AWS Cost Optimization
Most companies overpay for AWS without knowing it. Unused resources, wrong-sized instances, no Reserved Instances. We find the waste, implement the optimisation with your team, and leave behind the tagging, budgets and alerts that keep costs from drifting back.
What is AWS cost optimization?
AWS cost optimization is a systematic audit and remediation process that identifies wasted cloud spending — unused instances, oversized resources, orphaned volumes, and missing Reserved Instances or Savings Plans. nFlo audits utilisation across every account, separates quick wins from structural change, and puts cost governance in place — tagging, budgets and commitment planning — so the savings hold after the project ends.
You're paying for what you don't use
Detailed audit and savings implementation
Cost Analysis
Identify waste and anomalies
Rightsizing
Match resource size to actual needs
RI & Savings Plans
Long-term savings planning
€15,000 Monthly for Unused Resources
Cloud spend is an IT infrastructure problem before it is a finance problem: what a company pays for AWS is the sum of decisions about instance sizes, storage classes and forgotten environments. An audit makes those decisions visible.
A SaaS startup with €35,000/month AWS bill. After audit it turned out:
- €11,000 - test instances forgotten by developers
- €3,500 - oversized databases (8x too much CPU)
- €5,000 - old snapshots and unused volumes
- €6,000 - no Reserved Instances for stable workloads
Without AWS cost optimization:
- Overpaying 30-50% for unused resources
- Cloud costs growing faster than business
- No transparency - you don’t know what you’re paying for
- Unable to predict future costs
Cost Optimization and Cloud Security
AWS cost optimization goes hand in hand with security: reviewing resources reveals not only waste but also shadow IT, over-permissive roles and forgotten, unsecured resources that expand the attack surface.
We combine FinOps with security governance — access control (IAM, least privilege) and configuration monitoring (CSPM) — so savings do not come at the cost of exposure.
We Find Waste and Implement Savings
We conduct detailed audit of your AWS and identify every dollar of waste. We don’t leave you with a report - we support implementation of optimizations.
What you get:
- AWS cost audit for last 3-6 months with trend analysis
- Waste identification - unused, oversized, zombie resources
- Rightsizing recommendations for EC2, RDS and other resources
- Reserved Instances and Savings Plans opportunities analysis
- Implementation plan in 3 phases: quick wins (48h), short-term (2 weeks), long-term (1-3 months)
- Support during optimization implementation
- Monthly cost monitoring and anomaly alerts
Optimization Tools and Techniques
We drive optimization using native AWS tools and proven FinOps practices, implementing cost governance mechanisms at the organizational level.
Analysis and Audit
- AWS Cost Explorer with grouping by tags, services, and accounts — identifying top cost drivers
- AWS Trusted Advisor (Business/Enterprise Support) — rightsizing recommendations, idle resources, RI coverage
- AWS Compute Optimizer — machine learning-based recommendations for EC2, EBS, Lambda
- CloudWatch metrics (CPU, memory, network) over 3-6 months — baseline for rightsizing decisions
- Cost and Usage Report (CUR) — hourly-granularity cost analysis
Optimization Techniques Implemented
- Rightsizing: downsizing EC2/RDS instance types to match actual workload (with 20-30% headroom)
- Graviton migration: moving workloads to ARM processors (AWS Graviton) — typical savings of 20-40% with better performance
- Spot Instances: for fault-tolerant workloads (batch processing, CI/CD, dev/test) — savings up to 90%
- Savings Plans and Reserved Instances: analyzing stable baseline and selecting optimal commitment (1Y vs 3Y, All Upfront vs No Upfront)
- S3 Intelligent-Tiering and Lifecycle Policies: automatic object migration between storage classes
- Scheduling: automatic shutdown of dev/test instances outside business hours (Instance Scheduler or custom Lambda)
Cost Governance — Lasting Control Mechanisms We implement AWS Organizations with Service Control Policies (SCPs) restricting expensive instance types, mandatory cost allocation tags enforced by AWS Config Rules, threshold-based budget alerts (AWS Budgets), and monthly Cost Review Meetings with account owners — because optimization is an ongoing process, not a one-time project.
Who Is It For?
This service is for you if:
- AWS bills are growing faster than revenue
- You don’t know exactly what you’re paying for in AWS
- You suspect you’re overpaying but don’t have time to check
- You need to reduce cloud costs under board pressure
- You want control and predictability of AWS spending
Typical Sources of AWS Waste
Where Do You Overpay Most Often?
Based on 150+ AWS audits we see the same problems:
Unused Resources (30-40% of costs)
- Forgotten test and dev instances
- Unattached EBS volumes
- Old snapshots and AMIs
- Unused Load Balancers
- Orphaned Elastic IPs
Oversized Resources (20-30% of costs)
- EC2 instances with 5-10% CPU utilization
- RDS databases with excess capacity
- Oversized ElastiCache clusters
- Too large EBS volumes
No Commitment Discount (15-25% savings opportunity)
- Stable workloads without Reserved Instances
- No Savings Plans for compute
- Suboptimal storage plans (S3 Lifecycle)
Inefficient Architecture (10-15% of costs)
- No auto-scaling for variable load
- Unnecessary cross-AZ data transfer
- Expensive storage tiers (GP3 vs GP2)
- Suboptimal Lambda memory/timeout
Related Glossary Terms
Learn more about key concepts related to this service:
Contact your account manager
Discuss AWS Cost Optimization with your dedicated account manager.
How we work
Our proven service delivery process.
Cost Discovery
Audit utilization and costs of all resources
Analysis & Report
Identify waste, quick wins, long-term opportunities
Implementation
Execute optimization with your team
Monitoring
Cost anomaly detection and monthly reports
Benefits for your business
What you gain by choosing this service.
Lower AWS Costs
Idle resources removed, instances right-sized
Fast Results
Quick wins implemented before the long-term work
Predictable Budget
Cost control and long-term planning
Better Performance
Optimization also improves performance
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Read more →Frequently Asked Questions
Common questions about AWS Cost Optimization.
How much can I realistically save and how quickly will I see results?
On average we save clients 30-40% of monthly AWS costs. First quick wins (removing zombie resources, shutting down unused instances) are implemented within 48h of the audit. Full optimization with Reserved Instances/Savings Plans takes up to 30 days.
Will optimization degrade the performance of our applications?
No. Rightsizing is based on analysis of actual utilization over the last 3-6 months (AWS Cost Explorer, CloudWatch). We only reduce resources with documented excess - e.g. an EC2 instance at 5% CPU. We implement gradually with performance monitoring.
Do you need access to our AWS account?
Yes, we need read-only access to AWS Cost Explorer, Trusted Advisor and CloudWatch. We don't modify anything without your consent. When implementing optimizations we work together with your team.
What about costs after optimization - won't they return to previous levels?
We implement control mechanisms: monthly cost monitoring, anomaly alerts, policies for automatically shutting down unused resources and cost tags. You get tools to maintain savings long-term.