Your AWS bill doesn't need to be scary. Most startups overspend on cloud infrastructure. Here are the easy wins.
We've inherited AWS accounts where a startup was spending $3,000/month and could have been spending $800. Cloud providers make it easy to spin up resources and hard to know what you're actually using. Here are the places to look first.
Right-size your instances
Most instances are oversized. A t3.medium running at 5% CPU all day should be a t3.small. Check CloudWatch metrics for CPU, memory, and network usage over the past month. Downsizing is free and reversible.
Quick wins
- Delete unused resources: old snapshots, unattached EBS volumes, idle load balancers
- Use S3 lifecycle policies to move old data to cheaper storage classes
- Stop dev/staging environments outside business hours
- Switch to ARM-based instances (Graviton) for 20% cost reduction at equal performance
- Use spot instances for batch processing and non-critical workloads
Reserved instances and savings plans
If your usage is predictable, reserved instances or savings plans save 30-60% vs. on-demand pricing. Start with a 1-year no-upfront commitment for your baseline capacity. Don't reserve more than your minimum usage - use on-demand for spikes.
Monitor monthly
Set up AWS Cost Explorer budgets with alerts. Review the bill monthly. Cloud costs creep up slowly - a forgotten test environment here, an oversized database there. Monthly review catches these before they compound.
Ben Arledge
CEO & CTO, CloudOwlNeed help building this?
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