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Buying in the Reserved Instance Marketplace
The Reserved Instance Marketplace makes it easy to buy and sell Reserved Instances by matching sellers who own capacity that they no longer need with buyers who are looking to purchase additional capacity. Reserved Instances bought from third parties and sold through the Reserved Instance Marketplace work like Reserved Instances purchased from AWS. The only difference is that Reserved Instances purchased from third parties will have less than a full term remaining and can be sold at different prices.
As a buyer, the Reserved Instance Marketplace provides increased selection and flexibility by allowing you to search for Reserved Instances that most closely match your desired combination of instance type, region, and duration.
This buyer's guide contains the following sections:
Becoming a Buyer—Discusses what you need to do to become a buyer in the Reserved Instance Marketplace, the information you have to disclose, and the reasons why certain information is necessary.
Purchasing Your Reserved Instances—Walks you through the purchase process, which involves tasks that you likely will be repeating if you decide to use the Reserved Instance Marketplace.
Reading Your Statement (Invoice)—Helps you read and understand your bill.
For information about selling Reserved Instances in the Reserved Instance Marketplace, see Selling in the Reserved Instance Marketplace.
For basic information about Reserved Instances, see Reserved Instances.
How Buying in the Marketplace Works
Before you get started using the Reserved Instance Marketplace, you must first create an account with AWS. To purchase from the Reserved Instance Marketplace, specify the details of the Reserved Instances that you want to purchase in the AWS Management Console search wizard. You will then be presented with options that match your request. Any Reserved Instance you select must be purchased as listed—that is, you cannot change the term, the instance type, and so on.
After you select a Reserved Instance to purchase, AWS will provide you a quote on the total cost of your selections. When you decide to proceed with the purchase, AWS will automatically place a limit price on the purchase price, so the total cost of your Reserved Instances will not exceed the amount you were quoted. If the price rises for any reason, AWS will automatically return you to the previous screen and let you know that your purchase did not complete because the price changed. In addition, if at the time of purchase, there are offerings similar to your choice but with a lower price, AWS will give you the offerings with the lower price.
The Reserved Instance pricing tier discounts do not apply to purchases of third-party Reserved Instances. If you purchase $250,000 worth of Reserved Instances from a third party in the Reserved Instance Marketplace, and then you purchase another set of third-party Reserved Instances that puts your total list price above the first pricing tier threshold, you will not get the 10 percent discount associated with that tier. However, if after crossing a pricing threshold, you purchase a Reserved Instance from AWS, your purchase will be discounted. For more information, see Understanding Reserved Instance pricing tiers.
You can determine if your Reserved Instance transaction has completed by looking at the Reserved Instances page
in the Amazon EC2 console, or the results of the ec2-describe-reserved-instances command or the
DescribeReservedInstances action. If the purchase is successful, your Reserved Instance will transition
from the pending-payment state to the active state.
If your payment fails, then the transaction will fail immediately.
The console, the ec2-describe-reserved-instances command, and the DescribeReservedInstances action will
display this failed transaction by showing that the Reserved Instance you attempted to purchase will move from the payment-pending
to the payment-failed state.
It is important to note that once you have purchased a Reserved Instance (from a third-party seller in the Reserved Instance Marketplace or from AWS), you cannot cancel your purchase. However, you can always re-list and sell the Reserved Instance if your needs change. For information about selling your Reserved Instance in the Reserved Instance Marketplace, see Selling in the Reserved Instance Marketplace.
