# Non-Urgent Glue Spark Jobs Not Using Flex Execution Canonical: https://www.pointfive.co/efficiency-hub/inefficiencies/non-urgent-glue-spark-jobs-not-using-flex-execution AWS Glue Spark jobs run in the standard execution class unless configured otherwise, which provides fast startup on dedicated resources and is billed... By: PointFive Updated: 2026-09-28 [Cloud Efficiency Hub](https://www.pointfive.co/efficiency-hub) The short version AWS Glue Spark jobs run in the standard execution class unless configured otherwise, which provides fast startup on dedicated resources and is billed at the standard DPU-hour rate. PointFive Research Cloud cost research at PointFive AWS service [AWS Glue](https://www.pointfive.co/efficiency-hub/cloud-services/aws-glue) Category [Compute](https://www.pointfive.co/efficiency-hub/service-category/compute) Reference CER-0393 Type Suboptimal Pricing Model ## Explanation Why the waste happens and who it affects. Glue also offers a Flex execution class that runs jobs on spare compute capacity at a lower DPU-hour rate. AWS positions Flex for non-urgent work such as pre-production jobs, testing, one-time data loads, backfills, and nightly or weekend processing where variable start and end times are acceptable. Many such jobs still run as standard because standard is the default and the execution class is rarely revisited. Development and test environments, historical reprocessing and batch jobs with generous completion windows then pay the standard rate for capacity that does not need guaranteed start times. ## Billing model The pricing dimensions that drive this cost. Glue publishes separate standard and Flex DPU-hour rates for Glue 3.0 to 5.1 and for Glue 6.0 and later. Standard execution Spark jobs are billed per DPU-hour, per second with a 1-minute minimum; the Glue pricing examples use $0.44 per DPU-hour Flex execution Billed per worker at the lower Flex DPU-hour rate for the time each worker actually ran; the pricing page examples use $0.29 per DPU-hour Reclaimed workers Flex workers can be reclaimed during a run, and billing for reclaimed capacity stops while the job continues on the remaining workers ## How to detect 4 checks to find it in your estate. - List Glue jobs with GetJobs and flag Spark jobs on Glue 3.0 or later whose ExecutionClass is STANDARD (or unset) and that use G.1X or G.2X workers - Prioritize jobs in development, test and staging accounts, jobs tagged as non-production, and one-time or backfill jobs - Review job schedules and downstream dependencies to find batch jobs whose completion window is much longer than their typical run time - Estimate the saving from each job's DPU-hours per month (from job run history or the DPU hours column in the Glue Studio monitoring view) multiplied by the rate difference ## How to fix 4 ways to remove the waste. - Set the execution class to FLEX on eligible jobs in Glue Studio or with the ExecutionClass parameter of CreateJob, UpdateJob or StartJobRun - Keep STANDARD for jobs with tight SLAs, streaming jobs and jobs that feed time-critical pipelines, since Flex start and run times can vary - Review job timeouts and retries for Flex jobs so longer or delayed runs do not fail unnecessarily, and consider job run queuing for non-time-sensitive batch jobs - Note that Flex requires Glue 3.0 or later and G.1X or G.2X workers; the newer G.12X, G.16X and R worker types do not support Flex ## Documentation Vendor references for pricing and configuration. - [Configuring job properties for Spark jobs in AWS Glue docs.aws.amazon.com](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/glue/latest/dg/add-job.html) - [Introducing AWS Glue Flex jobs: Cost savings on ETL workloads aws.amazon.com](https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/big-data/introducing-aws-glue-flex-jobs-cost-savings-on-etl-workloads/) - [AWS Glue Pricing aws.amazon.com](https://aws.amazon.com/glue/pricing/) ## Related inefficiencies [Browse the library](https://www.pointfive.co/efficiency-hub) - AWS Glue CER-0249 ### [Outdated AWS Glue Version for Spark ETL Jobs](https://www.pointfive.co/efficiency-hub/inefficiencies/outdated-aws-glue-version-for-python-jobs-d2d59) Newer AWS Glue versions - such as Glue 5.0, with 5.1 (now the default for new jobs) and 6.0 also available - include significant performance optimizations in the Spark runtime for Glue for Spark ETL jobs, whether written in PySpark or... Compute - AWS Glue CER-0394 ### [Glue Spark Jobs With Fixed Worker Counts Instead of Auto Scaling](https://www.pointfive.co/efficiency-hub/inefficiencies/glue-spark-jobs-with-fixed-worker-counts-instead-of-auto-scaling) AWS Glue Spark jobs are commonly configured with a fixed NumberOfWorkers sized for the heaviest stage, the largest expected input or a generous guess. Without Auto Scaling, every allocated worker is billed for the whole run, including... Compute - AWS EC2 CER-0324 ### [Excessive On-Demand Compute Spend Due to Low Savings Plan and Reserved Instance Coverage](https://www.pointfive.co/efficiency-hub/inefficiencies/excessive-on-demand-compute-spend-due-to-low-savings-plan-and-reserved-instance-coverage) AWS compute services charge the full published On-Demand rate when no commitment-based discount - such as a Savings Plan (SP) or Reserved Instance (RI) - is in effect. On-Demand pricing provides maximum flexibility, but it is also the most... Compute --- Source: the public page above. Product screenshots and illustrative interfaces are examples, not live customer data.