Cut Cloud Waste This Week
Start with high-confidence cleanup and underutilization wins before you build a full FinOps program.
Teams that need visible savings fast (engineering, ops, founders).
Why this path first
This path prioritizes unused resources, idle services, and quick controls that usually recover spend in days, not quarters.
First-week plan
- 1Run one detection tool (or the assessment) to identify the highest-cost waste category.
- 2Validate ownership and usage for the top 5 findings before deleting or downsizing anything.
- 3Implement one prevention control (budget alert, schedule, or policy) to reduce repeat waste.
- 4Capture before/after savings and share one concrete win with the team.
Recommended tools
Cloud Cost Chefs Azure Forgotten Resource Detective
The PowerShell script that finds zombie Azure resources before your CFO asks “What’s this $12k line item?”
Multi-Cloud Stopped VM Detective - Detect Idle Resources Across AWS, Azure, GCP & OCI
Comprehensive PowerShell and Python scripts to detect stopped VMs across all major cloud providers. Identify zombie storage costs and optimize cloud spending with automated reporting.
Cloud Cost Chefs Recipe: Batch Budget Bake
This PowerShell recipe lets you automate budget alerts at either subscription or resource group levels using a simple CSV — no enterprise fluff, no heavy tools, just native Azure CLI ingredients.
Success signals
- You can name the top 3 waste categories by spend
- You have at least one cleanup action completed this week
- Savings are documented and repeatable
Need a different starting point?
Visibility & Reporting
Build the baseline reporting and ownership signals you need before deeper optimization work.
Tagging & Governance
Standardize tags, ownership, and enforcement so optimization work scales without constant cleanup.
Learn FinOps
Use this path if you are new to FinOps and need a simple sequence before touching production workloads.
Prefer a guided answer instead?
If you are unsure which path fits best, the free FinOps assessment gives you a prioritized recommendation.
Start Free Assessment