Standard vs. Convertible offering classes

When you purchase a Reserved Instance, you can choose between a Standard or Convertible offering class.

Table 1 – Comparison of standard and Convertible Reserved Instances

Standard Reserved Instance	Convertible Reserved Instance
One-year to three-year term	One-year to three-year term
Enables you to modify Availability Zone, scope, networking type, and instance size (within the same instance family) of your Reserved Instance. For more information, see Modifying Reserved Instances.	Enables you to exchange one or more Convertible Reserved Instances for another Convertible Reserved Instance with a different configuration, including instance family, operating system, and tenancy. There are no limits to how many times you perform an exchange, as long as the target Convertible Reserved Instance is of an equal or higher value than the Convertible Reserved Instances that you are exchanging. For more information, see Exchanging Convertible Reserved Instances.
Can be sold in the Reserved Instance Marketplace.	Cannot be sold in the Reserved Instance Marketplace.

Standard Reserved Instances typically provide the highest discount levels. One-year Standard Reserved Instances provide a similar discount to three-year Convertible Reserved Instances.

If you want to purchase capacity reservations, see On-Demand Capacity Reservations.

Convertible Reserved Instances are useful when:

• Purchasing Reserved Instances in the payer account instead of a subaccount. You can more easily modify Convertible Reserved Instances to meet changing needs across your organization.

• Workloads are likely to change. In this case, a Convertible Reserved Instance enables you to adapt as needs evolve while still obtaining discounts and capacity reservations.

• You want to hedge against possible future price drops.

• You can’t or don’t want to ask teams to do capacity planning or forecasting.

• You expect compute usage to remain at the committed amount over the commitment period.