Inside a Real $11,871/mo AWS Waste Scan
CloudWise's scan engine on a realistic mid-size SaaS AWS bill found $11,871/mo in savings across 18 findings. What was in it, and what surprised us.
AWSFinOpsCost Optimization
5 min read
Engineering blog
Real data, no fluff.
Technical deep-dives on AWS cost optimization, cloud waste detection, and FinOps automation. Also as a podcast
EC2 Cost Optimization: Are You Ready to Commit to Reserved Instances?
Buying Reserved Instances without checking these 4 signals first is how teams strand AWS budget. The math to know if your architecture is ready to commit.
AWSEC2FinOps9 min read
ElastiCache Pricing Breakdown: Where the Money Actually Goes
ElastiCache looks simple until you break down the bill: node hours, engine pricing gaps, replication, extended support surcharges, and the idle cache problem.
AWSElastiCacheRedis8 min read
How Timestream Actually Bills: A Breakdown for Engineers
Amazon Timestream billing is not just storage. A breakdown of writes, query TCUs, memory and magnetic store, retention, and common cost traps.
AWSAmazon TimestreamFinOps4 min read
The Hidden Costs of Idle EMR Clusters (And How to Stop the Bleed)
EMR costs are not just EC2. This breakdown explains the EMR surcharge, EBS carry cost, and why WAITING clusters quietly drain budgets.
AWSEMRBig Data3 min read
Amazon MQ Pricing: What's Really on Your Bill
Amazon MQ looks simple on the bill until you pull it apart. Here's where the money goes — broker instances, HA costs, storage, and the idle broker problem.
AWSAmazon MQServerless4 min read
Your OpenSearch Bill Is Bigger Than You Think: A Technical Cost Breakdown
OpenSearch spend is a composite of compute, storage, backups, and data movement. Here's how to model the full stack and find the dominant cost driver.
AWSOpenSearchFinOps4 min read
The Silent $33/Month Charge: Understanding AWS NAT Gateway Costs
NAT Gateways quietly burn $32.85 per month each — whether they process a terabyte of data or zero bytes. Here's how to find and eliminate idle ones.
AWSNAT GatewayFinOps4 min read
The Hidden Cost Layers of EC2 (And Why Stopped Instances Still Drain Your Budget)
EC2 looks simple on the bill — until you pull it apart. Here's where the real costs hide: EBS storage, snapshots, Elastic IPs, and the idle tax.
AWSEC2EBS5 min read