Spot Instance limits - Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
Spot Instance limitsRequest a limit increaseMonitor limits and usage

Spot Instance limits

There is a limit on the number of running and requested Spot Instances per AWS account per Region. Spot Instance limits are managed in terms of the number of virtual central processing units (vCPUs) that your running Spot Instances are either using or will use pending the fulfillment of open Spot Instance requests. If you terminate your Spot Instances but do not cancel the Spot Instance requests, the requests count against your Spot Instance vCPU limit until Amazon EC2 detects the Spot Instance terminations and closes the requests.

Spot Instance limits

There are six Spot Instance limits, listed in the following table. Each limit specifies the vCPU limit for one or more instance families. For information about the different instance families, generations, and sizes, see Amazon EC2 Instance Types.

Spot Instance limit name Default vCPU limit

All Standard (A, C, D, H, I, M, R, T, Z) Spot Instance Requests

1440 vCPUs

All F Spot Instance Requests

11 vCPUs

All G Spot Instance Requests

11 vCPUs

All Inf Spot Instance Requests

 64 vCPUs

All P Spot Instance Requests

16 vCPUs

All X Spot Instance Requests

21 vCPUs
Note

New AWS accounts might start with limits that are lower than the limits described here. These limits can increase over time.

With vCPU limits, you can use your limit in terms of the number of vCPUs that are required to launch any combination of instance types that meet your changing application needs. For example, with an All Standard Spot Instance Requests limit of 256 vCPUs, you could request 32 m5.2xlarge Spot Instances (32 x 8 vCPUs) or 16 c5.4xlarge Spot Instances (16 x 16 vCPUs), or a combination of any Standard Spot Instance types and sizes that total 256 vCPUs.

Request a Spot Instance limit increase

Even though Amazon EC2 automatically increases your Spot Instance limits based on your usage, you can request a limit increase if necessary. For example, if you intend to launch more Spot Instances than your current limit allows, you can request a limit increase. You can also request a limit increase if you submit a Spot Instance request and you receive the error Max spot instance count exceeded.

To request a Spot Instance limit increase

  1. Open the Create case, Service limit increase form in the Support Center console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/support/home#/case/create.

  2. For Limit type, choose EC2 Spot Instances.

  3. For Region, select the required Region.

  4. For Primary instance type, select the Spot Instance limit for which you want to request a limit increase.

  5. For New limit value, enter the total number of vCPUs that you want to run concurrently. To determine the total number of vCPUs that you need, see Amazon EC2 Instance Types to find the number of vCPUs of each instance type.

  6. (Conditional) You must create a separate limit request for each Spot Instance limit. To request an increase for another Spot Instance limit, choose Add another request and repeat steps 4 and 5 in this procedure.

  7. For Use case description, enter your use case, and then choose Submit.

For more information about viewing limits and requesting a limit increase, see Amazon EC2 service quotas.

Monitor Spot Instance limits and usage

You can view and manage your Spot Instance limits using the following:

For more information, see Amazon EC2 service quotas in the Amazon EC2 User Guide for Linux Instances and Viewing a Service Quota in the Service Quotas User Guide.

With Amazon CloudWatch metrics integration, you can monitor EC2 usage against limits. You can also configure alarms to warn about approaching limits. For more information, see Using Amazon CloudWatch Alarms in the Service Quotas User Guide.