Amazon Redshift reduces manual snapshot cost for Serverless and RG instances

Amazon Web Services has introduced a new billing model for manual snapshots on Amazon Redshift Serverless and Redshift RG instances that significantly reduces storage costs for organizations maintaining multiple snapshots. The updated pricing structure meters snapshot storage based on unique data blocks stored across snapshots rather than calculating costs based on the total size of each individual snapshot, resulting in substantial savings for customers who regularly create manual snapshots for disaster recovery, testing, or compliance purposes. The change enables organizations to implement more frequent backup schedules without proportional cost increases, allowing for better recovery point objectives (RPO) and more robust disaster recovery strategies. AWS automatically applies the new billing model to both existing and newly created manual snapshots across all commercial AWS regions and AWS GovCloud (US) regions where Redshift Serverless and RG instances are available. This pricing optimization addresses a common pain point for enterprise data warehouse operations, where traditional snapshot billing models often discouraged frequent backups due to cumulative storage costs, even when much of the data remained unchanged between snapshots.