Measuring Cloud Cost Efficiency with the New Cost efficiency metric by AWS

This article introduces Cost efficiency, a new metric in AWS Cost Optimization Hub that measures cloud spend efficiency automatically and comprehensively.

• Combines resource optimization, idle cleanup, and commitment savings into single standardized metric
• Calculated automatically using formula: [1 - (Potential Savings / Total Optimizable Spend)] × 100%
• Based on rolling 30-day spend and current savings opportunities across EC2, RDS, and other services
• Provides 90 days of historical data with daily, monthly, and custom time period views
• Supports analysis by AWS accounts and regions via console, CLI, and SDKs
• Enables fair team comparisons, benchmarking, and ROI demonstration to leadership
• Refreshes daily to show immediate impact of optimization actions
• Integrates with existing FinOps dashboards and tools like Tableau and QuickSight

Cost efficiency solves organizational challenges around buy-in, alignment, and measurement complexity by providing a unified, AWS-backed metric that simplifies cloud cost optimization tracking and demonstrates business value.