Overview

This article explains how resellers can discuss billing differences between the native AWS console and the billing data reported in the StreamOne Ion platform with their customers. We will cover the main concepts of AWS billing, including blended rates, volume pricing, and how billing is calculated when using consolidated accounts. The goal is to help you better understand these variances and communicate them effectively to your customers.


Granting Customer Portal Access

We strongly encourage AWS resellers to give their customers access to the StreamOne Ion Customer Portal. This will help customers directly track and manage their billing. For more details, please refer to the articles: Customer Portal and Storefront Options and How to Setup and Manage End User Access and Password Resets. 


 

AWS billing supports different types of account configurations for resellers. These configurations allow resellers to manage multiple customers under one or more Master Payer Accounts (MPAs). Here are the common setups:

  • Shared Master Payers: Multiple resellers and their customers operate under a single AWS organization.
  • Dedicated Master Payers (Reseller Level): One reseller manages multiple end-customer accounts under a dedicated MPA.
  • Dedicated Master Payers (End-Customer Level): A reseller requests a dedicated payer for one end customer, especially when advanced features like SSO or Control Tower are needed.

 

Blended Rates Explained

AWS employs blended rates to streamline billing to TDS when various pricing models are utilized. This is especially beneficial for services such as EC2, RDS, ElastiCache, and Redshift. AWS combines the costs of various services and presents a single effective rate per hour in the Cost and Usage Report or AWS Cost Explorer. For these reasons, the AWS console may display a lower cost that will not be accurate for customer cost.

Important:
The blended rate is for informational purposes only. StreamOne Ion uses actual account consumption to calculate the final price for each customer, ensuring accurate billing.


AWS Volume Pricing

AWS Volume Pricing allows TD SYNNEX to receive discounts when purchasing large quantities of AWS services. These discounts are passed on to resellers who manage high-volume accounts. The exact discounts vary depending on the service being used, and resellers should be aware of these volume-based savings to explain cost differences to customers.


AWS Free Tier:

In a shared consolidated payer, free tier products are restricted to the TDS Organization because of AWS limitations. AWS does not distribute free tier benefits among multiple accounts within shared payers. For all accounts associated with dedicated payers, the free tier will apply to the account that utilized the free tier services. 

  • 12-Months Free: Only available to new AWS customers for 12 months after signup. It does not apply to every account in a shared master payer setup—just once per organization.
  • Always Free: These offers remain available indefinitely and are valid for both new and existing AWS customers.
  • Trials: These are limited-time offers, and once they expire, the customer is charged at standard rates.

Note: Free Tier offers are not available in certain AWS regions, like AWS GovCloud (US).


TD SYNNEX and Consolidated Billing and Blended Rates

TD SYNNEX manages AWS billing for resellers using the AWS Organizations' Consolidated Billing feature. This allows all customer accounts to be grouped under a single "family" of accounts, making it easier to reach lower pricing tiers. Here's how it works:

  • All usage from the accounts is combined into a single consolidated bill.
  • Volume discounts are applied based on the combined usage of the organization.
  • StreamOne Ion calculates the actual costs for each member account, ensuring accurate charges based on real consumption.

When Reserved Instances (RIs) are purchased, the usage is first applied to the purchasing account. If there’s remaining capacity, it’s distributed to other accounts in the same Availability Zone.

 

Understanding Billing Variances with Blended Rates:

Customers using On-Demand instances (without RIs or Savings Plans) may notice lower charges on their AWS console. This happens because AWS applies a blended rate when there are matching RIs across linked accounts. However, the correct number of instance hours will still be displayed in the Account Activity page.


How consolidated bills are calculated:

A Reserved Instance is a long-term commitment (1 or 3 years) to specific AWS resources, offering a lower hourly rate. When an instance is launched, AWS checks the account’s Reserved Instance purchases before billing at the standard On-Demand rate.


All account activity rolls up to the master payer account, also known as the "account family." Usage is aggregated at the payer level, and charges are then allocated to individual accounts based on their actual usage. This allocation process is why blended rates appear on linked accounts.Blended rates appear only on linked account line items. (Blended rates do not equal customer pricing or MSRP.)

 

Rounding in the Billing Reports:

Billing reports from AWS use very precise data (up to 9 decimal points). However, rounding occurs at several stages:

  • The Detailed Billing Report (DBR) from StreamOne Ion displays rounded values, but you can download the report to see unrounded values for deeper analysis.
  • The billing statement you receive is rounded to the nearest penny, while usage reports can change dynamically.

For accurate reconciliation, use the detailed DBR file for precise numbers.


Summary

AWS billing is complex, and customers may see differences between the StreamOne Ion platform and the native AWS billing console. These differences stem from factors like blended rates, volume discounts, RIs, and custom pricing agreements. To avoid confusion, it’s important to clarify these billing variances early in your discussions with customers.


The blended rate shown in the AWS console is primarily for informational purposes and may not reflect the actual charges incurred by each account. StreamOne Ion calculates actual costs based on each account's consumption, ensuring the final billing is accurate. For more information, please read: Why does the "blended" annotation appear on some line items in my AWS bill?


It’s important for AWS partners to be familiar with the AWS Pricing Calculator for estimating costs. This tool is part of the AWS Well-Architected Labs (Level 100 Cost Estimation) and is available for free.


Highly recommended TDS training class: Setting Up and Managing Your AWS Business on StreamOne Ion. This training will assist you in understanding how StreamOne Ion handles AWS business complexities, setting up your AWS business, understanding reports, and reconciling billing data. (This is partner-facing training.)


Key Takeaways

  • Understand how consolidated billing works to explain pricing differences.
  • Use the StreamOne Ion platform for the most accurate billing data.
  • Address customer concerns proactively by explaining blended rates and volume pricing.



Sample Communication for Resellers to End-Customers

 

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Understanding AWS Billing Consolidation and Blended Rates

When multiple AWS accounts are linked under a shared consolidated payer (organization), the charges displayed in the AWS Billing Console reflect the combined usage of all linked accounts. This means that the prices you see in the AWS console are influenced by the total consumption across the entire organization, including factors like volume discounts and Reserved Instances (RIs) shared among accounts in the same AWS Region and Availability Zone.

AWS simplifies cost management by automatically applying RI discounts to matching resources across all linked accounts, rather than limiting the discount to the account that originally purchased the RI. As a result, the pricing shown in the AWS console may differ from your actual charges. This happens because AWS calculates blended rates—an average price per service that factors in both on-demand and reserved instance usage.

Why This Matters for Your Billing

While AWS provides powerful cost-saving options, managing and allocating these costs accurately can be complex. Since AWS distributes RI benefits and volume discounts across all linked accounts, the pricing in your AWS console may not match the actual amount billed to your account. Instead of relying on the AWS console for cost details, we track all services, discounts, and RI allocations to ensure that your account is billed correctly, maintaining the benefits for the accounts that made the RI purchase.

According to AWS documentation, accounts using consolidated billing—such as those working with us—cannot rely on the AWS console to display accurate billing amounts. While your usage details will be correct, the cost calculations are affected by blended rates, leading to differences between what is displayed in AWS and the actual charges in your customer portal. For more information, please read: Why does the "blended" annotation appear on some line items in my AWS bill?

For the most accurate billing information, please review your charges in the Customer Portal: [Insert Portal URL].

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