Harish Ganesan CTO of 8KMiles has a very helpful blog, Cloud, Big Data and Mobile, where he shows a nice analytical bent which leads to a lot of practical advice and cost saving tips: Use SQS Batch Requests to reduce the number of requests hitting SQS which saves costs. Sending 10 messages in a single batch request which in the example save $30/month. Use SQS Long Polling to reduce extra polling r