Cost Optimization Guides

Picking the right provider is only the first step. The bigger savings come from applying the right purchasing model and architecture to each workload. This section collects CloudCost’s practical cost optimization guides — each one focused on a single mechanism that can cut your bill by 30 to 90 percent without sacrificing performance.

Available Guides

• Reserved Instances — when to commit, 1-year vs 3-year, and how to stagger reservations to avoid lock-in.
• Spot Instances — how to design for interruption, which workloads are safe on spot, and how to mix spot with on-demand for reliability.

The CloudCost Savings Hierarchy

We recommend thinking about cloud cost optimization in five layers, applied in order:

1. Right-size — match instance type to actual utilization, not peak. Most workloads run at 10 to 20 percent CPU and could use a smaller instance or a burstable family.
2. Commit — convert steady-state on-demand spend to 1-year or 3-year reserved instances or savings plans for 30 to 72 percent savings.
3. Spot — move interruptible workloads (batch, CI, stateless web) to spot for 70 to 90 percent savings.
4. Tier storage — move cold data to infrequent-access or archive tiers for 50 to 95 percent storage savings.
5. Optimize egress — use CDNs, compression, and the right region to cut data transfer costs.

Each guide walks through one of these layers with concrete provider examples and pricing. Start with the reserved instances guide if you have steady-state workloads, or the spot instances guide if your workload is interruptible.