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How to cut cloud costs without breaking production
Rightsizing, orphaned resources, and basic FinOps for teams paying the bill without knowing what they bought.
Cheap cloud in month one. Expensive cloud by month twelve — because nothing was turned off, nothing was right-sized, and prod has a twin "just in case."
Where money leaks
| Problem | What you actually see |
|---|---|
| Oversized instances | 5% CPU, 100% bill |
| Orphan disks and snapshots | A 2023 project still billing |
| Dev/staging like production | Everything on 24/7 with no need |
| Data egress | Transfer costs nobody modeled |
| Duplicate tooling | Same capability paid twice |
Quick wins (1–2 weeks)
- Resource inventory — owner, environment, criticality
- Schedule non-prod — dev/staging off nights and weekends
- Rightsize from 30-day metrics — not guesses
- Reserved capacity — only after size stabilizes
Do not
- Cut backups to save money
- Move the primary database to spot without a plan
- Assume serverless always saves money
Real FinOps for SMBs is visibility + discipline, not an expensive platform.
Want a second pair of eyes on your bill? Contact us.