WorkSpaces Applications now monitors fleets in the console. The published-app bill is still instance hours plus RDS SAL.

What AWS announced

On 19 August 2026, Amazon WorkSpaces Applications — the AWS application-streaming service that replaced the original Amazon AppStream — added monitoring inside the service console. Administrators can now see:

• Session-level metrics, instance resource data and network performance, without building CloudWatch dashboards or buying a third-party tool.
• Fleet-level capacity, including active sessions and resource utilisation.
• Session tables that can be filtered by user, performance and instance, alongside correlated graphs for frame rate, input latency, bandwidth, and CPU, memory and GPU usage.

The same metrics remain available in CloudWatch for teams already using it, and the feature is live in every Region where WorkSpaces Applications runs.

This is an operational improvement rather than a commercial one. The announcement makes no reference to pricing, Microsoft licensing or the RDS SAL fee.

Why the bill still matters if you only publish a few applications

If your requirement is delivering SAP GUI, an ERP client or a finance application through a browser, the cost structure is unchanged from what AWS documents on its WorkSpaces Applications pricing page. Two charges apply:

• Fleet instance hours. Always-On Windows fleets are billed for every hour an instance is running, even when nobody is connected. On-Demand Windows fleets are billed for running hours during a session, plus a lower stopped-instance fee at other times. Multi-session allows several users to share an instance, but the instance is still billed hourly.
• A Microsoft Remote Desktop Services Subscriber Access License (RDS SAL) for every unique user who starts a streaming session on a Windows Server fleet in that month. AWS publishes USD 4.19 per user per month for single-session fleets and USD 6.42 for multi-session, and a user who uses both in the same month is charged the multi-session rate. The fee is charged in full and is not pro-rated, regardless of when the user first connects. It does not apply to image builders or app block builders, nor to Linux fleets or Windows BYOL instances.

Users are counted as unique by authentication type, username and Region. Under that rule, one person who signs in through SAML and again through a streaming URL in the same Region counts as two users, and therefore two SAL charges.

AWS’s own US East (N. Virginia) worked example is the clearest published illustration. One hundred users on an On-Demand stream.standard.medium fleet at USD 0.10 per hour, streaming 100 hours each, with 20 stopped hours per user at USD 0.025 and the USD 4.19 SAL fee, totals USD 1,469 per month, or USD 14.69 per user before public IPv4 charges. The bill therefore combines metered instance time with a fixed monthly licence fee for every user who connected at least once.

Two exceptions exist. Microsoft License Mobility allows you to bring your own RDS Client Access Licences in place of the SAL fee, and qualifying educational and public institutions may be eligible for a reduced rate of USD 0.44. Both need to be qualified and documented. For most published-application estates, the default remains instance hours plus the monthly SAL fee.

On the access side, any HTML5 browser can open a session and supports up to two monitors. Four monitors, 4K displays and USB peripherals continue to require the WorkSpaces Applications client.

What to compare it against

WebStream ACP is designed for a narrower requirement: delivering a small number of Windows applications from hosts you already run.

• No endpoint client, plug-in or VPN to deploy. Users connect through a standard HTML5 browser.
• Policy control over file transfer, clipboard and print activity, with a full audit trail.
• Billing on SessionHours of active streaming time, rather than a fixed monthly licence fee for every user who connected once, or Always-On capacity sitting idle between bursts of use.
• Deployment on your own hosts, either AWS EC2 or an on-premises MSI, so data remains in your account.

Putting SAP GUI in front of users should not require you to model stopped-instance hours or a per-user Microsoft licensing table. Our commercial terms are published on the pricing page, and the Windows applications on AWS page sets out the access-layer comparison in full.

What to do next

Read the 19 August monitoring announcement alongside the WorkSpaces Applications pricing page, then answer a single question: are you funding a streaming fleet and a per-user licence, or delivering a small number of applications? If it is the latter, test that assumption with one of your own applications before the next monthly SAL charge.