Most startups and SMEs overpay for cloud infrastructure by 40-60%. Here are practical strategies to cut your AWS bill without sacrificing performance.
Right-Sizing Instances
The number one source of cloud waste: oversized instances. Most workloads run at 10-30% CPU utilization. Use CloudWatch metrics to identify instances that can be downsized.
Reserved Instances & Savings Plans
If you know you'll run a workload for 1-3 years, Reserved Instances save 30-60% over on-demand pricing. The 1-year no-upfront commitment is the lowest risk option.
Spot Instances for Non-Critical Work
Spot instances are 60-90% cheaper than on-demand. Use them for batch processing, development/testing environments, and fault-tolerant workloads.
Architecture-Level Savings
The biggest savings come from architectural decisions: use serverless (Lambda) for variable workloads, implement caching to reduce compute, and use managed services instead of self-hosted alternatives.
Quick Wins
Turn off development environments outside business hours (50-70% savings), delete unattached EBS volumes, and review data transfer costs.