Quick check · free
AWS cost quick check
For finance and IT leaders whose AWS bill keeps rising: ten questions that show where the spend is growing and whether anyone owns it.
Visibility and ownership
| # | Question | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Can you see the last 12 months of AWS spend by account, service and team, and compare it with budget? | Without a baseline, you can't tell growth from waste. |
| 2 | Do you have a tagging standard, and is it applied consistently enough to assign spend to a team or workload? | Untagged spend has no owner, so nobody acts on it. |
| 3 | Does every account and major workload have a named person who reviews its cost? | Costs grow fastest where no one is accountable. |
| 4 | Can finance tie AWS spend to the workloads, products or results it supports? | It is hard to defend a bill you can't explain. |
Waste and commitments
| # | Question | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| 5 | When did someone last review idle and oversized resources, and act on the findings? | Idle and oversized resources pile up with every new workload. |
| 6 | Which Savings Plans or Reserved Instances do you hold, how much of your steady usage do they cover, and when do they expire? | Gaps and lapsed commitments mean paying on-demand rates for steady usage. |
| 7 | Did you rightsize before buying commitments, or were commitments bought on current usage? | Committing before rightsizing can lock in waste. |
| 8 | If you run Windows Server or SQL Server on AWS, has anyone reviewed your licensing options? | Licensing choices can be a large and overlooked part of the bill. |
Controls and review
| # | Question | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| 9 | Are budgets and anomaly alerts set up, and does a named person act when they fire? | Alerts nobody owns turn into surprises at month end. |
| 10 | Is there a regular (for example monthly) cost review with a short report for leadership? | One-off cleanups fade; a regular review keeps savings in place. |
How to read your result
- Mostly "yes": you have the basics. Look for the one or two areas where the answer was "partly."
- Several "no" or "don't know" answers in Visibility and ownership: start there. Savings are hard to keep until spend has owners.
- Mostly "no" in Waste and commitments: there is likely money to recover, but rightsize before you commit.
If several answers were “no” or “don’t know,” or you’d like a second opinion on your AWS spend, contact Kalosys today. Your note goes straight to our AWS practice.