config-cost-optimization

AWS Config Cost Optimization

Identify, quantify, and prioritize AWS Config cost optimization opportunities aligned with Optimize AWS Config costs, Cost optimization recommendations for AWS Config, and AWS Config pricing.

This skill uses read-only Config, CloudWatch, S3, and Organizations APIs only. It never starts, stops, or reconfigures a recorder, rule, or conformance pack — all remediation is delivered as recommendations for a human to review and apply.

When to Use

Activate this skill when the user asks to:

• Reduce or optimize AWS Config costs
• Investigate an unexpected Config cost or configuration-item (CI) spike
• Decide between continuous and daily recording frequency
• Review which resource types are recorded, or which rules/conformance packs run
• Perform a Config cost review or FinOps assessment

How AWS Config Billing Works

The pricing model is the foundation of every finding below. The essentials:

• Configuration items (CIs) are the dominant cost driver — billed per CI recorded.
• Recording frequency sets the CI price and cadence: continuous bills a CI for every change ($0.003 each); daily bills at most one CI per resource per day ($0.012 each). For high-churn resources, daily is often materially cheaper despite the higher sticker price; for low-churn resources continuous is usually cheaper. The right choice is per-resource-type.
• Config rule and conformance pack evaluations are billed per evaluation.
• S3 storage holds configuration history and snapshots in the delivery bucket.

For the full charge table, per-mode pricing, and the high-churn reasoning the checks rely on, load references/billing-model.md when you need to decide whether continuous or daily is cheaper for a resource type, or to explain a charge.