What is a good commitment utilization?

As close to 100% as you can keep it without starving coverage. Utilization that stays well below 100% means the commitment is bigger than the steady usage behind it.

What happens to unused commitment?

You pay for it anyway. Depending on the type, you may be able to exchange it (AWS Convertible Reserved Instances, Azure reservations within limits), sell it (AWS Standard Reserved Instances on the Reserved Instance Marketplace) or move usage onto it. Savings Plans and Google Cloud CUDs generally run to the end of the term.

Can commitment utilization go above 100%?

No. Once a commitment is fully used, the rest of the usage is billed at on-demand rates. That shows up as lower coverage, not higher utilization.

Commitments & rates

Commitment utilization

Commitment utilization is the share of a commitment you paid for that your usage actually consumed: used commitment ÷ total commitment. Anything below 100% is commitment you paid for and didn't use, so it shows how well a Reserved Instance, Savings Plan, Azure reservation or committed use discount fits real usage.

In plain English

Think of a prepaid mobile data pack. Utilization is how much of the 10 GB you actually used before the month reset. Whatever is left doesn't roll over, and you paid for it all the same.

Formula and worked example

Commitment utilization = used commitment ÷ total commitment

Total commitment: = the commitment you paid for in the period
Used commitment: = the part of the total commitment that usage consumed

Worked example. Northwind Labs' Savings Plan, the same month as the effective savings rate example.
Savings Plan commitment for the month	$60,000
Commitment used by eligible usage	$57,000
Unused commitment, paid anyway	$3,000
Commitment utilization	95%

That $3,000 is why Northwind Labs' effective savings rate is 16% rather than 19%. At 95% the commitment is close to the right size; a steady drop below that would mean it is bigger than the usage behind it.

Why commitment utilization matters

Utilization is the waste check on commitments. Every point below 100% is money paid for capacity or spend that nothing used, and it comes straight off your savings.

It tends to drop after good news elsewhere: a migration, a rightsizing push or a workload shutting down can leave a commitment bought for the old setup with less to cover. Watching utilization next to coverage catches that before the next renewal.

Common mistakes

Chasing 100% by buying too little. A small commitment is easy to fill but leaves most usage at on-demand prices. Balance utilization against coverage, or watch the effective savings rate, which captures both.
Rightsizing without checking commitments. Moving to smaller or different instances can strand a Reserved Instance or resource-based CUD bought for the old shape. Check what is committed before you change it.
Averaging over too long a window. A 30-day average can hide a commitment that sits unused every night or weekend. Savings Plans on AWS and Azure are applied hour by hour, so look at hourly or daily utilization for workloads that follow a schedule.
Writing off unused commitment too early. Some commitments can be changed: AWS Convertible Reserved Instances can be exchanged, Standard ones can be sold on the Reserved Instance Marketplace, and Azure reservations can be exchanged or refunded within limits. Check the options before accepting the loss.

Where to find it in AWS, Azure and Google Cloud

Where to find Commitment utilization by cloud provider
Cloud	What it is called	Where to find it
AWS	Savings Plans and Reserved Instance utilization	Billing and Cost Management → Savings Plans: the utilization report shows the share of your commitment used. Cost Explorer's RI utilization report covers Reserved Instances for EC2, RDS, Redshift, ElastiCache and OpenSearch Service. In CUR 2.0: savings_plan_used_commitment ÷ savings_plan_total_commitment_to_date.
Azure	Reservation and savings plan utilization	Each reservation and savings plan shows its utilization percentage in the Azure portal (Reservations, or Cost Management + Billing for billing admins). In amortized cost data, unused amounts appear with ChargeType UnusedReservation or UnusedSavingsPlan.
Google Cloud	CUD utilization	Billing → Committed use discounts → CUD analysis → CUD Utilization tab. Google Cloud doesn't compute utilization when the view combines more than one type of CUD.

How CloudYali helps

CloudYali Financial Commitments tracks utilization and unused commitment for every AWS Reserved Instance and Savings Plan, Azure reservation and savings plan, and Google Cloud CUD, so a commitment that stops fitting your usage shows up before renewal.

See the feature Read how it works in the docs

Commitments & rates
Commitment coverage
Commitment coverage is the share of commitment-eligible usage that a Reserved Instance, Savings Plan, Azure reservation or Google Cloud committed use discount paid for, measured at on-demand prices. The rest was billed at full on-demand rates, so low coverage on steady usage is money left on the table.
Commitments & rates
Effective savings rate (ESR)
Effective savings rate (ESR) is net savings as a share of what all commitment-eligible usage would have cost at on-demand prices. Because it subtracts commitment you paid for but didn't use, it is the one rate-optimization number that buying too many Reserved Instances, Savings Plans or committed use discounts can't inflate.
Commitments & rates
Savings Plan (SP)
A Savings Plan is an AWS or Azure commitment to spend a fixed amount per hour on eligible compute for one or three years. Usage up to that amount is billed at lower rates, and the discount follows your usage across instance sizes and, with the most flexible plans, instance families and regions.
Commitments & rates
Reserved Instance (RI)
A Reserved Instance (RI) is a one- or three-year commitment to a specific kind of capacity, such as an EC2 instance type in a region or an RDS database, in exchange for a lower hourly price. It's a billing discount, not a server, and you pay for every hour of the term whether the capacity runs or not.
Commitments & rates
Committed use discount (CUD)
A committed use discount (CUD) is Google Cloud's commitment discount: you commit to a set amount of resources, such as vCPUs and memory in one region, or to an hourly spend, for one or three years, and pay lower prices on that usage. The commitment is billed every month of the term, used or not.
Optimization
Rightsizing
Rightsizing is changing a cloud resource to the smallest size or type that still meets its workload's real needs, based on measured CPU, memory, storage and network use. It's one of the largest usage savings in FinOps, and it should come before buying commitments, so you don't commit to capacity you don't need.

Frequently asked questions

What is a good commitment utilization?
As close to 100% as you can keep it without starving coverage. Utilization that stays well below 100% means the commitment is bigger than the steady usage behind it.
What happens to unused commitment?
You pay for it anyway. Depending on the type, you may be able to exchange it (AWS Convertible Reserved Instances, Azure reservations within limits), sell it (AWS Standard Reserved Instances on the Reserved Instance Marketplace) or move usage onto it. Savings Plans and Google Cloud CUDs generally run to the end of the term.
Can commitment utilization go above 100%?
No. Once a commitment is fully used, the rest of the usage is billed at on-demand rates. That shows up as lower coverage, not higher utilization.