Demystifying What’s Causing AWS Config Costs

AWS Config, a service used for monitoring and evaluating the configurations of resources within an AWS account, can lead to unexpectedly high costs when resources are misconfigured, despite its utility in auditing and compliance tasks. The pricing structure of AWS Config is based on configuration item recordings and rule evaluations, which can accumulate rapidly if services are stuck in restart loops, resulting in a large number of recorded configuration items. To manage these costs, tools like Amazon CloudWatch and Amazon Athena can be used to improve visibility and troubleshoot cost anomalies by analyzing which resources are generating large numbers of Config items. Additionally, optimizing Config usage by selecting only necessary resources and regions, setting lifecycle policies for configuration history, avoiding duplicate Conformance Packs, and creating billing alerts can help prevent unexpected cost surges.