Are Auto Scaling, Elastic Beanstalk, and CloudFormation services chargeable directly?

The correct answer is that Auto Scaling, Elastic Beanstalk, and CloudFormation are not directly chargeable; rather, they utilize AWS resources that incur charges.

Auto Scaling is a service that automatically adjusts the number of Amazon EC2 instances in response to changing demand. While Auto Scaling itself doesn't have a direct cost, the EC2 instances it manages will incur charges based on usage, such as instance hours and associated storage.

Elastic Beanstalk is a platform as a service that enables developers to deploy and manage applications easily. While Elastic Beanstalk facilitates application management and scaling, the underlying resources it provisions, such as EC2 instances, RDS databases, and load balancers, are the components that carry costs.

CloudFormation allows users to define and provision AWS infrastructure using code. Although the CloudFormation service itself is free, the resources created through CloudFormation templates can incur costs. For example, if a CloudFormation template provisions EC2 instances, the charges will apply based on the instances utilized.

In summary, while these services provide valuable management capabilities, it is the AWS resources they utilize that generate costs, not the services themselves.