Cloud Cost Optimisation: 15 Best Practices to Cut Your Cloud Bill

Even though cloud deployment models have different plans for different needs, it sometimes confuses users when they get raised billing amounts. They must be wondering, ‘How did it happen?’ I have not done anything wrong that raised the billing beyond my prediction. If you are one of the users who have fallen into this raised cloud billing trap and want a way out, you are at the right place. In this detailed guide, we have shared 15 expert-backed tips that are surely going to cut down your cloud bill if implemented. So, explore and implement them to save your money and resources.

A] Why Cloud Cost Optimisation Matters

Cloud cost optimisation is a process for reducing unmanaged cloud usage, which often leads to budget overruns. It requires strategies, tools, and expert-backed guidance to assess the key areas that need attention to bring down the cost to balance. Cloud cost management ensures users only pay for utilised cloud resources based on business needs. It also becomes important when the provider follows a variable billing cycle.

If you don’t know about the fixed and variable billing cycles, read this blog: Dedicated Server Hosting Pricing in India: A Practical Guide

B] Common Reasons for Rising Cloud Bills

1. Overprovisioning of Resources

Resource overprovisioning means provisioning computing resources, like memory, storage, and CPU/GPU, more than the actual use. Thinking about the future, businesses usually overprovision their server, which leads to paying for services more than they need.

2. Idle or Unused Resources

Overprovisioning keeps the server’s instances running without workloads, which obviously keeps the cost meter running regardless of whether resources are idle or unused. Memory, CPU/GPU, storage, and even IP addresses that are not in use increase your billing.

3. Lack of Cost Monitoring

The cost monitoring tool monitors overall resource use and informs the user if any idle or unused instances are found. When the server is not integrated with cost monitoring tools, there is a high chance of utilising more than required. This leads to driven-up cloud bills, as there is no tool for measuring consumption or informing idle instances.

4. Complex Multi-Cloud Environments

If you have hosted your data or applications on different cloud deployment models, like dedicated, shared, VPS, or private, be ready to get an increased bill. The complexity of multi-cloud environments makes cost hard to track, which leads to overbilling.

5. Using Cloud Services of Expensive Providers

Using the services of an expensive cloud service provider is the prime reason for increased billing. Expensive providers cap bandwidth and speed and charge for even those services that should be provided to customers free of cost or within the bundle, leading to cost overruns.

C] 15 Best Practices for Cloud Cost Optimisation

1. Rightsizing Cloud Resources

The first and foremost step for cloud cost optimisation should be rightsizing the cloud resources. This should involve downscaling the extra computing resources that are not being utilised. When downscaling, calculate or get help from the provider to adjust the computing resource size to match workloads.

2. Use Reserved or Dedicated Instances

Want to get rid of fluctuating billings once and for all? Switch to a dedicated cloud computing model to fix the raised billing cycle instead of using shared or VPS cloud deployment models. A dedicated cloud server follows a fixed billing model where you only pay for the resources you have opted for.

3. Eliminate Idle Resources

Idle resources always incur a cost, even if they are not being used. So, why not shut them off when they are not in use? It will not let the bill increase. However, eliminating idle resources is better than switching on and off the VMs, storage, or IPs. Absolute Cloud’s dedicated hosting provides this opportunity by offering unlimited scaling options where you can upgrade or downgrade the computing resources based on your needs.

4. Implement Monitoring and Cost Real-Time Tools

Tracking cloud computing resource use in real time can be a prime resource for cloud computing cost management. To do this, you will have to implement monitoring and cost visibility tools to track real-time usage and identify waste.

5. Optimise Storage Options

Unused, redundant, uncompressed data takes up space in your cloud storage, leading to additional storage space requirements in the cloud. Setting predefined rules for unused or redundant data and using compression tools to compress data before uploading it to the cloud can save so much space. In addition, using the tiered storage technique to segregate data based on the access frequency also saves valuable cloud storage.

6. Leverage Spot Instances (Where Applicable)

Spot instances are unused computing resources configured for instances having flexible and non-critical workloads. To distribute the server load, you can leverage the configuration of spot instances to host fault-tolerance workloads, like data analysis and batch tasks.

7. Choose a Cost-Efficient Cloud Provider

Expensive cloud service providers charge high even for small and must-be-free services. They also keep the cost of their cloud hosting plans high without worrying about the same service being provided by other cloud providers, like Absolute Cloud, at a much cheaper rate. So, prefer choosing a cost-effective provider for reduced cloud billing.

8. Spot Billing Anomalies and Optimise Contracts

Billing anomaly detection allows users to identify wasted computing resources and misconfigurations by monitoring usage patterns. On the other hand, contract optimisation enables users to ask for discounts on waste usage. Ensure you leverage both methods to reduce your cost overruns.

9. Automate Shutdown for Non-Production Environments

If cloud resources are not used in a particular time frame, like night hours or weekends, set an automatic shutdown protocol to switch the server off when unnecessary. It allows you to control cost overruns by reducing usage during non-productive hours. With Absolute Cloud, a trusted provider of cloud computing solutions, you don’t have to put the server on shutdown automation, as it provides unthrottled bandwidth with a fixed billing cycle.

10. Adopt Containerisation and Serverless Architectures

Containerisation allows isolated applications to be hosted on a separate cloud infrastructure, which reduces the load on the primary server. It also eliminates the need to procure additional resources. On the other hand, serverless architecture shifts the server management to the trusted cloud provider. In short, containers and serverless reduce infrastructure overhead by running only what is needed and when it is needed. Make sure you use these methods.

11. Consolidate Workloads

Workload consolidation is a cloud computing cost management method that allows users to combine lightly used instances with an instance that has unused server resources. It lets users utilise the extra resources for their secondary works to avoid underutilised resources.

12. Use Auto-Scaling Policies Wisely

Auto-scaling policies allow users to auto-scale up or down depending on demand, ensuring users don’t overpay for unused capacity. Most cloud hosting providers offer on-demand scaling, so ensure you ask about an auto-scaling policy before server procurement. Absolute Cloud offers an unlimited scalability option, freeing the user to scale up or down the server based on the current and future needs.

13. Implement Data Lifecycle Policies

Data lifecycle policy is a process of setting protocols that move the outdated or inactive data to cheaper storage tiers. So, use this policy and archive old and infrequently accessed data into cheaper storage and utilise vacant resources for crucial data storage.

14. Negotiate Enterprise Discounts with Providers

For large or growing workloads, providers often offer custom pricing plans. Ask if a provider provides any kind of offer to minimise your cloud billing. Always prefer those providers who follow a fixed billing cycle without capping on performance and bandwidth.

15. Work with a Dedicated Cloud Provider

If you want to condense all the above-explained pointers into one sentence, it would be ‘work with a dedicated cloud provider’. Dedicated cloud providers provide cost-efficient cloud resources by adopting a fixed billing cycle with unthrottled server performance. They offer other crucial services, like backup, maintenance, dedicated support, and unlimited scaling options within the plan, which means no charges for these additional services. It saves so much cost for the user while providing value for every penny.

Wrapping Up

If you are looking for a reliable and cost-efficient dedicated cloud provider, Absolute Cloud is here to help. Unlike other expensive cloud hosting providers, we deliver enterprise-level solutions comparable to AWS and Azure at an economy-class price. With Absolute Cloud, you enjoy 99.9% uptime, immediate 24/7 support with under 5-minute response time, and truly predictable billing.

We only bill based on your server configuration and include bandwidth, support, and backups, so your organisation always knows exactly what it’s paying for without hidden extras. On top of that, we provide cost optimisation support, unlimited scaling, and dedicated assistance to ensure your business never feels limited by performance or features.

Choose Absolute Cloud today for low-cost, high-performance dedicated cloud services backed by reliability, transparency, and enterprise-grade support.

In addition to providing cloud services across India, we are the number one web hosting service provider in Kolkata and are also known for cost-effective Tally cloud services. Contact us also for these additional services.