000 / FinOps
AWS Cost Analysis & Reduction
An audit that's not a deck of PowerPoint slides, it's a numbered list of measures with concrete figures per line item that you can act on tomorrow. Fixed price, before/after forecast you can trust, zero downtime on the implementation.
001 / Deliverables
What you get
Four deliverables. No consulting-speak, no "derive recommendations". You get material you can work with directly.
Cost audit report
A PDF that explains every line item on your bill. Plus: which resources are actually doing productive work, which are still running because nobody dared turn them off, and which are only attracting bot traffic.
Action list in three columns
Quick wins (days), structural fixes (weeks), architecture (months). Per row: what to do, expected monthly savings, risk level. Sorted by ROI.
Dependency map
In one project, a seemingly unused ALB was actually part of the email-delivery chain. Without log analysis, switching it off would have locked the company out of its own inbox. The map shows what is really connected, not what the tags claim.
Optional: implementation
If you want, I'll execute the measures too, day rate, with a rollback plan per item. You approve each action before it happens.
002 / How it runs
How it actually runs
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01
Discovery call
30-minute or 1-hour consultation, from €75. Workflow, feasibility, architecture. If you book a follow-up project, the call price is credited against it.
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02
Access grant
You create a read-only IAM role. I can look, but I can't break anything. I send the example policy beforehand; NDA on request.
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03
Audit
3 to 5 business days. Cost Explorer, logs, right-sizing, storage lifecycle, zombie detection. Daily status if you want it, otherwise only at the end.
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04
Handover
PDF report plus a one-hour call where I walk you through the roadmap. After that: either your team executes, or I take it on.
003 / Price
Fixed price, no timesheet
€3,500 covers a typical single-account audit. For large multi-account organisations the price adapts, but you know the figure before signing, not after.
You pay for a defined deliverable, not for hours. If I'm faster than expected, that's my risk and your certainty.
Audit package
Single-account setup, medium complexity.
- PDF report with before/after forecast
- Action list, quick wins, structural fixes, architecture, separated
- Dependency map from logs, the prerequisite for zero downtime
- Handover call (1 h) plus written documentation
- Read-only access throughout, NDA on request
Reply within 24 h
004 / Reference
An actual story
The process above isn't theory, it's what I ran for a client in early 2026.
$3,850 → $1,330 per month, no outages
8 zombie ALBs that were only attracting bot scans. A whole EKS cluster that nobody had seriously used in months. 1.4 TB of obsolete EBS snapshots. Plus: WordPress sites and MX records that stayed up the entire time, that was the condition.
Read the full case study005 / Frequent questions
What you probably want to know
What bill size makes an audit worthwhile?
From around $2,000 per month upwards, the audit almost always pays for itself within a month or two, assuming the setup isn't already optimised. Below that: happy to do a discovery call, but I might tell you honestly that the levers are too small to justify the work.
What access do you need exactly?
Cost Explorer, CloudWatch Logs and Metrics, plus describe/list on EC2, EKS, RDS, S3 and ALB. No write permissions. No access to S3 bucket contents or database contents. I send the policy before contract, you see exactly what you grant.
How long does it take?
Three to five business days after access is granted. Multi-account setups with Organizations take longer; I scope that in the discovery call.
Do you implement, or just audit?
Both, on request. Implementation runs on a day rate, step by step with a rollback plan per measure. Alternative: a handoff sprint where I guide your team and your people execute.
Fixed price or hourly?
The audit itself is fixed. For very large setups the figure adapts, but you know it before signing. A subsequent implementation runs on day rate.
What happens to our data?
It stays in your account. I access read-only, copy nothing out of S3 or RDS, work with cost metrics and logs. NDA on request, even before the discovery call.
006 / Related services
Often booked alongside this service:
Migration
Legacy Data Migration & Reverse Engineering
Migrate data from legacy systems (Access, old ERP exports, undocumented schemas) into modern structures. With rule validation and a full audit trail.
E-Commerce
Product Feed Pipelines
Sync large affiliate feeds (Connexity, Shopping24) automatically into Merchant Centers. With validation, monitoring and error recovery.
Want a concrete number?
Send a short inquiry with your budget range, reply within 24 h, with a proposed time for the discovery call.
Send inquiry