Overview
Cloud costs spiraling out of control? You’re not alone. We help companies reduce their cloud bills by 30-60% through a combination of architectural improvements, resource right-sizing, and automation, without sacrificing performance or reliability.
The problem
Common cloud cost challenges:
- Bills growing faster than revenue with no clear explanation
- Over-provisioned resources running at 10-20% utilization
- Zombie resources nobody remembers creating
- No cost visibility by team, product, or environment
- Reserved Instance sprawl that doesn’t match usage
- Data transfer costs eating margins
- No accountability for cloud spending
Our process
Phase 1: Cost assessment (week 1)
- Current state analysis: Where is the money going?
- Low-hanging fruit: Immediate savings opportunities
- Architecture review: Are you using the right services?
- Benchmarking: How do you compare to similar companies?
Phase 2: Quick wins (weeks 2-3)
- Delete zombie resources: Unused volumes, snapshots, load balancers
- Right-size compute: Match instance types to actual usage
- Storage optimization: Move cold data to cheaper tiers
- Reserved Instance recommendations: 1-3 year commitments
- Savings Plans: Compute and EC2 savings plans
Phase 3: Architectural improvements (weeks 4-8)
- Auto-scaling: Scale down during off-hours
- Spot instances: For non-critical workloads
- Containerization: Higher density, lower costs
- Serverless migration: Pay per use, not per hour
- Data transfer optimization: Reduce cross-AZ and cross-region costs
- Caching strategies: Reduce database and API calls
Phase 4: Governance & monitoring (weeks 9-12)
- Tagging standards: Track costs by team/product/environment
- Budget alerts: Get notified before overspending
- FinOps dashboards: Real-time cost visibility
- Automated policies: Prevent cost surprises
- Showback/Chargeback: Allocate costs to teams
Technology stack
We use industry-leading tools:
- Cloud Cost Management: AWS Cost Explorer, Azure Cost Management, GCP Billing
- Third-party tools: CloudHealth, Spot.io, Kubecost, Infracost
- Infrastructure as Code: Terraform with cost estimation
- Automation: Lambda/Cloud Functions for scheduled shutdowns
- Monitoring: CloudWatch, Prometheus for utilization tracking
What you get
Cost savings
- Immediate savings: 10-20% in first 2 weeks (quick wins)
- Long-term savings: 30-60% over 3-6 months (architectural)
- Sustained savings: Automation prevents cost creep
Visibility & control
- FinOps dashboards showing costs by team/product/environment
- Budget alerts and anomaly detection
- Monthly cost reports with trends and recommendations
- Tagging standards and enforcement
Documentation & training
- Cost optimization playbook
- Runbooks for common optimization tasks
- Team training on cost-conscious architecture
- FinOps best practices
ROI example
Scenario: Company spending $500K/year on AWS
| Optimization | Savings | Timeline |
|---|---|---|
| Delete zombie resources | $25K/year | Week 1 |
| Right-size instances | $50K/year | Week 2 |
| Reserved Instances | $75K/year | Week 3 |
| Auto-scaling + spot | $60K/year | Week 6 |
| Architecture changes | $40K/year | Week 10 |
| Total Annual Savings | $250K/year | 50% reduction |
Our fee: $35K one-time
Your ROI: 7x in year one, ongoing savings thereafter
Ideal for
- High-growth startups where cloud costs are growing faster than revenue
- Mature companies with legacy architecture and technical debt
- Post-acquisition companies consolidating multiple cloud accounts
- CFOs/Finance teams needing cost visibility and predictability
Deliverables
- Comprehensive cost assessment report
- Prioritized list of optimization opportunities
- Implementation of quick wins (immediate savings)
- Architectural improvements for long-term savings
- FinOps dashboards and alerting
- Cost allocation and tagging strategy
- Runbooks and documentation
- 60 days of post-engagement support
Pricing
Cost Optimization engagements are priced based on current cloud spend:
- Under $100K/year: $15K fixed price
- $100K - $500K/year: $25K - $35K fixed price
- Over $500K/year: Custom pricing (typically 10-15% of first-year savings)
We also offer success-based pricing: Pay us a percentage of verified savings.
Timeline
Typical engagement: 8-12 weeks
- Week 1: Assessment and quick wins
- Weeks 2-4: Reserved Instances and right-sizing
- Weeks 5-8: Architectural improvements
- Weeks 9-12: Governance and automation
Case study
“BugaOps reduced our AWS bill from $180K to $65K/month, a 64% reduction. The engagement paid for itself in 3 weeks.”
CFO, E-Commerce Company (see full case study here)