The AWS State of Cost Efficiency Report

This article presents AWS's State of Cost Efficiency Report, analyzing optimization patterns across 71,000+ AWS customers to identify best practices for cloud cost management.

• Median Cost Efficiency score is 83; enabling EC2 memory metrics yields 8-30% higher savings per recommendation
• Only 17.7% of eligible customers enable memory metrics despite significant impact on optimization
• Customers customizing Compute Optimizer recommendations score 3-4 points higher than non-customizers
• High Savings Plans coverage (95-100%) masks 65-80% of non-Savings Plan optimization opportunities
• Larger customers combining rightsizing with Savings Plans improve Cost Efficiency 4x faster than Savings Plans alone
• Top performers: enable memory metrics, customize recommendations, rightsize before committing, treat optimization as ongoing
• Recommended action sequence: clean idle resources, rightsize instances, purchase Savings Plans, track progress daily

The report demonstrates that top-performing customers combine multiple optimization strategies beyond Savings Plans, with rightsizing and memory metrics enabling compounding savings over time.