Cloud cost
RI/SP coverage and utilization
Coverage measures what share of eligible usage is discounted by a commitment; utilization measures what share of the commitment you purchased is being used.
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Definition
Coverage answers "of everything we could be running at a discount, how much is": low coverage means you're overpaying on-demand for usage a commitment could have discounted. Utilization answers the opposite question, "of the commitment we bought, how much are we using": low utilization means you paid for capacity that's sitting unused.
The two numbers should be reviewed together on a fixed cadence, because they point to opposite fixes: low coverage means buy more commitment, low utilization means you've already bought too much (or the wrong shape) for your current footprint.
Where it shows up
Both figures appear as their own reports in AWS Cost Explorer: an RI/SP Coverage report showing the share of eligible usage running at a discounted rate, and a separate Utilization report showing the share of purchased commitment actually consumed, both filterable by account and by reporting period.
What makes it expensive
Read one of these reports without the other and you can act in exactly the wrong direction. Low coverage says buy more commitment. Low utilization says you already bought too much, or bought the wrong shape. Neither number means much on its own, so put them on the same page and the same cadence.
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