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How To Cut Cloud Costs by 33% With These Strategies
Reducing costs on the cloud is about adopting cost-awareness in the services you use and maintain.
Uriel Bitton
February 09, 2025
I recently came across an insightful article by Chalitha Kulathunga, detailing how his company reduced cloud expenses by 33% without sacrificing growth.
The key takeaway?
Cost optimization is an ongoing process, not a one-time fix.
Here’s a practical breakdown of the strategies they used and how they can be implemented effectively.
Continuous Cost Management
One-time savings are not enough. Without proper governance, costs creep back up. Implementing structured cost monitoring ensures that efficiency is a priority from the start.
Implementation:
Set up cost-monitoring tools that track spending daily.
Automate alerts for unexpected cost spikes.
Conduct regular reviews to maintain accountability.
Managing Feature Growth Without Unnecessary Costs
Scaling infrastructure for new features is inevitable. However, uncontrolled scaling leads to unnecessary expenses.
Implementation tactics:
Use auto-scaling and right-sizing to match demand.
Give teams visibility into cost implications before deploying resources.
Optimizing Off-Hours Usage
Non-production environments shouldn’t run 24/7 unless necessary. Off-hours usage that isn’t monitored can drive up costs significantly.
Practical solutions:
Implement automated scale-down pipelines with manual overrides.
Hold teams accountable for shutting down unused environments.
Analyze trends to determine if permanent infrastructure is a better option.
Managing Migrations Efficiently
Running legacy and new infrastructure in parallel for too long leads to unnecessary expenses.
Key steps:
Set clear timelines for migration cutovers.
Conduct audits to ensure old resources are decommissioned promptly.
Controlling Log Costs
Excessive logging, especially at the INFO and DEBUG levels, inflates costs.
How to reduce log costs:
Implement log thresholds and alerts for excessive logging.
Regularly audit log volumes across environments.
Handling Unexpected Cost Spikes
Minor bugs or errors can lead to cost spikes that go unnoticed until it’s too late.
Preventative actions:
Use anomaly detection for log surges and infrastructure changes.
Ensure logging captures relevant metadata for debugging without unnecessary verbosity.
Aligning Costs with Growth
Not all cost increases are bad—some indicate organic growth. The challenge is distinguishing between waste and necessary expenses.
Best practices:
Track cost trends against user growth and revenue.
Ensure infrastructure costs align with business objectives.
Creating a Cost Optimization Culture
One-time optimizations don’t last. Long-term success requires integrating cost efficiency into daily workflows.
How to embed cost awareness:
Implement daily cost tracking and automated reports.
Conduct weekly cost review meetings.
Hold monthly leadership discussions on strategic cost decisions.
One Tip To Save Costs
One particular area where msot organizations overspend in the cloud is on low-period usage. These can be overnight, weekends, or during holidays. Schedule to shut down some of your EC2 and other (RDS) instances overnight or during these low usage periods to optimize costs.
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Curated Article
“Cloud Cost Optimization: How We Cut Costs by 33% Without Slowing Growth”. by Chalitha Kulathunga.