Cloud cost optimization · AWS and Azure
Cloud cost optimization services and FinOps
Cloud cost optimization means paying only for the cloud capacity your workloads use: removing idle and oversized resources, covering steady usage with Savings Plans or reservations, moving rarely read data to cheaper storage, and giving spend an owner, a budget and alerts. That last part is FinOps.
HabileLabs does this on AWS and Azure. At JNU Hospital & Medical College, Savings Plans reduced compute infrastructure costs by approximately 28%.
- AWS Partner, Advanced Tier Services
- AWS validations for Graviton and EC2 for Windows Server
- Microsoft Solutions Partner for Azure Infrastructure
Client cost results
What clients cut, and what each figure measured
Six published results, each quoted from the client's own case study. They measure different things (compute, cloud spend, operations, backup storage), so read the line under each figure before comparing them.
AWS · EC2 Windows Server
About 28%
Lower compute infrastructure costs with Savings Plans, for HIS and EMR on multi-AZ Amazon EC2 Windows Server.
JNU Hospital & Medical College, JaipurAWS · Managed services
~25–30%
Lower cloud spend for hospital systems, with cost savings through Savings Plans and right-sizing.
Eternal Hospital, Jaipur (EHCC)AWS · Managed services
~30%
Lower costs through optimization, with Savings Plans and right-sizing, on multi-tenant healthcare IT platforms.
Elixir InfoTechAWS · EC2 Windows Server
~30%
Saved on EC2 Windows workloads through scaling and compute Savings Plans, for HIS, EMR and LIMS.
Dr. B. Lal Clinical LaboratoryAWS · ECS on Fargate
About 30%
Lower operational costs with containers on AWS Fargate, after the move to Amazon ECS.
MemorizzAzure · Blob Storage tiers
50%
Lower cold storage backup costs, compared with physical disks, after backups moved to Azure Blob Storage tiers.
Marsons Energy
Each figure is quoted from the client's published case study; the client name links to it. The projects differ in scope, so the figures are not averaged or added. EHCC's figure has no stated baseline.
Cost levers
Six levers that bring a cloud bill down
The levers our AWS and Azure cost services use. Where a client's case study credits one of them, that line is quoted on the card.
Rightsize idle and oversized resources
Idle and oversized EC2, RDS and EBS resources get billed around the clock without anyone noticing. We size compute and databases to their real load, on AWS and on Azure.
Elixir InfoTech: resource optimization with AWS Compute Optimizer, Savings Plans and right-sizing.
Match commitments to steady usage
On-demand pricing gets paid in full when no one owns Savings Plans or Reserved Instance coverage. On AWS, commitment coverage is modeled against 12 months of usage, not a one-time snapshot.
At JNU Hospital & Medical College, Savings Plans reduced compute infrastructure costs by approximately 28%.
Run suitable workloads on AWS Graviton
We check which workloads can run on Arm-based AWS Graviton, move them with minimal code changes and benchmark before and after, so the gain is measured, not assumed.
iSEEit's Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL runs on burstable AWS Graviton2 instances, which, with a lean architecture, kept its monthly AWS costs low.
Tier storage by how often it is read
Rarely read data does not need high-performance storage. Lifecycle rules and storage tiers move it somewhere cheaper.
Marsons Energy: older, rarely accessed backups move to Azure's Archive tier. Memorizz: Amazon S3 Intelligent-Tiering tackled the cost of storing photos and videos.
Scale with demand, not for the peak
Auto Scaling and containers keep capacity in step with load instead of sized for the busiest hour.
Memorizz: running containers on AWS Fargate removed manual infrastructure provisioning and management, saving approximately 30% in operational costs.
Give spend an owner, a budget and alerts
This is the FinOps part: financial accountability for cloud spending. Tags show who owns each cost, budgets and alerts make new waste visible early, and a monthly governance cadence keeps savings from quietly reversing.
On AWS, service-by-service tuning also covers Amazon S3, AWS Lambda, Amazon EKS, Amazon CloudWatch, AWS Glue, Amazon Bedrock, AWS Config, OpenSearch and AWS Trusted Advisor. Further reading: Cloud Cost Optimization Explained: 10 Techniques to Reduce Your Monthly Cloud Costs.
How it works
Assess, plan, implement, govern
Our AWS and Azure cost engagements run the same four stages. Savings are ranked before any work starts, and nothing changes in your accounts until you have approved the plan.
Stage 01 · Assess
See where the money goes
Usage and billing data analyzed across compute, storage and networking to find where spend is leaking, with each saving ranked.
On AWS
- Full bill breakdown
- Well-Architected cost pillar scoring
- Rightsizing and storage waste findings
On Azure
A line-by-line review of your bill and usage, with savings ranked by size. Read access to billing and usage is enough for the assessment.
Stage 02 · Plan
Agree what changes, and what it saves
You see the savings with estimates and choose what goes ahead. Commitments are planned against real usage, not a one-time snapshot.
On AWS
- Savings Plans and Reserved Instance strategy
- 12 months of usage modeled
- Approved instance changes
On Azure
After the assessment you get a ranked list of savings with estimates, before any work starts.
Stage 03 · Implement
Make the approved changes
Rightsizing, commitments, storage tiers and scaling, applied only where you said yes.
On AWS
- EC2 and RDS rightsizing
- AWS Graviton
- Auto Scaling
- Savings Plans
- NAT Gateways
- Snapshots
On Azure
Right-sizing, reservations and savings plans, and storage tiering with lifecycle rules.
Stage 04 · Govern
Keep the savings from creeping back
Budgets, alerts and tagging make new waste visible early, and regular reviews keep spend in line.
On AWS
- AWS Cost Optimization Hub
- Budget alerts
- Tagging governance
- Refine
On Azure
Tags, budgets and alerts in Azure Cost Management so new waste shows up quickly, then ongoing cost reviews.
Want your own team to run FinOps after hand-off?
FinOps training on AWS: workshops and certification-prep sessions so your own engineers can carry cost optimization forward after we hand off.
AWS or Azure
What cost optimization covers on each cloud
The same four stages, with each cloud's own tools. Most of our published cost results are on AWS; on Azure, the published result is Marsons Energy's backup storage.
On AWS
- Free bill review with Refine
- AWS cloud cost assessment
- EC2 and RDS rightsizing
- Savings Plans and Reserved Instances
- Automated cost governance
- Continuous spend monitoring
Which cloud?
On Azure
- Azure cost assessment
- Right-sizing
- Reservations and Savings Plans
- Storage tiering and lifecycle rules
- Tagging, budgets and alerts
- Ongoing cost reviews
Refine
Refine keeps watching AWS spend after we hand off
Refine is HabileLabs' Gen-AI platform for AWS cost optimization and security. Connect your AWS account with read-only access and Refine keeps finding waste and risk long after the engagement ends. It is a HabileLabs product, a self-serve platform you run yourself, and it covers AWS only.
Service-level cost recommendations
Ranked fixes, plus alerts in Slack, Microsoft Teams or email.
380+ security checks
Across IAM, storage, network, compute and logging.
Anomaly detection
With AI-written commentary on what changed.
Tags and forecasts
Tag governance and allocation tracking, plus forecasting and budget vs actual.
Read-only by design
Create one IAM role. No agents, no write access, no credit card.
Many accounts
Multi-account and MSP hierarchy.
Plans, as listed: Free, $0 for AWS spend under $2,000/month (one account, no card) · Growth, $100/mo from $2,000/month AWS spend · Scale, $200/mo from $10,000/month · Enterprise, custom, annual agreement from $50,000/month. Pricing reflects refine.habilelabs.io at time of writing.
Start here
Four ways to get a first look at your bill
Each has its own terms. Two are free: the AWS cost optimization assessment and Refine's free plan.
Running more than one cloud? The free cloud infrastructure assessment reviews what you run against performance, availability, security and cost.
Free · AWS
AWS cost optimization assessment
Tell us about your environment. An AWS-certified architect reviews your bill and sizes likely savings within two business days. The assessment is a structured audit: rightsizing candidates, Savings Plan coverage gaps and storage waste, ranked by dollar impact.
Get your free assessmentFree plan · AWS
Refine
Refine's free plan covers AWS spend under $2,000/month: one account, no card. A quick first look before a full assessment.
Try Refine freeAzure
Azure cost review
A line-by-line review of your Azure bill and usage, with savings ranked by size. Read access to billing and usage is enough.
Request an Azure cost reviewAWS
Well-Architected cost pillar review
A formal review against the AWS Well-Architected Framework's cost optimization pillar, with a prioritized remediation plan.
Book a cost pillar review
Partner status
The credentials behind our cost work
AWS awards each Service Delivery validation through an independent audit of delivered customer work. Two of our nine apply directly to cost: AWS Graviton and Amazon EC2 for Windows Server. On Azure, HabileLabs is a Microsoft Solutions Partner for Infrastructure.
AWS Partner, Advanced Tier Services
AWS Graviton Delivery
Amazon EC2 for Windows Server Delivery
Microsoft Solutions Partner, Infrastructure (Azure)
All nine validations, and what each covers: AWS competencies and validations.
- AWS service delivery validations
- 9
- AWS customer launches
- 200+
- Microsoft Azure partner designations
- 3
Keep exploring
More from the cloud practice
Cloud consulting
The cloud practice home: AWS, Azure and Google Cloud, from migration to managed operations.
Cloud consultingCloud migration
Moving workloads to the cloud in planned waves, each workload assessed first.
Cloud migrationManaged cloud services
Monitoring, patching, backups, security and cost control for AWS and Azure.
Managed cloud servicesCloud security and disaster recovery
Identity, encryption, AWS WAF, backups and recovery plans tested before an outage.
Security and DR
Cost optimization FAQs
Cloud cost optimization and FinOps, answered
What it is, what it saves, how changes are approved, and what each assessment includes.
Cloud cost optimization is the work of paying only for the cloud capacity your workloads use. In practice that means rightsizing idle and oversized resources, covering steady usage with Savings Plans or reservations, moving rarely read data to cheaper storage tiers, scaling with demand, and putting budgets and alerts on spend so new waste is caught early.
FinOps is the practice of bringing financial accountability to cloud spending. Costs are tagged to the teams that own them, budgets and alerts are set, and spend is reviewed on a regular cadence. HabileLabs sets up this governance on AWS and Azure, and on AWS runs workshops and certification-prep sessions so your own engineers can carry it forward.
It depends on how unmanaged your current spend is. Published client results include compute infrastructure costs about 28% lower with Savings Plans at JNU Hospital & Medical College, costs about 30% lower at Elixir InfoTech, and cold storage backup costs 50% lower than physical disks at Marsons Energy on Azure. The free AWS cost optimization assessment gives you a number specific to your environment rather than an average.
Start with waste that is billed around the clock: idle and oversized EC2, RDS and EBS resources, on-demand pricing on steady workloads that Savings Plans or Reserved Instances could cover, and storage that could sit in a cheaper tier. The free AWS cost optimization assessment ranks these by dollar impact, and nothing changes in your accounts until you have approved the plan.
Yes. The Azure cost review covers right-sizing, reservations and savings plans, storage tiering and lifecycle rules, and tags, budgets and alerts in Azure Cost Management. Read access to billing and usage is enough for the assessment, and you approve each change before it is made. Refine covers AWS only.
No. On both clouds you get the savings ranked with estimates first, and nothing changes in your accounts until you have approved the plan. Refine connects to AWS read-only through one IAM role, with no agents and no write access.
Refine is HabileLabs' Gen-AI platform for AWS cost optimization and security. Its free plan covers AWS spend under $2,000/month for one account, with no card. Paid plans are listed as Growth at $100/mo from $2,000/month of AWS spend, Scale at $200/mo from $10,000/month, and Enterprise at custom pricing from $50,000/month. Pricing reflects refine.habilelabs.io at time of writing.
You tell us about your environment, and an AWS-certified architect reviews your bill and sizes likely savings within two business days. The assessment lists rightsizing candidates, Savings Plan coverage gaps and storage waste, ranked by dollar impact.
HabileLabs is an AWS Advanced Tier Services Partner with two AWS Competencies and nine Service Delivery validations, including AWS Graviton and Amazon EC2 for Windows Server. On Azure, HabileLabs is a Microsoft Solutions Partner for Azure Infrastructure, one of its three Azure designations.
Next step
Find out where your cloud bill can come down
Tell us about your environment. An AWS-certified architect reviews your AWS bill and sizes likely savings within two business days. On Azure, ask for a cost review; read access to billing and usage is enough.
- Savings ranked before any work starts
- Changes made only with your approval
- Start free with Refine on AWS
Refine's free plan covers AWS spend under $2,000/month, one account, no card.