1. Reserved Instances let customers reduce their EC2 spend by up to 57% – however, most people believe you're "locked-in" when you commit to using RIs when in reality, you can prematurely exit your RIs after at least 30 days via the AWS EC2 RI Marketplace.

Burning money by paying the on-demand rate for EC2s

2. AWS takes a 12% fee on all RI sales through the marketplace. However, if you buy a no-upfront RI and you list it on the marketplace with $0 upfront, there is no fee once you sell your RI.

You don't need to pay any fees to AWS to sell RIs if you do it right!

3. Discount your RIs to sell them faster. Here's an academic paper on how to optimally price your RIs: https://www.aaai.org/ocs/index.php/IJCAI/IJCAI15/paper/view/11337/10695. Of course, if you'd rather have a guaranteed buyer for your RIs after buying them, check out www.usage.ai.

Pricing RIs