AWS bill line item
WriteCapacityUnit-Hrs
The hourly charge for provisioned write capacity units reserved on a DynamoDB table, billed whether or not the capacity is consumed.
DynamoDB provisioned write capacity
Verified against official AWS documentation last checked
Why it shows up
In provisioned capacity mode you pay for the capacity you configure, not what you use. Throughput provisioned for a peak load that rarely materializes bills continuously at the reserved rate, which is the classic provisioned-vs-on-demand DynamoDB cost trap.
Auto scaling can mask this: if scaling policies are set too aggressively or the target utilization is too low, the table holds far more provisioned capacity than the steady-state workload needs.
How to cut it
- Switch spiky or unpredictable tables to on-demand capacity mode and compare actual cost.
- Tune auto-scaling target utilization closer to real usage instead of leaving conservative defaults.
- Right-size manually-provisioned tables using consumed-capacity metric history.
- Evaluate a lower-cost table class for write-light, storage-heavy tables to shift the cost balance.
How to read a usage type
WriteCapacityUnit-Hrs carries no region or direction token, so there's nothing to break down here.
Source
Source: AWS docs →Found WriteCapacityUnit-Hrs on your own bill?
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