AWS bill line item
RDS:ChargedBackupUsage
The per-GB-month charge for RDS automated backups and manual snapshots once their combined size exceeds the free allotment (up to 100% of total provisioned database storage).
RDS backup storage overage
Verified against official AWS documentation last checked
Why it shows up
AWS gives free backup storage up to the sum of your database instances' allocated storage; once retained automated backups plus manual snapshots exceed that free tier, every extra GB is billed, which can appear suddenly after a retention window or snapshot count grows.
This charge can be broken out per DB instance in a Cost and Usage Report, rather than showing as one lump regional charge. That's useful for finding which specific database is driving it.
How to cut it
- Shorten the automated backup retention period where compliance allows.
- Delete stale manual snapshots that are no longer needed for recovery or compliance.
- Export long-term-retention snapshots to cheaper cold storage instead of keeping them as database snapshots.
- Tag DB instances so backup costs can be attributed per instance/team in Cost Explorer.
How to read a usage type
The colon in RDS:ChargedBackupUsage doesn't introduce an instance type the way it does in a code like BoxUsage:m5.large. This code carries no region or direction token either, so there's nothing to break down here.
Source
Source: AWS docs →Found RDS:ChargedBackupUsage on your own bill?
Drop your Cost Explorer CSV into the AWS Bill Analyzer. It'll flag line items like this one on your own bill and link straight back to the fix.
Analyze your own bill →A bill read by hand goes stale tomorrow.
Reading one export line by line takes real work. CostMon reads the next one for you, every day, for every provider you connect.