The Party’s Over: Why Cloud Commitments Are About to Get Real

For years, cloud finance has operated on a myth. A myth that you can lock in big discounts from AWS without truly locking into anything. That cloud commitments aren’t really commitments. That someone, your vendor, a clever workaround, the RI Marketplace, will figure it out later.

That myth is about to end:  Starting June 1st 2025, AWS is closing the loopholes. The commitment flexibility so many finance teams have quietly relied on is about to vanish.

To quote directly the AWS announcement to partners:

“AWS RIs and SPs provide savings for a single end customer’s long-term steady state AWS usage, enabling AWS to deliver the lowest possible prices for RIs and SPs. We are updating our program terms to clearly reflect that RIs and SPs are only for a single end customer’s AWS usage.” 

And for CFOs, that’s not just a line in a contract. It’s a shift in how cloud spend behaves on your books, and it could create serious consequences if you’re not ready.

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If you’re a CFO, this is your wake-up call

Let’s be real: cloud commitments haven’t felt like obligations. They’ve felt like suggestions. Why? Because a whole ecosystem of vendors has existed to make them feel that way.

There’s been a quiet industry operating behind the scenes of every discounted AWS deal. Vendors built clever ways to game the system:

• ‘Group-buying’ commitments across multiple customers so no one feels the risk
• Transferring sub-accounts between customers to skirt AWS’s rules
• Shuffling cloud credits between customers to manufacture arbitrage
• Treating Reserved Instances like a trading card, buying and reselling to get out early
• Even automating returns during the 7-day grace window
  
  

The result? Companies have enjoyed the upside of savings with none of the downside of commitment. But here’s the problem: AWS has noticed. And they’re done playing along.

AWS tolerated these practices during the hypergrowth phase of cloud adoption, but has now made it clear they will be enforcing compliance through the Partner Program, with penalties for partners who continue discount sharing after June 1, 2025.

AWS has clarified that some savings commitments purchased before June 1 can continue to be used under existing arrangements, provided those agreements were signed before the deadline and the vendor formally confirms this with AWS.

Once the new rules take effect, AWS partners and resellers who violate them risk losing their AWS Partner status.

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Now AWS is tightening the rules, and fast

Here’s what’s happening behind the scenes: AWS operates in one of the most capital-intensive industries in the world. Every time you commit to a Savings Plan, they make infrastructure investments based on that promise. They provision servers, allocate power, build out capacity. That all costs real money.

And when companies back out of those commitments, whether directly or via a vendor workaround, AWS takes the loss. For a while, they tolerated it. Growth was good. The cloud landgrab was still on. But we’re now in a more disciplined era, one where AWS needs those commitments to be real, not theoretical.

So they’re closing the loopholes. And as of June 1st 2025, we’re expecting:

• Strict enforcement on sub-account transfers
• Reduced flexibility on RI resales
• Tighter Marketplace rules
• A hard crackdown on pooled or redistributed commitments

In short: commitments will start behaving like real commitments again.

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Why this matters for CFOs

If you’re reading this, you’re probably not the one deciding which AWS region to deploy in. You’re not choosing instance types or managing RI purchases directly.

But you are the one accountable when your cloud spend spirals, your margin tanks, or your forecast gets wrecked by unexpected charges.

The shift AWS is making impacts you because it fundamentally changes the risk profile of cloud commitments. Until now, your vendor could absorb that risk, or at least obscure it. Now, that risk is moving back where it was always meant to sit: on your balance sheet. And if your current strategy doesn’t adjust, you’ll feel it in your numbers fast.

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What this might look like in real terms

Let’s say your team signed a 3-year AWS commitment based on projected growth. You assumed you could scale into the usage, or offload some of it if plans changed.

Then your product roadmap shifted. Usage dropped. And now those commitments sit like deadweight on your books.

Pre- June 2025, a vendor might have told you they can just reallocate the excess to another customer. Maybe they would have used one of the main 'tricks' to spread it around.

Now? You’re likely stuck. There’s no graceful exit. No redistribution. Just a big, expensive commitment and no usage to justify it. That’s not a cost optimization problem. That’s a financial risk exposure problem.

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What’s driving AWS’s behavior?

It’s tempting to think AWS is just being rigid. But that’s not it. They’re acting like any large infrastructure provider would when the economics start to fray.

Imagine if every company using AWS started gaming the system, locking in discounts and backing out of commitments via intermediaries. AWS would be investing based on false demand. Data centers would be built based on usage that never arrives. Hardware would sit idle. That’s not just inefficient. It’s a financial time bomb.

So AWS is protecting the integrity of its own model. And from their perspective, they’re not being punitive, they’re being rational.

According to AWS communications, this move is intended to ensure that savings plans and reserved instances promote transparency, prevent abuse, and tie financial commitments directly to the end customer’s actual usage. AWS has communicated this change primarily through partner channels, meaning many CFOs may still be unaware unless their vendors are proactive in informing them. We’ll go into this in more detail in Post #2 of this series.

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What you need to do next

This isn’t the time to panic. But it is time to get serious. If your current cloud procurement strategy relies on flexibility, exits, or vendor magic, you need to get clear on your exposure, and fast. That means:

• Auditing your existing commitments: What’s locked in, and what assumptions were baked into those decisions? Are any eligible for exemption from these changes?
• Interrogating your vendors: Are they using tactics AWS is shutting down? How do they intend to handle these, and what impact will it have on their business model and their own survival?
• Stress-testing your forecasts: What happens if usage drops and there’s no way to shed excess capacity?
• Rethinking how you model cloud costs: Treat cloud commitments as risk instruments, not cost savings
  
  

We’ll go into these steps in more detail in Post #3. But the point is this: you still have time to adjust. The companies that move early will be fine. The ones that wait will be left holding the bill.

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This is a reset, not a collapse

There’s no need to catastrophize. AWS isn’t trying to punish customers. They’re trying to create stability. And in the long run, that’s actually a good thing for CFOs.

Because when the cloud market is more disciplined, your cost structure becomes more predictable. When the rules are clearer, your exposure is easier to manage. And when commitments behave like commitments, you can finally plan with confidence.

But only if you know the game has changed, and you start playing by the new rules.

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What to expect in the rest of the series

In Post #2, we dig deeper into AWS’s rationale and why this moment is more structural than it seems.

In Post #3, we give you a playbook: what CFOs should be doing right now to reduce risk and prepare.

And in Post #4, we lay out how Cloud Capital is approaching this differently, by helping companies access the best AWS pricing without absorbing unnecessary risk.

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Final thought: don’t let this sneak up on you

You don’t want to be caught between engineering and finance with no levers to pull.

You want to be the one who saw the shift coming, asked the right questions, and moved early to protect your business. The party’s over. But that doesn’t mean the music has to stop.

We’re helping CFOs get ahead of this shift. If you want clarity on your current commitments, let’s talk. No pitch. Just clarity.