Simply FinOps

AWS FinOps Guide

A practical, structured introduction to managing cloud costs in AWS. This guide covers the pricing models, services, and optimization levers that matter most — without vendor hype.

What You’ll Learn

  • How AWS accounts, organizations, and billing work
  • Key pricing models (On‑Demand, Savings Plans, Reserved Instances, Spot)
  • How to build a tagging and allocation strategy
  • Essential optimization levers across compute, storage, and networking
  • How to build AWS‑specific dashboards and alerts

Guide Sections

AWS Account Structure Organizations, accounts, consolidated billing, and why multi‑account matters for FinOps.

AWS Pricing Models On‑Demand, Savings Plans, Reserved Instances, Spot — when to use each.

Tagging & Allocation How to design a tagging strategy that supports chargeback/showback.

Optimization Levers Rightsizing, autoscaling, storage classes, networking patterns, and waste reduction.

Dashboards & Reporting Using Cost Explorer, CUR, Athena, QuickSight, and third‑party tools.

Supporting Articles

  • AWS Savings Plans vs. Reserved Instances
  • How to Build an AWS Tagging Strategy
  • AWS Rightsizing Playbook
  • How to Use the AWS Cost & Usage Report (CUR)