Breaking Down Cloud Spend: Controllable vs. Less-Controllable Costs
"Cloud costs are one of the top challenges for engineering teams and leadership." - DJ' Kone
Welcome back to the Fahmacloud Newsletter, where we share actionable insights on Optimizing your AWS bill and boost ROI in an effective approach.
The flexibility of platforms like AWS, Azure, and GCP is great but it also means cloud bills can spiral if left unmanaged.
One of the most effective ways to bring clarity into the discussion is to split cloud spend into two categories:
Controllable Costs
Less-Controllable Costs
This simple framework helps teams focus optimization efforts where they’ll have the biggest ROI, while also setting realistic expectations for the areas that are harder to reduce.
1. Controllable Costs
These are the costs your team has direct influence over. They’re the natural starting point for cloud cost optimization because improvements here are measurable and repeatable.
Examples:
Compute Optimization: Rightsize EC2, RDS, or VM instances to match workload requirements.
Storage Efficiency: Use S3 lifecycle policies, archive old data, delete unused EBS snapshots.
Eliminate Waste: Shut down idle instances, release unused Elastic IPs, remove orphaned resources.
Pricing Models: Adopt Savings Plans, Reserved Instances, or Spot Instances for predictable workloads.
These costs can usually be optimized with better tooling, automation, and processes, and they’re where cost savings show up the fastest.
2. Less-Controllable Costs
I avoid calling these non-controllable, because while they’re harder to influence, they’re not impossible. These costs are often driven by business or vendor constraints.
Examples:
Business Requirements: Maintaining active/active architectures across regions for compliance or redundancy.
Vendor Pricing: Some managed services (e.g., API Gateway, managed databases, networking costs) have fixed pricing models.
Performance SLAs: Running workloads at higher tiers to meet customer expectations.
In these cases, optimization often requires re-architecture, workload migration, or long-term negotiation with vendors. It’s less about shutting something off, and more about strategic decision-making.
Why This Framework Works
By splitting costs into these two categories, teams gain:
Clarity: Not all costs are equal, and that’s okay.
Focus: Start with controllable costs, where ROI is clear and quick.
Alignment: Leadership understands why some costs won’t move as quickly.
Over time, most teams evolve from a pure cost reduction mindset to one focused on predictability and business alignment. This shift ensures cloud spend isn’t just lower, it’s also better connected to company goals.
Practical Steps to Apply This
Map Spend to Categories → Run AWS Cost Explorer or Azure/GCP equivalents, and tag spend as controllable or less-controllable.
Prioritize Quick Wins → Focus first on waste elimination, rightsizing, and automation.
Set Business Context → For less-controllable costs, document the “why” (compliance, performance, vendor). This helps during budget reviews.
Revisit Regularly → What’s “less-controllable” today may become “controllable” tomorrow as tech evolves or business needs shift.
The Takeaway
Cloud cost optimization isn’t just about cutting spend—it’s about making smart, aligned decisions.
By breaking cloud spend into controllable vs. less-controllable categories, you empower teams to:
Capture quick wins
Communicate better with leadership
Keep long-term strategy in focus
The result? Costs that are lower, more predictable, and aligned with business outcomes.
In future posts, I’ll share real-world case studies showing how teams applied this framework to save millions while improving agility.
That’s it for this week’s Fahmacloud Newsletter.
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