-15%.
- Unit: Read Capacity Units (RCU) & Write Capacity Units (WCU)
- Auto Scaling: Scales capacity up/down to target utilization
- Pricing: $0.095/RCU-mo & $0.474/WCU-mo
- Best for: Predictable, steady-state baseline traffic
Regional Pricing Explorer
Inspect detailed DynamoDB rates for storage, on-demand throughput, provisioned capacity, and Vector Search by region.
Table Storage & Backups
Monthly storage rates per GB
On-Demand Throughput
Per 1,000,000 requests
Provisioned Throughput
Committed capacity per second
Vector Search (GenAI)
Approximate Nearest Neighbor search
DynamoDB Cost Estimator & Break-Even Calculator
Model your monthly table cost across capacity modes and table classes to find the optimal architecture.
Workload Parameters
Estimated Monthly Cost
Global Regional Rates Comparison
Compare DynamoDB storage and throughput rates across all 36 global AWS regions.
| Region | Std Storage | IA Storage | 1M Reads (On‑Demand) | 1M Writes (On‑Demand) | 1 RCU / mo | 1 WCU / mo | PITR / GB‑mo |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| us-east-1 US East (N. Virginia) | $0.2500 | $0.1000 | $0.125 | $0.625 | $0.095 | $0.474 | $0.2000 |
| us-east-2 US East (Ohio) | $0.2500 | $0.1000 | $0.125 | $0.625 | $0.095 | $0.474 | $0.2000 |
| us-west-2 US West (Oregon) | $0.2500 | $0.1000 | $0.125 | $0.625 | $0.095 | $0.474 | $0.2000 |
| us-west-1 US West (N. California) | $0.2800 | $0.1120 | $0.139 | $0.695 | $0.106 | $0.529 | $0.2240 |
| ca-central-1 Canada (Central) | $0.2750 | $0.1100 | $0.138 | $0.688 | $0.104 | $0.522 | $0.2200 |
| ca-west-1 Canada West (Calgary) | $0.2750 | $0.1100 | $0.138 | $0.688 | $0.104 | $0.522 | $0.2200 |
| eu-west-1 EU (Ireland) | $0.2830 | $0.1132 | $0.141 | $0.705 | $0.107 | $0.537 | $0.2200 |
| eu-central-1 EU (Frankfurt) | $0.3060 | $0.1224 | $0.152 | $0.762 | $0.116 | $0.579 | $0.2448 |
| eu-west-2 EU (London) | $0.2972 | $0.1189 | $0.149 | $0.742 | $0.113 | $0.564 | $0.2377 |
| eu-west-3 EU (Paris) | $0.2972 | $0.1189 | $0.149 | $0.742 | $0.113 | $0.564 | $0.2377 |
| eu-north-1 EU (Stockholm) | $0.2690 | $0.1076 | $0.134 | $0.670 | $0.102 | $0.510 | $0.2100 |
| eu-south-1 EU (Milan) | $0.2972 | $0.1189 | $0.149 | $0.740 | $0.113 | $0.563 | $0.2310 |
| eu-south-2 Europe (Spain) | $0.2830 | $0.1132 | $0.141 | $0.705 | $0.107 | $0.537 | $0.2200 |
| eu-central-2 Europe (Zurich) | $0.3366 | $0.1346 | $0.168 | $0.835 | $0.128 | $0.637 | $0.2693 |
| ap-northeast-1 Asia Pacific (Tokyo) | $0.2850 | $0.1140 | $0.143 | $0.715 | $0.108 | $0.542 | $0.2280 |
| ap-northeast-2 Asia Pacific (Seoul) | $0.2707 | $0.1083 | $0.135 | $0.680 | $0.103 | $0.515 | $0.2166 |
| ap-northeast-3 Asia Pacific (Osaka) | $0.2850 | $0.1140 | $0.143 | $0.715 | $0.108 | $0.542 | $0.2280 |
| ap-southeast-1 Asia Pacific (Singapore) | $0.2850 | $0.1140 | $0.143 | $0.710 | $0.108 | $0.540 | $0.2280 |
| ap-southeast-2 Asia Pacific (Sydney) | $0.2850 | $0.1140 | $0.143 | $0.710 | $0.108 | $0.540 | $0.2280 |
| ap-southeast-3 Asia Pacific (Jakarta) | $0.2850 | $0.1140 | $0.143 | $0.710 | $0.108 | $0.540 | $0.2280 |
| ap-southeast-4 Asia Pacific (Melbourne) | $0.2850 | $0.1140 | $0.143 | $0.710 | $0.108 | $0.540 | $0.2280 |
| ap-southeast-5 Asia Pacific (Malaysia) | $0.2565 | $0.1026 | $0.129 | $0.640 | $0.097 | $0.486 | $0.2052 |
| ap-southeast-6 Asia Pacific (New Zealand) | $0.2993 | $0.1197 | $0.150 | $0.746 | $0.113 | $0.567 | $0.2394 |
| ap-southeast-7 Asia Pacific (Thailand) | $0.2565 | $0.1026 | $0.129 | $0.640 | $0.097 | $0.486 | $0.2052 |
| ap-east-1 Asia Pacific (Hong Kong) | $0.3135 | $0.1254 | $0.155 | $0.785 | $0.119 | $0.594 | $0.2508 |
| ap-east-2 Asia Pacific (Taipei) | $0.2565 | $0.1026 | $0.128 | $0.643 | $0.097 | $0.487 | $0.2052 |
| ap-south-1 Asia Pacific (Mumbai) | $0.2850 | $0.1140 | $0.143 | $0.710 | $0.108 | $0.540 | $0.2280 |
| ap-south-2 Asia Pacific (Hyderabad) | $0.2850 | $0.1140 | $0.143 | $0.710 | $0.108 | $0.540 | $0.2280 |
| sa-east-1 South America (Sao Paulo) | $0.3750 | $0.1500 | $0.188 | $0.938 | $0.142 | $0.712 | $0.3000 |
| mx-central-1 Mexico (Central) | $0.2625 | $0.1050 | $0.132 | $0.655 | $0.100 | $0.498 | $0.2100 |
| me-central-1 Middle East (UAE) | $0.3113 | $0.1245 | $0.155 | $0.776 | $0.118 | $0.590 | $0.2420 |
| me-south-1 Middle East (Bahrain) | $0.3113 | $0.1245 | $0.155 | $0.775 | $0.118 | $0.590 | $0.2420 |
| il-central-1 Israel (Tel Aviv) | $0.3396 | $0.1358 | $0.170 | $0.850 | $0.129 | $0.644 | $0.2640 |
| af-south-1 Africa (Cape Town) | $0.3368 | $0.1347 | $0.168 | $0.840 | $0.128 | $0.638 | $0.2618 |
| us-gov-east-1 AWS GovCloud (US-East) | $0.3000 | $0.1200 | $0.150 | $0.750 | $0.114 | $0.569 | $0.2400 |
| us-gov-west-1 AWS GovCloud (US-West) | $0.3000 | $0.1200 | $0.150 | $0.750 | $0.114 | $0.569 | $0.2400 |
DynamoDB Pricing Architecture & Sizing Rules
1. Read Sizing (RCU & RRU)
One Read Capacity Unit (RCU) or Read Request Unit (RRU) provides:
- 1 strongly consistent read per second for items up to 4 KB
- 2 eventually consistent reads per second for items up to 4 KB (half cost)
- 0.5 transactional reads per second (2x cost)
- Items > 4 KB require additional capacity units (e.g. 8 KB = 2 RCUs).
2. Write Sizing (WCU & WRU)
One Write Capacity Unit (WCU) or Write Request Unit (WRU) provides:
- 1 standard write per second for items up to 1 KB
- 0.5 transactional writes per second (2x cost)
- Items > 1 KB require additional capacity units (e.g. 3.5 KB = 4 WCUs).
3. The 60% Storage Decision Rule
Standard-IA cuts storage costs by 60% while increasing request rates by 25%.
- If storage accounts for > 50-60% of your bill → Standard-IA saves money.
- If request throughput dominates your bill → Standard is cheaper.
- You can switch table classes in place with zero downtime or code changes.
4. On-Demand vs. Provisioned Break-Even
Provisioned capacity charges a flat hourly fee regardless of utilization.
- Break-even point is approximately 13% to 15% sustained utilization.
- If steady-state traffic runs continuously > 15% → Provisioned with Auto Scaling is cheaper.
- If traffic is spiky, seasonal, or frequently idle → On-Demand avoids paying for unused headroom.