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Sample report. This is an anonymized, illustrative deliverable. Account name, figures, and findings are representative of a real AWS cost audit — your report reflects your account.

AWS Cost Audit · Deliverable

Cost Audit Findings & Roadmap

A ranked, owner-ready view of where the AWS bill is going and what to act on first — every finding scored by impact, effort, risk, owner, and next step.

Account
Account "Northwind" (anonymized)
Profile
Mid-market SaaS · multi-account AWS Organization · us-east-1 / us-west-2
Period
Trailing 90 days · prepared June 2026
Reviewed spend
$48,200 / mo
Access method
Read-only role (External-ID gated). No write access. No long-lived keys.
Prepared by
SaveMoreClouds · sales@savemoreclouds.com
Section 01

Executive summary

$48,200
Reviewed monthly spend
trailing 90-day average
~$6,580/mo
Identified opportunity
≈ $79K / year
~14%
Share of bill
across 9 findings
4
Quick wins (P1, low effort)
actionable in week one

The review identified roughly $6,580/mo (~$79K/year) in addressable opportunity across nine findings, about 14% of current spend. Four are low-effort quick wins. Not every finding is immediate savings — one improves billing visibility and chargeback rather than reducing the bill directly. Each recommendation is something your team can validate before changing infrastructure.

Section 02

Where the money goes

EC2 + EBS$19,200/mo · 40%
RDS$8,200/mo · 17%
Data transfer / NAT$6,300/mo · 13%
S3$5,300/mo · 11%
EKS / ECS$4,100/mo · 8%
Other$5,100/mo · 11%
Section 03

Ranked findings

P1
FindingSteady EC2 usage running fully on-demand (no Savings Plan)
Impact~$2,100/mo
EffortLow
RiskCommitment flexibility
OwnerEng + Finance
Next stepModel 1-yr no-upfront Compute Savings Plan at 70% coverage
P1
FindingNAT Gateway carrying S3/DynamoDB traffic that could use VPC endpoints
Impact~$880/mo
EffortMedium
RiskArchitecture review
OwnerPlatform
Next stepAdd S3/DynamoDB gateway endpoints; trace egress per subnet
P1
FindingUnattached EBS volumes + idle volumes from retired instances
Impact~$640/mo
EffortLow
RiskConfirm not DR/cold standby
OwnerPlatform
Next stepSnapshot, confirm owner, then delete 23 unattached volumes
P1
FindingStale EBS snapshots from decommissioned workloads
Impact~$420/mo
EffortLow
RiskValidate retention policy
OwnerPlatform
Next stepApply lifecycle policy; expire snapshots older than retention window
P2
FindingOlder-generation EC2 (m4/c4) and low-utilization instances
Impact~$1,450/mo
EffortMedium
RiskPerf validation per workload
OwnerApp teams
Next stepMigrate m4→m6i; rightsize 6 instances under 15% CPU
P2
Findinggp2 EBS volumes eligible for gp3 at equal/better performance
Impact~$310/mo
EffortLow
RiskLow — in-place modify
OwnerPlatform
Next stepConvert gp2→gp3; tune IOPS/throughput where needed
P2
FindingS3 buckets with no lifecycle policy on infrequently accessed data
Impact~$260/mo
EffortLow
RiskConfirm access patterns
OwnerData
Next stepAdd lifecycle to Intelligent-Tiering / Glacier for cold prefixes
P2
FindingNon-prod RDS running 24/7 with no off-hours schedule
Impact~$390/mo
EffortMedium
RiskCoordinate with dev usage
OwnerEng
Next stepSchedule stop/start for staging + dev instances
P3
FindingTagging + cost-allocation gaps block per-team chargeback
ImpactVisibility (not direct $)
EffortMedium
RiskProcess change
OwnerPlatform + Finance
Next stepEnforce required tags; activate cost-allocation tags in billing

Impact figures are estimates based on trailing usage; effort and risk are guidance for your team's validation, not guarantees.

Section 04

Finding detail (example)

P1

Steady EC2 usage running fully on-demand

Evidence

~$30K/mo of EC2 runs at a stable baseline 24/7 with 0% Savings Plan / RI coverage. Cost Explorer shows consistent compute floor over the trailing 90 days.

Recommendation

Purchase a 1-year, no-upfront Compute Savings Plan sized to ~70% of the stable baseline. Keeps headroom for variable workloads on-demand.

Validate before acting

Confirm the baseline is durable (no planned migration / shutdown in the next year) and that flexibility tradeoffs are acceptable to engineering and finance.

Estimated impact

~$2,100/mo (~$25K/year) at the modeled coverage. Recoverable risk: commitment is compute-flexible across instance family, size, region, and OS.

Section 05

30 / 60 / 90 roadmap

Days 1–30
Quick wins
  • Convert gp2 → gp3 across eligible volumes
  • Delete confirmed unattached EBS volumes + stale snapshots
  • Add S3/DynamoDB VPC gateway endpoints
  • Apply S3 lifecycle policies to cold prefixes
Days 30–60
Commitments + rightsizing
  • Purchase modeled Compute Savings Plan at validated coverage
  • Rightsize / migrate low-utilization and older-gen EC2
  • Schedule off-hours stop/start for non-prod RDS
Days 60–90
Visibility + durability
  • Enforce tagging policy and activate cost-allocation tags
  • Stand up per-team chargeback view
  • Re-measure realized savings vs. baseline
Section 06

Methodology & access

How access works

The audit runs on a read-only IAM role you create with one click and can delete at any time to revoke access instantly. No write access is requested, and no long-lived credentials are stored. Access is gated by a unique External ID per engagement.

Data reviewed

Cost Explorer, the Cost and Usage Report, Compute Optimizer, Savings Plan / RI coverage, resource inventory metadata, data-transfer drivers, storage classes, and account/tagging structure across the AWS Organization.

Confidential sample. Figures are estimates for an anonymized, illustrative account and do not represent a specific client. Recommendations are advisory; implementation, testing, and operational decisions remain with the account owner. SaveMoreClouds does not modify infrastructure during the read-only audit phase.

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