Guides

How to Reduce Your AWS Bill: A Practical DevOps Checklist

By Ravindra Bagale, DevOps trainer · LinkedIn · Published: 28 October 2026 · Last updated: 28 October 2026

Set a billing alarm, tag resources, delete orphans (EBS, snapshots, idle LBs), watch NAT, right-size, and review Cost Explorer monthly.

Language: English · मराठी · हिंदी

Why a checklist

Cloud bills drift without ritual.

Why: Hero cleanups return next month. What: Alarm → orphans → right-size → review. How: Finance agrees thresholds.

Example 1: Billing alarm

Type this:

printf '%s\n' 'aws cloudwatch put-metric-alarm --alarm-name billing-100-usd --metric-name EstimatedCharges --namespace AWS/Billing --statistic Maximum --period 21600 --evaluation-periods 1 --threshold 100 --comparison-operator GreaterThanThreshold --dimensions Name=Currency,Value=USD --contact-groups ...'

You will see:

aws cloudwatch put-metric-alarm --alarm-name billing-100-usd --metric-name EstimatedCharges --namespace AWS/Billing --statistic Maximum --period 21600 --evaluation-periods 1 --threshold 100 --comparison-operator GreaterThanThreshold --dimensions Name=Currency,Value=USD --contact-groups ...

What it means: us-east-1 billing metric — set an INR-aware threshold your team agrees.

Example 7: Tag for cost

Type this:

printf '%s\n' 'Environment=dev, Owner=payments, Project=checkout'

You will see:

Environment=dev, Owner=payments, Project=checkout

What it means: Without tags Cost Explorer is a fog.

Example 10: Budget in INR talk

Type this:

printf '%s\n' 'Agree a monthly budget with finance; alarm at 50 percent and 80 percent'

You will see:

Agree a monthly budget with finance; alarm at 50 percent and 80 percent

What it means: Startups in Bengaluru do this weekly in stand-up.

Concept 1: Find idle storage and compute

Stopped is not free.

Why: EBS and snaps outlive instances. What: describe-instances/volumes/snapshots. How: Delete with a ticket when sure.

Example 2: Find stopped vs unused

Type this:

printf '%s\n' 'aws ec2 describe-instances --filters Name=instance-state-name,Values=stopped --query "Reservations[].Instances[].InstanceId"'

You will see:

aws ec2 describe-instances --filters Name=instance-state-name,Values=stopped --query "Reservations[].Instances[].InstanceId"

What it means: Stopped instances still cost for EBS volumes.

Example 3: Unattached EBS

Type this:

printf '%s\n' 'aws ec2 describe-volumes --filters Name=status,Values=available --query "Volumes[].VolumeId"'

You will see:

aws ec2 describe-volumes --filters Name=status,Values=available --query "Volumes[].VolumeId"

What it means: available = not attached — common orphan bill.

Example 4: Old snapshots

Type this:

printf '%s\n' 'aws ec2 describe-snapshots --owner-ids self --query "Snapshots[?StartTime<=\`2024-01-01\`].SnapshotId"'

You will see:

aws ec2 describe-snapshots --owner-ids self --query "Snapshots[?StartTime<=\`2024-01-01\`].SnapshotId"

What it means: Keep restore points you need; delete ancient labs.

Concept 2: Network quiet costs

ALB and NAT bill while idle.

Why: Zero-traffic ALB still charges. What: List LBs; share/remove NAT. How: gp3 migrations help.

Example 5: Idle load balancers

Type this:

printf '%s\n' 'aws elbv2 describe-load-balancers --query "LoadBalancers[].LoadBalancerArn"'

You will see:

aws elbv2 describe-load-balancers --query "LoadBalancers[].LoadBalancerArn"

What it means: ALB/NLB cost daily even with zero traffic — Flipkart labs forget this.

Example 6: Right-size hint

Type this:

printf '%s\n' 'If CPU < 10 percent for two weeks, try a smaller instance type in next maintenance'

You will see:

If CPU < 10 percent for two weeks, try a smaller instance type in next maintenance

What it means: Right-size beats buying bigger "just in case".

Example 11: gp3 vs gp2

Type this:

printf '%s\n' 'Prefer gp3 volumes when migrating — often cheaper for same baseline'

You will see:

Prefer gp3 volumes when migrating — often cheaper for same baseline

What it means: Easy win during Terraform refactors.

Concept 3: Tags and rhythm

Cost Explorer needs dimensions.

Why: Untagged spend cannot be owned. What: Environment/Owner tags; Monday review. How: S3 lifecycle for cold logs.

Example 8: S3 lifecycle

Type this:

printf '%s\n' 'Move rare logs to Glacier Instant Retrieval or Deep Archive after N days'

You will see:

Move rare logs to Glacier Instant Retrieval or Deep Archive after N days

What it means: Hot S3 for forever logs burns INR.

Example 9: NAT gateway watch

Type this:

printf '%s\n' 'NAT Gateway hourly + data processing — share or remove unused NATs in idle VPCs'

You will see:

NAT Gateway hourly + data processing — share or remove unused NATs in idle VPCs

What it means: Quiet killer on small AWS accounts.

Example 12: Monthly review ritual

Type this:

printf '%s\n' 'Calendar: first Monday — Cost Explorer by service + kill orphans checklist'

You will see:

Calendar: first Monday — Cost Explorer by service + kill orphans checklist

What it means: Ritual beats one heroic cleanup.

Bill checklist card

1 CloudWatch billing alarm 2 Tags everywhere 3 Stopped EC2 + unattached EBS + old snaps 4 Idle ALB/NAT 5 Right-size + gp3 6 S3 lifecycle 7 Monthly Cost Explorer

Suppose: Alarm never fires

Billing metric is in us-east-1; confirm region and SNS email.

Suppose: Dev costs = prod

Missing Environment tags or shared NAT.

Check yourself (quiz)

alarm → orphans → right-size → review. Did you understand? Let us try it once more.