How are AWS Lambda pricing calculations made?

AWS Lambda pricing is primarily determined by two key metrics: the number of requests and the duration of execution. This means you pay for the total number of times your Lambda function is invoked as well as the duration that it takes to execute.

When a function is called, the first metric, the number of requests, comes into play. AWS Lambda counts each invocation as a request, allowing you to scale and pay only for what you use. This is significant for businesses looking to optimize costs, as you can avoid paying for unused capacity.

The second aspect, duration, is calculated from when your code starts executing until it returns or otherwise terminates, rounding up to the nearest millisecond. This pricing mechanism encourages efficiency in coding and can lead to cost savings by minimizing execution time.

In contrast, data storage amount, the number of deployed functions, or the number of active users do not factor into pricing for AWS Lambda. Data storage is more relevant for services like Amazon S3, while function deployment count and user activity fall outside the pricing structure for Lambda. Understanding the pricing model helps users make informed decisions regarding function optimization and overall cloud spending.