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EC2-Other Cost Breakdown

The "EC2-Other" category in AWS Cost Explorer is often viewed as a black box by users - it contains various charges that are not direct EC2 instance costs, making it difficult to understand where money is being spent.

unusd.cloud provides an automated breakdown of your EC2-Other costs, drilling down into the specific API operations to explain exactly what you are paying for.

What is EC2-Other?

EC2-Other is a catch-all category that includes costs not directly attributed to running EC2 instances. Common charges include:

NAT Gateway

  • Hourly charges for NAT Gateway availability
  • Data processing fees per GB transferred through NAT Gateways

EBS Storage

  • Volume storage for gp2, gp3, io1, io2, st1, sc1
  • Provisioned IOPS charges
  • Additional throughput charges for gp3 volumes

EBS Snapshots

  • Snapshot storage costs per GB
  • Snapshot copying across regions

Data Transfer

  • Inter-AZ data transfer
  • Data transfer in and out of AWS
  • Regional data transfer

Elastic IPs

  • Idle Elastic IP addresses (not attached to running instances)
  • Additional Elastic IPs per instance

VPC

  • Interface VPC Endpoint hourly and data processing charges
  • Public IPv4 address charges

CloudWatch

  • Detailed monitoring for EC2 instances
  • CloudWatch API requests

How It Works

unusd.cloud queries AWS Cost Explorer with the EC2-Other service filter and groups results by the OPERATION dimension. Each operation is then mapped to a human-readable description with actionable context.

The analysis covers the last 30 days and provides:

  • Total EC2-Other spend - Your complete spend in this category
  • Category breakdown - Operations grouped into logical categories (NAT Gateway, EBS, Data Transfer, etc.)
  • Top cost drivers - Operations sorted by amount with percentage breakdown
  • Recommendations - Actionable suggestions based on your top spending categories

Report Section

The EC2-Other breakdown appears in your scan report with:

  • Visual category breakdown showing spend distribution
  • Detailed table of top operations with amounts and descriptions
  • Tips for cost optimization based on your specific spending patterns

Optimization Tips

Based on your EC2-Other breakdown, consider:

  • High NAT Gateway costs - Deploy VPC Gateway Endpoints for S3 and DynamoDB (free) to reduce data processing charges
  • High EBS costs - Migrate gp2 volumes to gp3 for better price-performance
  • High Snapshot costs - Review and implement snapshot lifecycle policies
  • High Data Transfer - Optimize architecture for data locality between AZs
  • Idle Elastic IPs - Release unused Elastic IP addresses

Required Permissions

This feature uses the existing Cost Explorer permission:

- ce:GetCostAndUsage

This permission is already included in the standard unusd.cloud spoke role.