AWS Cost Optimization: 10 Strategies That Actually Work (With Real Numbers)

Most companies are overspending on AWS by 30-60%. Here are 10 strategies that actually move the needle, with real cost impact estimates. 1. Right-Size Your Instances The #1 waste: oversized EC2 instances running at 5-15% CPU utilization. How to check: AWS Compute Optimizer or CloudWatch metrics for CPU/memory over 14 days. Typical savings: 30-50% on compute costs. 2. Reserved Instances & Savings Plans If you run workloads 24/7 and still pay On-Demand, you are leaving money on the table. 1-year no upfront: ~30% savings 1-year all upfront: ~40% savings 3-year all upfront: ~60% savings Rule of thumb: If a workload has been running for 3+ months and will continue, commit to at least a 1-year Savings Plan. 3. Spot Instances for Fault-Tolerant Workloads Spot Instances are 60-90% cheaper than On-Demand. Perfect for: CI/CD build runners Data processing jobs Dev/staging environments Batch processing Not suitable for: Production databases, stateful applications, single-instance workloads. 4. S3