Most cloud cost tools promise "optimization." They'll find savings, recommend changes, and help you reduce costs. They'll analyze your infrastructure, suggest right-sizing, and identify waste.
But optimization is hard. It requires:
- Analyzing infrastructure
- Making recommendations
- Implementing changes
- Measuring results
- Iterating
Most teams don't have time for this. They're busy shipping features, not optimizing costs.
This is why awareness matters more than optimization.
What Optimization Is
Optimization is active. It's doing something to reduce costs:
- Right-sizing instances
- Reserving capacity
- Switching to spot instances
- Eliminating unused resources
- Consolidating services
Optimization requires:
- Analysis: Understanding your infrastructure
- Recommendations: Knowing what to change
- Implementation: Actually making changes
- Measurement: Verifying savings
- Maintenance: Keeping optimizations in place
This is a lot of work. It's a full-time job for a FinOps team. Most teams don't have that.
What Awareness Is
Awareness is passive. It's knowing what your costs are:
- Daily spend
- Trends
- Forecasts
- Anomalies
- Drivers
Awareness requires:
- Monitoring: Tracking costs
- Signals: Alerting on changes
- Investigation: Understanding why costs changed
This is less work. It's a part-time job for a CTO or engineering lead. Most teams can do this.
Why Awareness Matters More
Awareness prevents problems. Optimization fixes problems.
If you're aware of costs, you catch problems early. You see when spending spikes. You understand why costs increased. You make informed decisions about whether the increase is justified.
If you're not aware, problems surprise you. You discover overspend when invoices arrive. You find waste during optimization projects. You make decisions without cost context.
Awareness is preventative. Optimization is reactive.
The Right Order
Do awareness first, then optimization:
- Awareness: Know what your costs are
- Investigation: Understand why costs changed
- Optimization: Fix problems when they're worth fixing
Most teams skip awareness and go straight to optimization. They hire FinOps consultants to find savings. But without awareness, they don't know if the savings are real or if costs will just increase again.
Awareness tells you when optimization is worth it. If costs are stable, optimization might not be worth the effort. If costs are growing, optimization is essential.
The StackSpend Approach
StackSpend is an awareness tool, not an optimization tool. It tells you:
- What your costs are
- How they're changing
- Where they're heading
- When something's wrong
It doesn't tell you:
- How to reduce costs
- What to optimize
- What to change
This is intentional. Awareness is enough for most teams. They don't need optimization recommendations. They need to know when costs change, so they can decide whether to investigate or optimize.
When Optimization Makes Sense
Optimization makes sense when:
- Costs are growing faster than revenue
- You have dedicated FinOps resources
- You're spending enough to justify optimization effort
- You have time to implement changes
For most teams, awareness is enough. They catch problems early, understand why costs changed, and make informed decisions. They optimize when it's worth it, not all the time.
The Bottom Line
Optimization and awareness solve different problems:
- Optimization: How do I reduce costs? (Active, invasive)
- Awareness: What are my costs? (Passive, preventative)
Most teams need awareness more than optimization. They need to know when costs change, so they can decide whether to investigate or optimize.
Don't optimize without awareness. Know your costs first, then optimize when it's worth it. Awareness prevents problems. Optimization fixes them.
Most FinOps tools focus on optimization. They promise savings. But most teams need awareness first. They need to know what their costs are before they can optimize them.
StackSpend focuses on awareness. It tells you what your costs are, how they're changing, and when something's wrong. Then you decide whether to investigate or optimize.