AWS Account Structure Considerations - Laying the Foundation: Setting Up Your Environment for Cost Optimization

AWS Account Structure Considerations

A well-defined AWS account structure that your teams agree on will help you understand and optimize costs. As with tagging, it is important that you implement a deliberate account strategy early on and allow it to evolve in response to changing needs. With multiple accounts, an organization can manage costs by:

  • Grouping resources that require different payment instruments

  • Providing groups with different levels of administrative control over AWS resources

  • Better controlling Reserved Instances for specific workloads

  • Identifying untaggable costs such as data transfer

  • Using accounts associated with different business units or functional teams

For many organizations, a consolidated billing strategy where all AWS accounts are paid through one primary account facilitates simplified payments, maximizes volume discounts, and enables the sharing of Reserved Instance benefits across linked accounts. AWS Organizations lets you create groups of AWS accounts with central policy management and consolidated billing.