Cloud platforms make it easy to launch, and just as easy to overspend. In almost every cloud review we run, we find savings without touching performance. Here are the seven changes that make the biggest difference.
1. Right-size your servers
Many servers run at 10–20% CPU all day. Check your monitoring data and move them to smaller instance types. This alone often cuts compute costs by a quarter.
2. Turn off what you’re not using
Development and staging environments rarely need to run at night or on weekends. Scheduling them to shut down outside working hours can reduce their cost by more than 60%.
3. Use autoscaling
Instead of paying for peak capacity around the clock, let your infrastructure scale up when traffic rises and back down when it falls.
4. Commit to what you know you’ll use
For steady, predictable workloads, reserved instances or savings plans offer large discounts compared with on-demand pricing in exchange for a one- or three-year commitment.
The cheapest resource is the one you don’t run. The second cheapest is the one you’ve committed to in advance.
5. Move cold data to cheaper storage
Logs, backups and old files are often stored on expensive, high-performance tiers. Lifecycle rules can move them automatically to archive storage that costs a fraction of the price.
6. Cache and use a CDN
Serving images, scripts and repeated API responses from a CDN or cache reduces load on your servers and lowers data transfer costs, while making your app faster for users.
7. Tag everything and review monthly
Tag every resource by project, team and environment so you can see exactly where the money goes. A short monthly review catches forgotten resources before they add up.
Where to start
If you only do one thing this month, look at your three most expensive services and ask whether each one is the right size and needs to run 24/7.
Want an expert to look for savings? Request a cloud cost review from our DevOps team.