It's almost like clockwork. Companies start wondering around $10K a month; they start doing something about it at $50K a month. I can almost set my watch by it.
This turns into a fun parlor trick when I can estimate a client's bill based upon the story they tell me!
We got pinged by our CEO to reduce our AWS bill which was $8k at the time. After a bit of work, we got it down by a little over a grand. One lunch, he said "guys, what are you doing about that bill?"... "What, we got it down by over a grand!"... "Yeah, but the exchange rate has gone the other way..."
Gotta love the Australian dollar. The Australian economy is solid - about to set a world record for longest continuing period without recession, including the GFC years - but the AUD swings around like a mad animal.
Right. Surprisingly, the comment you're responding to resembles some of my clients. This is a business problem.
In this case it's not "save us a few grand" that they're asking for-- the real ask is "help us analyze and forecast our spend as we continue to grow." Identify the knobs and dials that impact infrastructure costs, devise a costing model that states "each additional user costs $X to service," identify what makes sense to arbitrage between AWS and other providers / on-prem...
If I'm being honest, "lower the bill" is where it starts, but not nearly where it ends. :-)
This turns into a fun parlor trick when I can estimate a client's bill based upon the story they tell me!