Work / Cost optimization
Cost optimization, January 2026
A 60 to 90 day forecast of AWS cost
An AWS bill can rise by 30 to 50 % in one month when nobody tracks resource growth. We forecast the bill 60 to 90 days ahead, so the client acts before the increase is invoiced.
Bills that rise without warning
Several clients saw their AWS bill rise by 30 to 50 % in one month because nobody tracked resource growth. By the time the invoice arrives, the client has paid for weeks of the increase. Three cases show where the increase comes from.
RDS storage
The RDS instance was set to extend its storage automatically. We forecast that it would reach 2 TB in six weeks. The client archived old data first and avoided an increase of 400 USD per month.
ElastiCache cluster
The cache hit ratio was falling, so the cluster would have needed more nodes. We forecast the cost and optimized the cache keys instead. The client avoided an upgrade of 1,200 USD per month.
Lambda concurrency
A deployment of a security patch reached the account's concurrent execution quota. Production was blocked for 3 hours while the quota increase was requested. We now check quotas and request increases 30 days ahead.
What we track
Each month we analyse growth and deliver a forecast for the next 60 to 90 days with the actions to take. The forecast covers three groups of measures.
RDS allocated storage approaching the next pricing tier
S3 bucket growth and the effect of lifecycle policies
EBS volumes approaching their provisioned IOPS
ElastiCache memory utilization and eviction rate
Lambda concurrent executions against the account quota
API Gateway throttling limits
EC2 instance quotas by type and region
RDS instance count per account
NAT gateway usage surges
CloudWatch Logs retention cost growth
How we prevent blocked deployments
One client could not deploy a security patch because the Lambda concurrent execution quota was fully used. The emergency quota increase took 3 hours. The process below prevents a repeat.
Weekly check
We compare every service quota with current usage.
Growth projection
We calculate when each quota will be reached from the 30, 60 and 90 day trends.
Quota request
We submit the AWS quota increase 30 days before the projected date.
Deployment
Security patches and new code can be deployed at any time.
Reserved Instances: commit after the data, not before
Reserved Instances offer a discount of up to 72 %. Clients lose money when they commit too early. We have seen four causes, and we require four checks before we recommend a purchase.
Four causes of a lost discount
Wrong instance size
A reservation for r6g.xlarge when the workload needs r6g.large. 50 % of the reservation is wasted.
Change of usage pattern
A three-year reservation, then a migration to containers six months later.
Region lock-in
A reservation in us-east-1, then a multi-region requirement for compliance.
Over-provisioned baseline
A reservation sized for peak load when average utilization is 40 %.
Four checks before a purchase
90 day review
A review of utilization across all hours, not only averages, with rightsizing first.
Stability check
No migration, refactoring or architecture change planned in the next 12 months.
Savings Plans compared with Reserved Instances
Compute Savings Plans often give more flexibility at a similar discount. We calculate both.
Staged commitment
One-year terms on 60 % of the baseline, more after six months of stable usage.
The figures
Act 30 days before the limit
Every forecast carries the date on which a storage tier, a service quota or a commitment will be reached. A quota increase is requested 30 days before that date. In 12 months, no deployment was blocked by a service quota.
What the client receives
- A forecast of the AWS bill for the next 60 to 90 days, delivered each month.
- The date on which each storage tier, service quota or commitment will be reached, with the action to take.
- Quota increase requests submitted 30 days ahead.
- A Reserved Instance or Savings Plan recommendation only after 90 days of utilization data and a stability check.
A forecast of your AWS bill, 60 to 90 days ahead
We review storage growth, service quotas and the commitments that are due in your accounts. You receive the forecast with the actions to take and the date for each.
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