AWS provides incredible flexibility and scalability, but that flexibility can come with unexpected costs. Here are five strategies we’ve used to help clients significantly reduce their cloud spending.

1. Right-Size Your Instances

Many organizations over-provision their EC2 instances “just in case.” Use AWS Cost Explorer and Compute Optimizer to identify instances that are consistently underutilized.

Action items:

• Review CPU and memory utilization metrics
• Consider switching to smaller instance types
• Use burstable instances (T3) for variable workloads

2. Leverage Reserved Instances and Savings Plans

If you have predictable workloads, Reserved Instances or Savings Plans can reduce costs by up to 72% compared to On-Demand pricing.

Tips:

• Start with 1-year commitments to test the waters
• Use Reserved Instance recommendations in Cost Explorer
• Consider Convertible RIs for flexibility

3. Implement Proper Auto Scaling

Auto Scaling ensures you only run the resources you need. Combined with spot instances for non-critical workloads, this can dramatically reduce costs.

Best practices:

• Set up target tracking scaling policies
• Use scheduled scaling for predictable patterns
• Consider spot instances for batch processing

4. Optimize Data Transfer Costs

Data transfer can be a hidden cost driver. Review your architecture to minimize cross-region and internet egress traffic.

Strategies:

• Use CloudFront for static content delivery
• Keep data and compute in the same region
• Use VPC endpoints for AWS service access

5. Clean Up Unused Resources

It’s easy to accumulate unused resources over time. Regular cleanup can save significant money.

Check for:

• Unattached EBS volumes
• Old EBS snapshots
• Unused Elastic IPs
• Idle load balancers

Real Results

We helped a client reduce their monthly AWS bill from $15,000 to $6,000 using these strategies, without any impact on performance or availability.

Ready to optimize your AWS costs? Contact us for a free cloud cost assessment.