When fleet auto scaling policies maintain more active instances than are required to support current usage—particularly during off-peak hours—organizations incur unnecessary compute costs. Fleets often remain oversized due to conservative default configurations or lack of schedule-based scaling. Tuning the scaling policies to better reflect usage patterns ensures that streaming infrastructure aligns with actual demand.

AppStream fleets often default to instance types designed for worst-case or peak usage scenarios, even when average workloads are significantly lighter. This leads to consistently low utilization of CPU, memory, or GPU resources and inflated infrastructure costs. By right-sizing AppStream instances based on actual workload needs, organizations can reduce spend without compromising user experience.

When AppStream builder instances are left running but unused, they continue to generate compute charges without delivering any value. These instances are commonly left active after configuration or image creation is completed but can be safely stopped or terminated when not in use. Identifying and decommissioning inactive builders helps reduce unnecessary compute costs.