What cost-saving benefit does Amazon Athena offer?

Amazon Athena offers a cost-saving benefit by charging only for the data scanned by queries. This pricing model allows users to optimize their usage based on the amount of data they actually interact with during their queries, rather than a flat fee or subscription model. This means that if a user queries a smaller dataset or optimizes their queries to only scan necessary data, they incur lower costs. This pay-per-query approach is beneficial for users with variable workloads or those who want to manage costs effectively, especially when working with large datasets in Amazon S3.

Subscription plans or fixed fees can lead to unnecessary expenses if usage is lower than expected or if the workload varies significantly. The free data extraction mentioned in another choice does not accurately represent Athena's billing structure, as there is no such offering in the context of data scanning and querying.