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Cloud Cost Management Cheatsheet

Quick reference for pricing models, commitment discounts, budgets, tagging, and cost CLI commands across the big three clouds.

FinOpsRightsizingSavings PlansTagging
NotesCheatsheet

FinOps Lifecycle

PhaseFocus
InformVisibility, tagging, allocation, benchmarking
OptimizeRightsize, commit, delete waste, tier storage
OperateBudgets, anomalies, forecasting, governance

Pricing Models

ModelDiscountBest for
On-DemandbaselineSpiky / unknown
Spot~90%Fault-tolerant batch
Savings Plan~72%Steady baseline
Reserved~72%Known fixed types

Service Map

ConceptAWSAzureGCP
InterruptibleSpotSpot VMsSpot VMs
CommitmentSavings PlansReservationsCUDs
AnalysisCost ExplorerCost MgmtBilling/BigQuery
BudgetsAWS BudgetsCost alertsBudgets

Tagging & Queries

# Tag for allocation
aws ec2 create-tags --resources i-0abc \
  --tags Key=team,Value=payments Key=env,Value=prod

# MTD cost by service
aws ce get-cost-and-usage \
  --time-period Start=2026-06-01,End=2026-07-01 \
  --granularity MONTHLY --metrics UnblendedCost \
  --group-by Type=DIMENSION,Key=SERVICE

# GCP labels
gcloud compute instances update vm --zone=z \
  --update-labels=team=payments,env=prod

Waste Hunting

# Unattached EBS volumes
aws ec2 describe-volumes \
  --filters Name=status,Values=available \
  --query "Volumes[].{ID:VolumeId,GB:Size}" --output table

# Rightsizing recommendations
aws ce get-rightsizing-recommendation --service AmazonEC2

# Stop dev VM nightly (GCP schedule)
gcloud compute resource-policies create instance-schedule dev-off \
  --region=us-central1 --vm-stop-schedule="0 20 * * 1-5"
  • Idle instances, unattached disks, orphaned IPs / LBs.
  • Non-prod running 24/7 — schedule 12x5 to cut ~65%.
  • Old snapshots and cold objects not lifecycle-tiered.

Budgets & Anomalies

# Monthly budget with 80% alert
aws budgets create-budget --account-id ACC \
  --budget '{"BudgetName":"prod","BudgetLimit":{"Amount":"20000","Unit":"USD"},"TimeUnit":"MONTHLY","BudgetType":"COST"}' \
  --notifications-with-subscribers '[{"Notification":{"NotificationType":"ACTUAL","ComparisonOperator":"GREATER_THAN","Threshold":80},"Subscribers":[{"SubscriptionType":"EMAIL","Address":"finops@acme.com"}]}]'

# Anomaly detection
aws ce create-anomaly-monitor \
  --anomaly-monitor '{"MonitorName":"m","MonitorType":"DIMENSIONAL","MonitorDimension":"SERVICE"}'

Rules of Thumb

  • Cover 60-80% of steady baseline with commitments; top layer on-demand/spot.
  • Start with 1-year no-upfront; grow as confidence grows.
  • Track commitment utilisation & coverage as KPIs.
  • Measure unit economics (cost per request/customer), not just totals.
  • Alert same-day on anomalies, not at month-end.

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