The FinOps survey reveals key trends and challenges in optimizing cloud usage and managing costs, with a particular focus on preventing inefficiencies and waste.
Cloud Cost & Usage Optimization Survey Fall 2024
Overview & Background
Stacklet conducted a survey of 315 cloud professionals across the United States, targeting those responsible for cloud infrastructure management and FinOps. The survey reveals key trends and challenges in optimizing cloud usage and managing costs, with a particular focus on preventing inefficiencies and waste. Many organizations are experiencing significant cloud spend due to avoidable issues such as outdated instance types, costly experiments with AI, incorrect resource sizing, and retention mismanagement. Limited visibility, manual processes, and a lack of preventive guardrails are major contributing factors, especially for enterprises with larger cloud footprints. This survey was conducted in partnership with Centiment, a research platform specializing in targeted audience surveys for businesses and academics.
Yearly Cloud Spend of Respondents (USD)
24% 5 Million to 10 Million
20% 1 Million to 5 Million
2% I don’t know
23% 10 Million to 25 Million
13% More than 50 Million
17% 25 Million to 50 Million
Q3 2024
AI is fueling cloud growth and complexity
Q3 2024
AI
AI
AI
AI
AI
AI
AI
AI
AI
AI
AI
AI
AI
82% 45%
Strongly agree or agree AI is fuelling increased cloud complexity and spending
Strongly agree they are not optimizing AI- related cloud usage sufficiently, as they race to leverage AI
AI
AI
AI
AI
AI
AI
AI
AI
AI
AI
AI
AI
AI
Q3 2024
Organizations Report Significant Optimization Opportunities
Q3 2024
What percentage of your cloud spend do you estimate is waste that could be optimized?
30
78%
25
20
15
51%
10
5
5%
6%
17%
23%
27%
15%
8%
0
More than 61% 51% to 60% 41% to 50% 31% to 40% 21% to 30% 11% to 20% Less than 10%
Q3 2024
Cloud Waste Significant: Over 40% Spend Wasted, Higher Among Large Organizations
The data highlights a significant opportunity for optimization, with over half of respondents estimating that 40% or more of their cloud spend is waste. This underscores the potential savings from remediating existing waste and emphasizes the importance of implementing preventive measures for efficient resource management. Interestingly, organizations with larger cloud spend (more than $25 million annually) report slightly higher cloud waste: 59% have over 30% waste compared to 51% for those spending less than $25 million. This may be attributed to the adoption of a broader range of services across a larger number of development groups, leading to increased complexity and inefficiencies.
Q3 2024
Top Challenges In Cloud Usage Optimization
Q3 2024
What challenges have you encountered when trying to optimize cloud usage?
å Manual processes, lack of controls on usage, fragmented visibility, and implementing cost-aware best practices are the top challenges reported by respondentsÛ å For organizations with larger cloud footprints (spending $25 million+), a lack of timely actions by engineering teams ranks as a significant challenge (#2), highlighting the difficulties of managing cloud usage optimization at scaleÛ å Implementation of cloud cost best practices is the top challenge for organizations spending over $10 million annually on cloud services, indicating a critical need for better guidance and guardrails at higher spending levels.
Manual processes and inefficiencies
52%
51%
Controlling cloud usage
Implementation of cloud cost best practices
47%
Fragmented visibility into cloud resources
45%
Lack of timely actions by engineering
40%
Misaligned organizational goals
34%
Difficulty coordinating with engineering teams
28%
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
Response %
Q3 2024
Top Avoidable Costly Mistakes
Q3 2024
Costly mistakes
Costly mistakes
Costly mistakes
Costly mistakes
Costly mistakes
Costly
50% Longer than required log or data retention periods 48% Costly experiments with new services such as AI 47% Using older instance types
49% Incorrect resource sizing or type for the use case 48% Misconfigured networking settings 47% Development systems running during off-hours
37% Lack of storage lifecycle rules
stakes
Costly mistakes
Costly mistakes
Costly mistakes
Costly mistakes
Costly mistakes
Q3 2024
Top Avoidable Costly Mistakes Identified by Respondent
Cloud inefficiencies are driven by multiple culprits, with retention mismanagement, incorrect sizing, and configuration issues consistently topping the list. Preventable mistakes—such as running development systems during off-hours and costly experiments with AI—add up to significant waste, underscoring the urgent need for better governance and automation. Notably, using older instance types (59%) and conducting costly AI experiments (56%) were ranked higher by organizations with larger cloud spend (over $25 million), highlighting the added complexity and inefficiencies faced by these enterprises.
Q3 2024
Impact and Frequency of Costly Misconfigurations
Q3 2024
Frequency and Impact of Costly Misconfigurations
On average how much do these mistakes cost organizations such as yours per month?
How often do these costly mistakes occur in your organization?
40
13% rarely
15% weekly
30
20
38% Multiple times during the year
34% monthly
10
62% of respondents report that these preventable challenges are costing them over $25,000 each month, while 30% indicate costs exceeding $50,000 monthly. Additionally, nearly half face these issues at least monthly, emphasizing the ongoing nature of these costly inefficiencies.
15%
15%
32%
22%
12%
4%
0
More than $75,000 USD
$50,000 to 75,000 USD
$25,000 to $50,000 USD
$10,000 to $25,000 USD
$5,000 to $10,000 USD
Less than $5,000 USD
Q3 2024
Key Reasons for Costly Mistakes in the Cloud
Q3 2024
Why do these mistakes typically happen within your organization?
55% Lack of awareness of cloud cost best practices
59% Limited visibility and insights into cloud resources and costs
52% Lack of comprehensive preventive cost controls or guardrails in the cloud
50% Inadequate training or knowledge of cloud services
The key reasons behind costly mistakes in the cloud are primarily rooted in a lack of visibility, inadequate preventive controls, and insufficient awareness of cost best practices. A lack of awareness and training on cloud cost best practices, combined with insufficient guardrails and comprehensive controls, leaves organizations vulnerable to costly inefficiencies.
Q3 2024
Rapidly Eliminate Cloud Waste. Prevent Recurrence.
Learn more
https://stacklet.io/finops/
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