# Best Cloud Cost Management Tools *By [Rachana Hasyagar](https://research.g2.com/insights/author/rachana-hasyagar)* Cloud cost management software helps companies control cloud infrastructure spending by monitoring resource usage and computing demands, alerting users to underutilized capacity, automatically scaling usage to optimal rates, and providing reporting features to identify waste and redundancies across cloud environments. ### Core Capabilities of Cloud Cost Management Software To qualify for inclusion in the Cloud Cost Management category, a product must: - Monitor cloud infrastructure usage - Track spending as it relates to resource usage - Identify areas to save by reducing resource usage ### Common Use Cases for Cloud Cost Management Software IT, finance, and DevOps teams use cloud cost management tools to maximize the efficiency of cloud infrastructure investments. Common use cases include: - Monitoring real-time cloud resource consumption to detect overspending or underutilized capacity - Automatically scaling cloud usage to match demand and eliminate unnecessary spend - Generating cost allocation and waste reports to identify optimization opportunities across teams and workloads ### How Cloud Cost Management Software Differs from Other Tools Cloud cost management tools are typically paired with [infrastructure as a service (IaaS)](https://www.g2.com/categories/infrastructure-as-a-service-iaas) offerings to minimize the costs of pay-as-you-go cloud models. They differ from [SaaS spend management software](https://www.g2.com/categories/saas-spend-management), which monitors and manages spending on cloud-based SaaS applications rather than the underlying cloud infrastructure and compute resources. ### Insights from G2 on Cloud Cost Management Software Based on category trends on G2, real-time usage monitoring and automated rightsizing recommendations stand out as the most valued capabilities. These platforms deliver measurable reductions in cloud spend and improved budget visibility as primary outcomes of adoption. ## Category Overview **Total Products under this Category:** 222 ## Trust & Credibility Stats **Why You Can Trust G2's Software Rankings:** - 30 Analysts and Data Experts - 5,700+ Authentic Reviews - 222+ Products - Unbiased Rankings G2's software rankings are built on verified user reviews, rigorous moderation, and a consistent research methodology maintained by a team of analysts and data experts. Each product is measured using the same transparent criteria, with no paid placement or vendor influence. While reviews reflect real user experiences, which can be subjective, they offer valuable insight into how software performs in the hands of professionals. Together, these inputs power the G2 Score, a standardized way to compare tools within every category. ## Best Cloud Cost Management Tools At A Glance - **Leader:** [Cast AI](https://www.g2.com/products/cast-ai/reviews) - **Highest Performer:** [PointFive](https://www.g2.com/products/pointfive-2024-08-28/reviews) - **Easiest to Use:** [Cloudshot](https://www.g2.com/products/cloudshot/reviews) - **Top Trending:** [ScaleOps](https://www.g2.com/products/scaleops-cloud-native-optimization-scaleops/reviews) - **Best Free Software:** [Datadog](https://www.g2.com/products/datadog/reviews) --- **Sponsored** ### Asato Asato is an IT asset optimization platform designed to assist Chief Information Officers (CIOs) and IT leaders in managing and enhancing their IT asset portfolios. This solution focuses on optimizing the entire IT asset estate through continuous discovery and AI-driven execution, aiming to eliminate waste, capture value, and maximize the return on investment (ROI) of IT expenditures across various domains, including Software as a Service (SaaS), hardware, and cloud infrastructure. The platform serves a diverse audience, particularly organizations looking to streamline their IT operations and improve asset management. Asato is particularly beneficial for enterprises that operate in complex environments with multiple IT systems and assets. By unifying data from disparate sources into a connected knowledge layer, Asato provides actionable insights that facilitate risk and compliance analysis, cost optimization, and proactive decision-making support for IT operations. This holistic approach enables organizations to align their technology strategies with overarching business objectives. One of the standout features of Asato is its ability to deliver unified visibility and management of IT assets across various platforms, including SaaS, hardware, and cloud services. This comprehensive visibility allows organizations to monitor and manage their assets effectively, ensuring that resources are utilized efficiently and that potential issues are identified before they escalate. Additionally, the platform leverages AI to provide powerful insights that drive cost optimization and enhance operational efficiency, making it easier for IT leaders to make informed decisions. Asato also emphasizes risk and compliance monitoring, which is crucial in today's digital landscape. By continuously assessing digital assets for compliance with regulatory requirements and organizational policies, the platform helps mitigate risks associated with IT asset management. Furthermore, real-time analytics and decision support capabilities empower IT leaders to adapt their strategies dynamically, ensuring that they remain responsive to changing business needs and technological advancements. Overall, Asato stands out in the IT asset optimization category by combining advanced AI technologies with a comprehensive approach to asset management. Its focus on delivering actionable insights, risk mitigation, and operational efficiency positions it as a valuable tool for organizations aiming to enhance their IT asset management practices and drive better business outcomes. [Visit website](https://www.g2.com/external_clickthroughs/record?secure%5Bad_program%5D=ppc&secure%5Bad_slot%5D=category_product_list&secure%5Bcategory_id%5D=1388&secure%5Bdisplayable_resource_id%5D=1388&secure%5Bdisplayable_resource_type%5D=Category&secure%5Bmedium%5D=sponsored&secure%5Bplacement_reason%5D=page_category&secure%5Bplacement_resource_ids%5D%5B%5D=1388&secure%5Bprioritized%5D=false&secure%5Bproduct_id%5D=1717718&secure%5Bresource_id%5D=1388&secure%5Bresource_type%5D=Category&secure%5Bsource_type%5D=category_page&secure%5Bsource_url%5D=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.g2.com%2Fcategories%2Fcloud-cost-management%3Fpage%3D8&secure%5Btoken%5D=f90a7b9053791d8b228690ee37711d471f07c7a728fe70069fa6be2e3d4c1bf6&secure%5Burl%5D=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.asato.ai&secure%5Burl_type%5D=book_demo&secure%5Bvisitor_segment%5D=180) --- ## Top-Rated Products (Ranked by G2 Score) ### 1. [Cast AI](https://www.g2.com/products/cast-ai/reviews) Cast AI is an automation platform for operating cloud-native and AI infrastructure at scale. It keeps applications fast and stable by continuously optimizing production systems and eliminating manual operations as environments scale. **Average Rating:** 4.6/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 188 **User Satisfaction Scores:** - **Has the product been a good partner in doing business?:** 9.4/10 (Category avg: 9.3/10) - **Automation:** 9.4/10 (Category avg: 8.5/10) - **Reporting:** 8.2/10 (Category avg: 8.8/10) - **Usage Monitoring:** 9.3/10 (Category avg: 8.9/10) **Seller Details:** - **Seller:** [Cast AI](https://www.g2.com/sellers/cast-ai) - **Company Website:** https://cast.ai - **Year Founded:** 2019 - **HQ Location:** Miami, FL - **Twitter:** @cast_ai (1,807 Twitter followers) - **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/cast-ai (331 employees on LinkedIn®) **Reviewer Demographics:** - **Who Uses This:** DevOps Engineer, Senior DevOps Engineer - **Top Industries:** Financial Services, Information Technology and Services - **Company Size:** 40% Mid-Market, 24% Enterprise #### Pros & Cons **Pros:** - Cost Saving (43 reviews) - Ease of Use (43 reviews) - Cost Management (42 reviews) - Recommendations (39 reviews) - Cost Reduction (38 reviews) **Cons:** - Expensive (12 reviews) - Scaling Issues (12 reviews) - Pricing Issues (10 reviews) - UX Improvement (10 reviews) - Learning Difficulty (9 reviews) ### 2. [CloudKeeper](https://www.g2.com/products/cloudkeeper/reviews) CloudKeeper is a comprehensive cloud cost optimization partner that combines the power of group buying & commitments management, expert cloud consulting & support, and an enhanced visibility & usage optimization platform to reduce your cloud cost & help you maximize the value from AWS & Google Cloud. A certified AWS Premier Partner and Google Cloud Partner, CloudKeeper has helped 400+ global companies save an average of 20% on their cloud bills, modernize their cloud set-up and maximize value — all while maintaining flexibility and avoiding any long-term commitments or cost. CloudKeeper’s offerings are tailored to meet the unique needs of different customer segments, and bring highly skilled and experienced cloud professionals to help the customers at every stage of the growth journey. CloudKeeper AZ: - Guaranteed reduction on the entire bill with access to volume-based pricing and hassle-free management of RIs & Savings Plans, without any commitments. CloudKeeper Commit: Zero-touch, AI-based automated system for Reserved Instances (RI) and Savings Plans management offering RI & Savings Plans pricing for on-demand instances and a buy-back guarantee of unused RIs & SPs. CloudKeeper PPA+: Maximizes your AWS EDP benefits with additional discounts, lower annual commit, and discounted prices on AWS Support. CloudKeeper Lens: A cloud cost visibility & analytics platform that provides insights to track, analyze, and optimize your cloud usage. CloudKeeper Tuner: An Automated AWS Usage Optimization & Recommendation Platform that optimizes the performance of your workloads on 50+ AWS services thereby reducing the cost of your infrastructure without compromising on performance. We offer end-to-end cloud services & support, covering everything from consulting, advisory, and implementation to ongoing management and continuous improvement, all at no extra cost! Book a demo:https://www.cloudkeeper.com/contact-us Explore more: https://www.cloudkeeper.com/ **Average Rating:** 4.7/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 270 **User Satisfaction Scores:** - **Has the product been a good partner in doing business?:** 9.4/10 (Category avg: 9.3/10) - **Automation:** 8.5/10 (Category avg: 8.5/10) - **Reporting:** 8.9/10 (Category avg: 8.8/10) - **Usage Monitoring:** 9.0/10 (Category avg: 8.9/10) **Seller Details:** - **Seller:** [CloudKeeper](https://www.g2.com/sellers/cloudkeeper) - **Company Website:** https://cloudkeeper.com - **Year Founded:** 2019 - **HQ Location:** Singapore, Singapore - **Twitter:** @cloud_keeper (122 Twitter followers) - **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/cloudkeeper/ (354 employees on LinkedIn®) **Reviewer Demographics:** - **Who Uses This:** DevOps Engineer, CTO - **Top Industries:** Computer Software, Information Technology and Services - **Company Size:** 65% Mid-Market, 24% Small-Business #### Pros & Cons **Pros:** - Customer Support (62 reviews) - Helpful (40 reviews) - Recommendations (36 reviews) - Cost Saving (30 reviews) - Cost Management (28 reviews) **Cons:** - AWS Limitations (7 reviews) - Dashboard Issues (7 reviews) - Missing Features (7 reviews) - Poor Customer Support (6 reviews) - Access Control (4 reviews) ### 3. [ScaleOps](https://www.g2.com/products/scaleops-cloud-native-optimization-scaleops/reviews) ScaleOps is a cloud resource management platform designed to automate resource optimization in real-time based on application context-awareness. This innovative solution continuously monitors live application behavior and dynamically adjusts Kubernetes workload resources according to actual usage and contextual demands. By leveraging ScaleOps, organizations can achieve significant cost reductions, of up to 80%, while ensuring that availability, performance, and compliance with production constraints are maintained. The primary target audience for ScaleOps includes DevOps teams, cloud architects, and IT administrators who manage Kubernetes environments. These professionals often face challenges related to resource allocation, cost management, and application performance. ScaleOps addresses these issues by providing a solution that operates autonomously, eliminating the need for manual intervention or code modifications. This allows teams to focus on higher-level strategic initiatives rather than getting bogged down in the minutiae of resource management. Key features of ScaleOps include automated pod-level resource management, which encompasses CPU, memory, replicas, and scheduling. This capability allows the platform to adapt in real-time to the changing behavior of workloads, ensuring optimal resource utilization. Additionally, ScaleOps employs application context-aware optimization, taking into account factors such as burstiness, Pod Disruption Budgets (PDBs), statefulness, and the presence of noisy neighbors. This level of sophistication enables organizations to maintain performance and availability even in complex environments. ScaleOps also offers flexible deployment options, making it suitable for various infrastructures, including air-gapped, on-premises, hybrid, and cloud-native environments. Its compatibility with existing Kubernetes scaling tools, such as Horizontal Pod Autoscaler (HPA), KEDA, and Karpenter, allows for a gradual rollout without disrupting current systems. Furthermore, the platform provides granular policy control, enabling teams to define performance, cost, or availability priorities at the namespace, workload, or environment level. This feature empowers organizations to tailor their resource management strategies to meet specific operational goals and constraints. By integrating seamlessly into existing workflows and providing continuous, context-aware resource optimization, ScaleOps stands out as a comprehensive solution for organizations looking to enhance their Kubernetes resource management. Its unique approach not only drives cost efficiency but also ensures that applications run smoothly and reliably, regardless of the underlying infrastructure. **Average Rating:** 4.6/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 93 **User Satisfaction Scores:** - **Has the product been a good partner in doing business?:** 9.4/10 (Category avg: 9.3/10) - **Automation:** 9.2/10 (Category avg: 8.5/10) - **Reporting:** 8.2/10 (Category avg: 8.8/10) - **Usage Monitoring:** 8.7/10 (Category avg: 8.9/10) **Seller Details:** - **Seller:** [ScaleOps - Cloud-Native Optimization](https://www.g2.com/sellers/scaleops-cloud-native-optimization) - **Company Website:** https://scaleops.com - **Year Founded:** 2022 - **HQ Location:** New York, US - **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/scaleops-sh (118 employees on LinkedIn®) **Reviewer Demographics:** - **Who Uses This:** DevOps Engineer - **Top Industries:** Computer Software, Financial Services - **Company Size:** 54% Mid-Market, 35% Enterprise #### Pros & Cons **Pros:** - Customer Support (46 reviews) - Ease of Use (41 reviews) - Cost Saving (29 reviews) - Cost Reduction (27 reviews) - Easy Setup (24 reviews) **Cons:** - Scaling Issues (10 reviews) - Slow Performance (9 reviews) - Difficulty in Usage (8 reviews) - Missing Features (8 reviews) - Poor Documentation (8 reviews) ### 4. [Amazon CloudWatch](https://www.g2.com/products/amazon-cloudwatch/reviews) Amazon CloudWatch is a comprehensive monitoring and observability service designed to provide real-time insights into AWS resources, on-premises servers, hybrid environments, and applications. It enables users to collect and track metrics, monitor log files, set alarms, and automatically react to changes in their AWS resources. By offering a unified view of operational health, CloudWatch helps organizations optimize application performance, manage resource utilization, and maintain system reliability. Key Features and Functionality: - Metrics Collection and Monitoring: Automatically collects and tracks metrics from over 70 AWS services, including Amazon EC2, Amazon S3, and AWS Lambda, providing up-to-the-minute data on resource performance. - Log Management: Aggregates and stores logs from various sources, such as AWS services and on-premises servers, facilitating real-time monitoring and analysis. - Alarms and Automated Actions: Allows users to set alarms based on predefined thresholds, triggering automated actions like scaling resources or sending notifications when specific conditions are met. - Dashboards and Visualization: Offers customizable dashboards that display metrics and logs, enabling users to visualize data and gain insights into system performance. - Application Performance Monitoring (APM): Provides tools like Application Signals and CloudWatch Synthetics to monitor application health, detect anomalies, and simulate user interactions for proactive issue detection. - Container and Serverless Monitoring: Includes features like Container Insights and Lambda Insights to monitor containerized applications and serverless functions, offering detailed performance metrics and diagnostics. Primary Value and Problem Solving: Amazon CloudWatch addresses the critical need for comprehensive monitoring and observability in modern IT environments. By consolidating metrics, logs, and events into a single platform, it eliminates the complexity of managing multiple monitoring tools. This integration enables faster detection and resolution of operational issues, reducing downtime and improving system reliability. CloudWatch's automated actions and alarms allow for proactive management of resources, ensuring optimal performance and cost efficiency. Additionally, its support for various environments, including on-premises and hybrid setups, makes it a versatile solution for diverse infrastructure monitoring needs. **Average Rating:** 4.3/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 355 **User Satisfaction Scores:** - **Has the product been a good partner in doing business?:** 8.7/10 (Category avg: 9.3/10) - **Automation:** 8.7/10 (Category avg: 8.5/10) - **Reporting:** 8.4/10 (Category avg: 8.8/10) - **Usage Monitoring:** 8.7/10 (Category avg: 8.9/10) **Seller Details:** - **Seller:** [Amazon Web Services (AWS)](https://www.g2.com/sellers/amazon-web-services-aws-3e93cc28-2e9b-4961-b258-c6ce0feec7dd) - **Year Founded:** 2006 - **HQ Location:** Seattle, WA - **Twitter:** @awscloud (2,225,864 Twitter followers) - **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/amazon-web-services/ (156,424 employees on LinkedIn®) - **Ownership:** NASDAQ: AMZN **Reviewer Demographics:** - **Who Uses This:** Software Engineer, Senior Software Engineer - **Top Industries:** Information Technology and Services, Computer Software - **Company Size:** 41% Enterprise, 31% Mid-Market #### Pros & Cons **Pros:** - Log Management (14 reviews) - Integrations (6 reviews) - Alerting System (5 reviews) - Alerting Systems (5 reviews) - Data Centralization (5 reviews) **Cons:** - Pricing Issues (4 reviews) - Cost Management (3 reviews) - Expensive (3 reviews) - Complexity (2 reviews) - Configuration Difficulty (2 reviews) ### 5. [IBM Cloudability](https://www.g2.com/products/ibm-cloudability/reviews) IBM Cloudability is built to support the organizational adoption of FinOps—the cultural practice and operational process of bringing financial accountability to the scalable, variable, and distributed nature of cloud and related costs. Its enterprise-grade FinOps features enable IT, finance, and business teams to optimize cloud, AI and Kubernetes costs and communicate the business value of these investments. Cloudability normalizes and structures billing and usage data from across public cloud ecosystems. Its robust set of capabilities enable teams to: • Fully allocate cloud spend, including containers and AI related costs, and support charges—enabling chargeback across the business and continuous improvements to cloud unit economics • Estimate workload costs, build budgets and create driver-based forecasts that surface variance details while tracking spend to plan • Automatically optimize cloud costs via industry-leading rightsizing and commitment recommendations, allowing you to reduce operating expenses and fund future innovation investments • Make decisions with speed and confidence, powered by team ownership of cloud spend • Allocate shared costs, like specialized technology, labor and vendors, to extend FinOps and accountability to the total cost of running cloud • Support FinOps organizations in Federal agencies via FedRAMP authorized IBM Cloudability for US Federal • Enable Managed Services Providers to ingest, structure, and customize billing data via IBM Cloudability MSP Cloudability enables practitioners with the capabilities they need to drive FinOps forward— with financial accountability, optimized cloud spend and a roadmap for FinOps maturity. With over 10 years of accumulated expertise and innovation, Cloudability is the category pioneer and market leader dedicated to helping you excel at FinOps. **Average Rating:** 4.2/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 202 **User Satisfaction Scores:** - **Has the product been a good partner in doing business?:** 7.8/10 (Category avg: 9.3/10) - **Automation:** 7.2/10 (Category avg: 8.5/10) - **Reporting:** 8.5/10 (Category avg: 8.8/10) - **Usage Monitoring:** 8.2/10 (Category avg: 8.9/10) **Seller Details:** - **Seller:** [Apptio, an IBM Company](https://www.g2.com/sellers/apptio-an-ibm-company) - **Company Website:** https://www.apptio.com/ - **Year Founded:** 1996 - **HQ Location:** Bellevue, WA - **Twitter:** @Apptio (9,678 Twitter followers) - **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/apptio/ (1,330 employees on LinkedIn®) **Reviewer Demographics:** - **Top Industries:** Information Technology and Services, Financial Services - **Company Size:** 62% Enterprise, 20% Mid-Market #### Pros & Cons **Pros:** - Ease of Use (44 reviews) - Cost Management (37 reviews) - Insights (33 reviews) - Reporting (33 reviews) - Cost Tracking (30 reviews) **Cons:** - Missing Features (20 reviews) - Cost Management (15 reviews) - Complexity (14 reviews) - Inadequate Reporting (12 reviews) - Integration Issues (12 reviews) ### 6. [Vantage](https://www.g2.com/products/vntg-inc-vantage/reviews) Vantage is a cloud cost management platform designed to help organizations understand, allocate, and optimize their cloud, SaaS, and AI spend. It provides a comprehensive view of costs through a broad set of native billing integrations, including major providers such as Amazon Web Services, OpenAI, Datadog, and Kubernetes environments. This solution is particularly valuable for businesses that operate at scale and require accurate, unified visibility across multiple cost sources. Tailored to FinOps, engineering, and finance teams, Vantage serves a diverse audience across industries. Organizations such as Block, Inc., PBS, and Rippling use Vantage to manage and optimize large-scale infrastructure spend. The platform is built for teams that need to move beyond high-level reporting and instead require actionable, granular insights into cost drivers and ownership. A core strength of Vantage is its ability to unify and normalize cost data across cloud, SaaS, and AI providers, enabling consistent allocation and reporting. Teams can break down shared costs using tags, metadata, and custom allocation rules, ensuring accurate attribution across services, teams, and environments. This allows organizations to understand true unit economics and identify inefficiencies that would otherwise be difficult to detect across fragmented billing systems. In addition to visibility, Vantage emphasizes automation and actionability. The platform includes AI-driven capabilities such as automated agents and MCP-based integrations, along with programmatic access via APIs and a Terraform provider. These features enable teams to operationalize FinOps workflows, automating cost analysis, enforcing allocation standards, and integrating cost controls directly into engineering and financial systems. Vantage differentiates itself by combining broad native integrations with deep allocation capabilities and built-in automation. Rather than relying on reactive reporting, organizations can continuously monitor, analyze, and act on cost data in near real time. This approach helps teams improve accountability, optimize resource usage, and make faster, data-driven decisions about their cloud, SaaS, and AI investments. **Average Rating:** 4.7/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 70 **User Satisfaction Scores:** - **Has the product been a good partner in doing business?:** 9.2/10 (Category avg: 9.3/10) - **Automation:** 8.3/10 (Category avg: 8.5/10) - **Reporting:** 8.7/10 (Category avg: 8.8/10) - **Usage Monitoring:** 8.8/10 (Category avg: 8.9/10) **Seller Details:** - **Seller:** [VNTG, Inc.](https://www.g2.com/sellers/vntg-inc) - **Company Website:** https://vantage.sh/ - **Year Founded:** 2020 - **HQ Location:** New York City, US - **Twitter:** @joinvantage (1,376 Twitter followers) - **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/69864141 (99 employees on LinkedIn®) **Reviewer Demographics:** - **Top Industries:** Computer Software, Information Technology and Services - **Company Size:** 41% Small-Business, 30% Enterprise #### Pros & Cons **Pros:** - Ease of Use (23 reviews) - Cost Management (21 reviews) - Cost Reduction (15 reviews) - Easy Setup (14 reviews) - Data Centralization (12 reviews) **Cons:** - Limited Customization (7 reviews) - Missing Features (7 reviews) - Inadequate Reporting (6 reviews) - Steep Learning Curve (6 reviews) - Integration Issues (5 reviews) ### 7. [Flexera One](https://www.g2.com/products/flexera-one/reviews) Flexera One is a SaaS-based IT management solution designed with and for organizations like yours with highly complex hybrid environments. With Flexera One, you can visualize your entire estate and make data-driven decisions from on-premise to SaaS to the cloud. IT Visibility Flexera One’s IT Visibility solution delivers the most comprehensive and clear view of your IT estate. Discovery and normalization—gain consistent, reliable data and take control of assets to draw valuable insights across software, hardware, SaaS and cloud. Data enrichment—enhance your IT inventory data with market intelligence that improves your decision-making abilities, via Technopedia—the largest and most trusted IT asset information source in the world. Unified data visualization—simplify the view of your environment with clear understanding and analytic that provide context for business initiatives spanning your entire IT estate. IT Asset Management Flexera One’s IT asset management (ITAM) starts with knowing what you have in your IT ecosystem—across hardware, software, SaaS, cloud, containers, clusters and virtual technologies. Optimized for today’s digital business, find the evidence required to determine license consumption, such as IBM sub-capacity requirements. Software asset management— Flexera One is the only SAM solution to solve the exponentiality of licensing with depth, breadth, algorithms and automation required to truly create a trusted and accurate license position. Hardware asset management— manage the hardware you own or lease, no matter where it is. Make critical hardware lifecycle decisions to support user productivity, business continuity and make the most of your hardware investments. SaaS management— get a current and complete picture of SaaS usage to support your business stakeholders while optimizing SaaS spend with all your vendors. Take action by discovering shadow SaaS, removing redundant applications and optimizing subscriptions based on actual usage automatically. Software request and reharvest— proactively reduce the sprawl and provide end users with a catalog of approved software, SaaS and cloud instances–helping you get them within guard rails while enabling the business to be agile and innovative. Reclaim unused technology to avoid future costs. Integrate with ITSM providers so you can meet users where they are and provide a seamless end-user experience. Cloud Cost Optimization Flexera One offers a unique approach to cloud cost optimization that enables cloud governance teams to work collaboratively with business units and cloud resource owners to optimize spend. With Flexera One, you get a comprehensive set of cloud cost optimization capabilities designed to easily reduce costs across your entire cloud environment. Cloud Cost Management— Get visibility into cloud usage and costs for all your cloud accounts. You can evaluate and report on your most cost-effective regions and instance sizes, and dive deep into public and private cloud costs by application, category, business unit, cost center, department or team. You also can allocate costs for chargeback and showback with complete backup and justification. Cloud Governance— Flexera One offers a powerful policies engine that enables your cloud governance teams to manage and control hybrid cloud use with out-of-the-box and custom policies to automate governance of costs, operations, security and compliance. Cloud Migration and Modernization Successful IT modernization requires proper analysis, prioritization and planning. Flexera One’s Cloud Migration and Modernization provides the actionable intelligence you need to optimize your cloud modernization and migration—no matter where you are on your cloud journey. Cloud Migration Planning— Flexera one gives you the actionable intelligence needed to optimize your on-premises to cloud migration journey from start to finish with full context visibility into business services. Cloud Cost Assessment — Flexera One provides comprehensive workload assessments to show you which cloud type, provider, custom instance choice, buying type and resource provisioning are best for your workload, budget and performance requirements—all to optimize your cloud cost savings. Workload Placement — Cloud migration and modernization provides comprehensive workload assessments for full visibility into your current workloads, so you can prioritize and identify which providers are best for your performance requirements to ensure successful migration of workloads to the cloud. **Average Rating:** 4.3/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 118 **User Satisfaction Scores:** - **Has the product been a good partner in doing business?:** 8.4/10 (Category avg: 9.3/10) - **Automation:** 8.3/10 (Category avg: 8.5/10) - **Reporting:** 8.0/10 (Category avg: 8.8/10) - **Usage Monitoring:** 8.0/10 (Category avg: 8.9/10) **Seller Details:** - **Seller:** [Flexera](https://www.g2.com/sellers/flexera) - **Year Founded:** 2008 - **HQ Location:** Itasca, IL - **Twitter:** @flexera (4,738 Twitter followers) - **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/574962/ (2,045 employees on LinkedIn®) **Reviewer Demographics:** - **Who Uses This:** Analyst, Software Engineer - **Top Industries:** Information Technology and Services, Computer Software - **Company Size:** 73% Enterprise, 16% Mid-Market #### Pros & Cons **Pros:** - Ease of Use (54 reviews) - Features (47 reviews) - Integrations (37 reviews) - Product Quality (36 reviews) - Visibility (35 reviews) **Cons:** - Complexity (37 reviews) - Difficult Learning (35 reviews) - Learning Curve (31 reviews) - Complex Setup (26 reviews) - Difficult Setup (23 reviews) ### 8. [IBM Turbonomic](https://www.g2.com/products/ibm-turbonomic/reviews) IBM Turbonomic is a real-time application resource management platform designed to help users optimize and manage resources across hybrid and multi-cloud environments. This innovative solution continuously analyzes application performance and resource utilization, automating critical resourcing decisions to ensure optimal application performance while minimizing costs associated with cloud and infrastructure resources. IBM Turbonomic addresses the challenges of managing complex, dynamic environments. As organizations increasingly adopt hybrid and multi-cloud strategies, the need for effective resource management becomes paramount. Turbonomic provides a comprehensive approach to performance management by analyzing the entire technology stack, identifying inefficiencies, and uncovering dependencies that can impact application performance. This proactive management capability allows organizations to maintain high service levels while controlling costs. One of the key features of IBM Turbonomic is its ability to continuously adjust application resources in real time. By monitoring resource utilization and application performance, Turbonomic prevents performance degradation and overprovisioning. This dynamic adjustment ensures that applications receive the necessary resources when needed, which is crucial for maintaining optimal performance levels. Additionally, the platform automates resource decisions such as scaling and placement, allowing organizations to focus on strategic initiatives rather than manual resource management tasks. Turbonomic customers report an average 33% reduction in cloud and infrastructure waste without impacting application performance, and return-on-investment of 471% over three years. IBM Turbonomic is also available on AWS Marketplace. By leveraging Turbonomic, businesses can ensure that their applications run smoothly, resources are utilized effectively, and costs are kept in check, all while maintaining a focus on innovation and growth. For further information, please visit www.ibm.com/products/turbonomic **Average Rating:** 4.4/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 287 **User Satisfaction Scores:** - **Has the product been a good partner in doing business?:** 8.9/10 (Category avg: 9.3/10) - **Automation:** 8.7/10 (Category avg: 8.5/10) - **Reporting:** 8.1/10 (Category avg: 8.8/10) - **Usage Monitoring:** 8.6/10 (Category avg: 8.9/10) **Seller Details:** - **Seller:** [IBM](https://www.g2.com/sellers/ibm) - **Company Website:** https://www.ibm.com/us-en - **Year Founded:** 1911 - **HQ Location:** Armonk, NY - **Twitter:** @IBM (709,390 Twitter followers) - **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/1009/ (324,553 employees on LinkedIn®) **Reviewer Demographics:** - **Who Uses This:** Software Engineer, System Engineer - **Top Industries:** Information Technology and Services, Computer Software - **Company Size:** 42% Enterprise, 32% Mid-Market #### Pros & Cons **Pros:** - Cost Optimization (41 reviews) - Ease of Use (39 reviews) - Automation (38 reviews) - Performance (31 reviews) - Real-time Monitoring (29 reviews) **Cons:** - Complexity (32 reviews) - Learning Curve (30 reviews) - Complex Configuration (26 reviews) - Difficult Learning (25 reviews) - Difficult Setup (25 reviews) ### 9. [CloudZero](https://www.g2.com/products/cloudzero/reviews) CloudZero is the leader in cloud and AI cost intelligence. We empower the world's engineers to build cost-efficient software without slowing down innovation. CloudZero's platform automates the collection, allocation, and analysis of cloud cost data to uncover savings opportunities and improve unit economics. Our unique approach ensures organizations have the most complete, accurate, and granular source of truth for their cloud costs. CloudZero is used by industry leaders worldwide, such as Coinbase, Klaviyo, Miro, New Relic, Nubank, and Rapid7. **Average Rating:** 4.6/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 62 **User Satisfaction Scores:** - **Has the product been a good partner in doing business?:** 9.6/10 (Category avg: 9.3/10) - **Automation:** 7.2/10 (Category avg: 8.5/10) - **Reporting:** 9.3/10 (Category avg: 8.8/10) - **Usage Monitoring:** 8.4/10 (Category avg: 8.9/10) **Seller Details:** - **Seller:** [CloudZero](https://www.g2.com/sellers/cloudzero-0c62bc93-8dfc-44cb-9ad3-5d89eae02fad) - **Company Website:** https://www.cloudzero.com - **Year Founded:** 2016 - **HQ Location:** Boston, MA - **Twitter:** @CloudZeroInc (5,485 Twitter followers) - **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/856969/ (165 employees on LinkedIn®) **Reviewer Demographics:** - **Top Industries:** Financial Services, Computer Software - **Company Size:** 41% Mid-Market, 37% Enterprise #### Pros & Cons **Pros:** - Cost Management (12 reviews) - Customer Support (9 reviews) - Ease of Use (9 reviews) - Insights (7 reviews) - Recommendations (7 reviews) **Cons:** - Dashboard Issues (3 reviews) - Limited Customization (3 reviews) - Steep Learning Curve (3 reviews) - Complexity (2 reviews) - Confusion (2 reviews) ### 10. [PointFive](https://www.g2.com/products/pointfive-2024-08-28/reviews) PointFive is the infrastructure efficiency platform that detects deep waste and remediates autonomously — so your engineers can ship, not optimize. Traditional tools show you what you spend. PointFive shows you what you're wasting — and fixes it. How we're different: 🔍 DeepWaste™ Detection — 400+ detection types across AWS, Azure, GCP, Kubernetes, Snowflake, and Databricks. We find waste that other tools miss — idle resources, over-provisioned infrastructure, orphaned storage, and inefficient AI workloads. 🧠 InfraFabric — Our proprietary infrastructure graph maps dependencies, ownership, and context across your entire cloud estate. No agents. No scripts. Just deep visibility. ⚡ Agentic Remediation — Don't just get recommendations. PointFive autonomously resolves waste with safe, validated actions — turning insights into realized savings. Proven at scale: • $50M+ in savings identified • 1,200%+ customer ROI • 10 days to value (Nubank case study) Enterprise teams at companies like Nubank, Elastic, and Blackhawk Network trust PointFive to continuously optimize their cloud infrastructure — without slowing down engineering. **Average Rating:** 4.9/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 32 **User Satisfaction Scores:** - **Has the product been a good partner in doing business?:** 9.8/10 (Category avg: 9.3/10) - **Automation:** 6.4/10 (Category avg: 8.5/10) - **Reporting:** 9.1/10 (Category avg: 8.8/10) - **Usage Monitoring:** 8.7/10 (Category avg: 8.9/10) **Seller Details:** - **Seller:** [PointFive](https://www.g2.com/sellers/pointfive) - **Company Website:** https://www.pointfive.co/ - **HQ Location:** New York City, US - **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/pointfive-us/ (113 employees on LinkedIn®) **Reviewer Demographics:** - **Top Industries:** Financial Services, Computer Software - **Company Size:** 53% Enterprise, 38% Mid-Market #### Pros & Cons **Pros:** - Recommendations (14 reviews) - Savings (11 reviews) - Cost Reduction (9 reviews) - Cost Saving (9 reviews) - Ease of Use (9 reviews) **Cons:** - User Interface (3 reviews) - Confusion (2 reviews) - Difficulty (2 reviews) - Inadequate Reporting (2 reviews) - Insufficient Documentation (2 reviews) ### 11. [Cloudshot](https://www.g2.com/products/cloudshot/reviews) Cloudshot is a patented, visual cloud management platform that helps enterprises gain complete visibility, governance, and control across their cloud and IT spend. Designed for organizations operating in complex environments, Cloudshot delivers multi-cloud management visibility across AWS, Azure, GCP, and hybrid setups through an intuitive, visual-first approach. Unlike traditional tools that rely on raw data, scripts, or fragmented dashboards, Cloudshot represents cloud environments visually, enabling teams to understand architecture, dependencies, risks, and costs at a glance. This reduces operational complexity and accelerates decision-making across engineering, security, and finance teams. Cloudshot brings DevOps, SecOps, FinOps, and Sustainability together under a single umbrella. DevOps teams benefit from faster environment understanding and infrastructure insights, SecOps teams gain continuous security posture and drift visibility, and FinOps teams receive accurate, allocation-ready cost and optimization data. Sustainability is natively built into the platform, helping organizations optimize costs while reducing environmental impact. Cloudshot aligns closely with the FinOps Foundation framework and is an official FOCUS-compatible tool, supporting the FinOps Open Cost and Usage Specification (FOCUS). This ensures standardized, portable, and provider-agnostic cost and usage data across cloud platforms, enabling enterprises to scale FinOps practices with confidence and consistency. Beyond cloud infrastructure, Cloudshot provides a unified IT spend dashboard that consolidates multi-cloud costs, cloud marketplace usage, SaaS spend, and shared IT services into a single, consistent view. This enables leadership teams to understand true technology spend, improve accountability, and align IT investments with business outcomes. Enterprise customers using Cloudshot typically achieve 10% to 35% savings on their cloud spend through continuous optimization, waste elimination, and improved governance. By combining patented technology, visual cloud management, and FOCUS-aligned spend visibility, Cloudshot enables enterprises to move from reactive cost control to proactive, strategic management of their IT ecosystem. **Average Rating:** 4.9/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 65 **User Satisfaction Scores:** - **Has the product been a good partner in doing business?:** 9.1/10 (Category avg: 9.3/10) - **Automation:** 9.8/10 (Category avg: 8.5/10) - **Reporting:** 9.7/10 (Category avg: 8.8/10) - **Usage Monitoring:** 9.5/10 (Category avg: 8.9/10) **Seller Details:** - **Seller:** [Cloudshot](https://www.g2.com/sellers/cloudshot) - **Year Founded:** 2023 - **HQ Location:** Pune, IN - **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/cloudshot-io/ (4 employees on LinkedIn®) **Reviewer Demographics:** - **Who Uses This:** Cloud Architect, DevOps Engineer - **Top Industries:** Information Technology and Services - **Company Size:** 125% Enterprise, 22% Mid-Market #### Pros & Cons **Pros:** - Cloud Services (51 reviews) - Ease of Use (41 reviews) - Cloud Management (34 reviews) - Features (24 reviews) - Cost Optimization (22 reviews) **Cons:** - Missing Features (4 reviews) - Difficult Learning (3 reviews) - Steep Learning Curve (3 reviews) - Complex Configuration (2 reviews) - Difficult Setup (2 reviews) ### 12. [AWS Budgets](https://www.g2.com/products/aws-budgets/reviews) AWS Budgets gives you the ability to set custom budgets that alert you when your costs or usage exceed (or are forecasted to exceed) your budgeted amount. **Average Rating:** 4.1/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 39 **User Satisfaction Scores:** - **Has the product been a good partner in doing business?:** 9.3/10 (Category avg: 9.3/10) - **Automation:** 8.3/10 (Category avg: 8.5/10) - **Reporting:** 8.8/10 (Category avg: 8.8/10) - **Usage Monitoring:** 8.8/10 (Category avg: 8.9/10) **Seller Details:** - **Seller:** [Amazon Web Services (AWS)](https://www.g2.com/sellers/amazon-web-services-aws-3e93cc28-2e9b-4961-b258-c6ce0feec7dd) - **Year Founded:** 2006 - **HQ Location:** Seattle, WA - **Twitter:** @awscloud (2,225,864 Twitter followers) - **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/amazon-web-services/ (156,424 employees on LinkedIn®) - **Ownership:** NASDAQ: AMZN **Reviewer Demographics:** - **Who Uses This:** Software Engineer - **Top Industries:** Computer Software, Information Technology and Services - **Company Size:** 55% Small-Business, 25% Mid-Market ### 13. [DoiT Cloud Intelligence](https://www.g2.com/products/doit-cloud-intelligence/reviews) DoiT Cloud Intelligence is the only intent-aware FinOps platform that goes beyond cost optimization to drive reliability, performance, and security – turning endless "good ideas" into real, implemented solutions at scale – ensuring teams are 10X more likely to achieve business outcomes than with any other solution. **Average Rating:** 4.4/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 78 **User Satisfaction Scores:** - **Has the product been a good partner in doing business?:** 8.6/10 (Category avg: 9.3/10) - **Automation:** 6.4/10 (Category avg: 8.5/10) - **Reporting:** 8.1/10 (Category avg: 8.8/10) - **Usage Monitoring:** 8.3/10 (Category avg: 8.9/10) **Seller Details:** - **Seller:** [DoiT](https://www.g2.com/sellers/doit-84d96d0d-c750-46ed-8237-80c355abe4f0) - **Year Founded:** 2011 - **HQ Location:** Santa Clara, US - **Twitter:** @doitint (811 Twitter followers) - **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/doitintl/ (679 employees on LinkedIn®) **Reviewer Demographics:** - **Top Industries:** Computer Software, Information Technology and Services - **Company Size:** 57% Mid-Market, 41% Small-Business #### Pros & Cons **Pros:** - Customer Support (10 reviews) - Team Expertise (7 reviews) - Helpful (6 reviews) - Cloud Management (5 reviews) - Features (5 reviews) **Cons:** - Cost Management (3 reviews) - Expensive (2 reviews) - Billing Issues (1 reviews) - Complexity (1 reviews) - Difficult Learning (1 reviews) ### 14. [Google Cloud Trace](https://www.g2.com/products/google-cloud-trace/reviews) Find performance bottlenecks in production **Average Rating:** 4.3/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 65 **User Satisfaction Scores:** - **Has the product been a good partner in doing business?:** 8.2/10 (Category avg: 9.3/10) **Seller Details:** - **Seller:** [Google](https://www.g2.com/sellers/google) - **Year Founded:** 1998 - **HQ Location:** Mountain View, CA - **Twitter:** @google (31,910,461 Twitter followers) - **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/1441/ (336,169 employees on LinkedIn®) - **Ownership:** NASDAQ:GOOG **Reviewer Demographics:** - **Who Uses This:** Software Engineer - **Top Industries:** Information Technology and Services, Computer Software - **Company Size:** 37% Small-Business, 34% Mid-Market #### Pros & Cons **Pros:** - Customer Support (1 reviews) - Ease of Use (1 reviews) - Easy Access (1 reviews) - Features (1 reviews) - Implementation Ease (1 reviews) ### 15. [Datadog](https://www.g2.com/products/datadog/reviews) Datadog is the monitoring, security and analytics platform for developers, IT operations teams, security engineers and business users in the cloud age. The SaaS platform integrates and automates infrastructure monitoring, application performance monitoring and log management to provide unified, real-time observability of our customers' entire technology stack. Datadog is used by organizations of all sizes and across a wide range of industries to enable digital transformation and cloud migration, drive collaboration among development, operations, security and business teams, accelerate time to market for applications, reduce time to problem resolution, secure applications and infrastructure, understand user behavior and track key business metrics. **Average Rating:** 4.4/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 688 **User Satisfaction Scores:** - **Has the product been a good partner in doing business?:** 8.5/10 (Category avg: 9.3/10) - **Automation:** 8.1/10 (Category avg: 8.5/10) - **Reporting:** 8.3/10 (Category avg: 8.8/10) - **Usage Monitoring:** 8.0/10 (Category avg: 8.9/10) **Seller Details:** - **Seller:** [Datadog](https://www.g2.com/sellers/datadog) - **Company Website:** https://www.datadoghq.com/ - **Year Founded:** 2010 - **HQ Location:** New York - **Twitter:** @datadoghq (50,945 Twitter followers) - **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/1066442/ (10,625 employees on LinkedIn®) **Reviewer Demographics:** - **Who Uses This:** Software Engineer, DevOps Engineer - **Top Industries:** Information Technology and Services, Computer Software - **Company Size:** 47% Mid-Market, 33% Enterprise #### Pros & Cons **Pros:** - Ease of Use (145 reviews) - Monitoring (144 reviews) - Real-time Monitoring (122 reviews) - Features (93 reviews) - Analytics (88 reviews) **Cons:** - Expensive (92 reviews) - Learning Curve (73 reviews) - Pricing Issues (71 reviews) - Cost (65 reviews) - Learning Difficulty (56 reviews) ### 16. [Vertice](https://www.g2.com/products/vertice/reviews) Vertice is the intelligent procurement platform built for the modern enterprise. By uniting agentic workflows, AI-powered insights, and expert buying talent, we enable finance and procurement teams in 30+ countries to operate with greater precision, speed, and impact. Customers including ARM, Blackberry, Factorial, Le Figaro and Santander use Vertice's platform to review, analyze and negotiate purchases with greater confidence. Vertice processes over $30bn in spend, with a proven track record of delivering 20%+ savings and accelerating procurement cycles by 2x. Headquartered in London and recognised in 2025 by the Financial Times as the UK’s fastest growing scale-up, Vertice also operates in New York, Sydney, Brno, Linz and Johannesburg. Learn more at www.vertice.one. **Average Rating:** 4.6/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 255 **User Satisfaction Scores:** - **Has the product been a good partner in doing business?:** 9.5/10 (Category avg: 9.3/10) - **Automation:** 8.1/10 (Category avg: 8.5/10) - **Reporting:** 7.5/10 (Category avg: 8.8/10) - **Usage Monitoring:** 7.3/10 (Category avg: 8.9/10) **Seller Details:** - **Seller:** [Vertice](https://www.g2.com/sellers/vertice) - **Company Website:** https://www.vertice.one/ - **Year Founded:** 2021 - **HQ Location:** London, England - **Twitter:** @verticehq (215 Twitter followers) - **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/verticeone/ (447 employees on LinkedIn®) **Reviewer Demographics:** - **Who Uses This:** CFO, Procurement Manager - **Top Industries:** Financial Services, Computer Software - **Company Size:** 78% Mid-Market, 17% Enterprise #### Pros & Cons **Pros:** - Ease of Use (31 reviews) - Negotiation Skills (31 reviews) - Customer Support (28 reviews) - Team Expertise (27 reviews) - Cost Savings (22 reviews) **Cons:** - Missing Features (8 reviews) - Complexity (6 reviews) - Usability Issues (5 reviews) - Integration Issues (4 reviews) - Learning Curve (4 reviews) ### 17. [amnic.com](https://www.g2.com/products/amnic-com/reviews) Amnic is a FinOps operating system designed to provide businesses with comprehensive visibility into their cloud spending through the use of advanced AI agents. This innovative solution enables teams to generate context-aware and role-specific cost insights, effectively bridging the gap between financial, business, and engineering contexts within modern cloud environments. By leveraging Amnic, organizations can foster accountability in cloud cost management, enhance cost allocation practices, and optimize their infrastructure spending. Targeted at a diverse audience that includes FinOps, DevOps, finance professionals, tech leadership, and management teams, Amnic addresses the unique challenges faced by organizations in managing cloud expenditures. As cloud environments become increasingly complex, the need for precise cost management has never been more critical. Amnic empowers teams to make informed decisions by providing them with the tools necessary to understand their cloud costs in real-time, ultimately leading to more strategic financial planning and resource allocation. One of the standout features of Amnic is its AI-driven capabilities, which allow users to interact with the system using natural language. This functionality enables teams to instruct AI agents to carry out routine cloud cost management tasks, significantly reducing the time spent on manual processes such as debugging costs or compiling intricate reports. By automating these tasks, Amnic ensures that cloud costs are not only managed effectively but also kept under control, freeing up valuable time for teams to focus on more strategic initiatives. Additionally, Amnic's ability to deliver role-specific insights means that different stakeholders can access the information most relevant to their responsibilities. This tailored approach enhances collaboration across departments, ensuring that all team members are aligned in their understanding of cloud spending and its implications. The result is a more cohesive strategy for managing cloud costs, leading to improved financial outcomes and operational efficiency. In summary, Amnic stands out in the FinOps landscape by combining AI technology with a user-friendly interface, enabling organizations to take charge of their cloud spending. By providing actionable insights and facilitating collaboration among various teams, Amnic not only simplifies cloud cost management but also drives accountability and informed decision-making across the organization. **Average Rating:** 4.7/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 49 **User Satisfaction Scores:** - **Has the product been a good partner in doing business?:** 9.9/10 (Category avg: 9.3/10) - **Automation:** 8.6/10 (Category avg: 8.5/10) - **Reporting:** 9.3/10 (Category avg: 8.8/10) - **Usage Monitoring:** 9.3/10 (Category avg: 8.9/10) **Seller Details:** - **Seller:** [AMNIC INC](https://www.g2.com/sellers/amnic-inc) - **Company Website:** https://www.amnic.com - **Year Founded:** 2021 - **HQ Location:** San Francisco, California - **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/amnic (36 employees on LinkedIn®) **Reviewer Demographics:** - **Top Industries:** Computer Software, Financial Services - **Company Size:** 47% Mid-Market, 24% Small-Business #### Pros & Cons **Pros:** - Cost Management (14 reviews) - Recommendations (12 reviews) - Cost Saving (10 reviews) - Visibility (10 reviews) - Ease of Use (9 reviews) **Cons:** - Limited Customization (4 reviews) - Confusion (3 reviews) - Dashboard Issues (3 reviews) - Limited Cloud Integration (3 reviews) - Poor Documentation (3 reviews) ### 18. [AWS Cost Explorer](https://www.g2.com/products/aws-cost-explorer/reviews) AWS Cost Explorer lets you dive deeper into your cost and usage data to identify trends, pinpoint cost drivers, and detect anomalies, completely free of charge. **Average Rating:** 4.4/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 13 **User Satisfaction Scores:** - **Has the product been a good partner in doing business?:** 9.2/10 (Category avg: 9.3/10) - **Reporting:** 8.3/10 (Category avg: 8.8/10) - **Usage Monitoring:** 8.3/10 (Category avg: 8.9/10) **Seller Details:** - **Seller:** [Amazon Web Services (AWS)](https://www.g2.com/sellers/amazon-web-services-aws-3e93cc28-2e9b-4961-b258-c6ce0feec7dd) - **Year Founded:** 2006 - **HQ Location:** Seattle, WA - **Twitter:** @awscloud (2,225,864 Twitter followers) - **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/amazon-web-services/ (156,424 employees on LinkedIn®) - **Ownership:** NASDAQ: AMZN **Reviewer Demographics:** - **Top Industries:** Computer Software - **Company Size:** 43% Small-Business, 36% Mid-Market ### 19. [ServiceNow IT Asset Management](https://www.g2.com/products/servicenow-it-asset-management/reviews) Visibility into all your IT assets should not be as difficult as most find it to be. Spreadsheets and standalone tools are no match for the complexity of today’s IT asset landscape spanning software, hardware, cloud and AI services. ServiceNow ITAM is your solution for the complete asset lifecycle for all IT assets. Asset Managers can be overwhelmed with requests and monotonous activities. Automate tasks from procurement to end-of-life actions with help from ServiceNow AI Agents. Build reliable asset data, like contracts, costs and compliance while using the power of the CMDB. ServiceNow ITAM provides workspaces tailored for asset managers. Gain visibility and control to respond to business questions and for seamless collaboration across functions. **Average Rating:** 4.4/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 196 **User Satisfaction Scores:** - **Has the product been a good partner in doing business?:** 9.0/10 (Category avg: 9.3/10) - **Automation:** 9.5/10 (Category avg: 8.5/10) - **Reporting:** 8.7/10 (Category avg: 8.8/10) - **Usage Monitoring:** 9.3/10 (Category avg: 8.9/10) **Seller Details:** - **Seller:** [ServiceNow](https://www.g2.com/sellers/servicenow) - **Company Website:** https://www.servicenow.com/ - **Year Founded:** 2004 - **HQ Location:** Santa Clara, CA - **Twitter:** @servicenow (54,215 Twitter followers) - **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/29352/ (32,701 employees on LinkedIn®) **Reviewer Demographics:** - **Top Industries:** Information Technology and Services, Financial Services - **Company Size:** 60% Enterprise, 27% Mid-Market #### Pros & Cons **Pros:** - Asset Management (51 reviews) - Ease of Use (24 reviews) - Integrations (21 reviews) - Tracking (19 reviews) - Features (13 reviews) **Cons:** - Expensive (17 reviews) - Learning Curve (17 reviews) - Complexity (8 reviews) - Difficult Setup (7 reviews) - Insufficient Information (6 reviews) ### 20. [Site24x7](https://www.g2.com/products/site24x7/reviews) ManageEngine Site24x7 offers unified cloud monitoring for DevOps and IT operations within small to large organizations. The solution monitors the experience of real users accessing websites and applications from desktop and mobile devices. In-depth monitoring capabilities enable DevOps teams to monitor and troubleshoot applications, servers and network infrastructure, including private and public clouds. End-user experience monitoring is done from more than 100 locations across the world and various wireless carriers. **Average Rating:** 4.6/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 419 **User Satisfaction Scores:** - **Has the product been a good partner in doing business?:** 8.9/10 (Category avg: 9.3/10) - **Automation:** 9.1/10 (Category avg: 8.5/10) - **Reporting:** 9.3/10 (Category avg: 8.8/10) - **Usage Monitoring:** 9.3/10 (Category avg: 8.9/10) **Seller Details:** - **Seller:** [Zoho](https://www.g2.com/sellers/zoho-b00ca9d5-bca8-41b5-a8ad-275480841704) - **Year Founded:** 1996 - **HQ Location:** Austin, TX - **Twitter:** @Zoho (137,251 Twitter followers) - **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/38373/ (30,531 employees on LinkedIn®) - **Phone:** +1 (888) 900-9646 **Reviewer Demographics:** - **Who Uses This:** CEO, CTO - **Top Industries:** Information Technology and Services, Computer Software - **Company Size:** 45% Mid-Market, 43% Small-Business #### Pros & Cons **Pros:** - Ease of Use (78 reviews) - Monitoring (73 reviews) - Real-time Monitoring (61 reviews) - Monitoring Features (52 reviews) - Monitoring Services (49 reviews) **Cons:** - Complexity (25 reviews) - Alert Issues (23 reviews) - Learning Curve (21 reviews) - Expensive (20 reviews) - Not User-Friendly (18 reviews) ### 21. [nOps](https://www.g2.com/products/nops/reviews) With nOps, ensure every dollar you spend on the cloud delivers maximum value. nOps provides automated cloud cost optimization that delivers industry-leading cloud savings and visibility without operational overhead or long-term commitment risk. nOps platform includes: Commitment Management: autonomous rate optimization for AWS, Azure and GCP to maximize savings and flexibility Cloud Cost Visibility: comprehensive cost and usage reporting and analysis, enabling 100% cost allocation across your unified Multicloud, SaaS, Kubernetes & AI spend FinOps Agent: AI trained on your cost data to answer questions & automate FinOps tasks like forecasting, anomaly detection, waste reduction, budgets, reports, etc. The time to value is 30 minutes to get started and receive a free Savings Analysis. **Average Rating:** 4.8/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 129 **User Satisfaction Scores:** - **Has the product been a good partner in doing business?:** 9.3/10 (Category avg: 9.3/10) - **Automation:** 9.0/10 (Category avg: 8.5/10) - **Reporting:** 9.1/10 (Category avg: 8.8/10) - **Usage Monitoring:** 9.1/10 (Category avg: 8.9/10) **Seller Details:** - **Seller:** [nOps](https://www.g2.com/sellers/nops) - **Company Website:** https://www.nops.io/ - **Year Founded:** 2017 - **HQ Location:** San Francisco, California - **Twitter:** @nopsio (1,528 Twitter followers) - **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/7602157 (177 employees on LinkedIn®) **Reviewer Demographics:** - **Who Uses This:** CTO - **Top Industries:** Computer Software, Information Technology and Services - **Company Size:** 52% Small-Business, 41% Mid-Market #### Pros & Cons **Pros:** - Savings (6 reviews) - Cost Saving (5 reviews) - Cost Management (4 reviews) - Ease of Use (4 reviews) - Time-saving (4 reviews) **Cons:** - Complexity (1 reviews) - Dashboard Issues (1 reviews) - Difficult Navigation (1 reviews) - Inadequate Reporting (1 reviews) - Insufficient Documentation (1 reviews) ### 22. [Wiv](https://www.g2.com/products/wiv/reviews) Wiv.ai is a FinOps automation platform built for enterprise scale. Designed for FinOps, CloudOps, and MSP teams, Wiv.ai turns cloud cost insights into real-time, automated action. No code required. From idle resource cleanup to policy enforcement and budget control, our platform helps organizations cut waste, improve performance, and operate more efficiently across hundreds of environments. Built for action, not just analysis, Wiv empowers teams to take control of cloud spend across even the most complex environments. **Average Rating:** 4.9/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 22 **User Satisfaction Scores:** - **Has the product been a good partner in doing business?:** 10.0/10 (Category avg: 9.3/10) - **Automation:** 9.2/10 (Category avg: 8.5/10) - **Reporting:** 9.1/10 (Category avg: 8.8/10) - **Usage Monitoring:** 9.6/10 (Category avg: 8.9/10) **Seller Details:** - **Seller:** [Wiv](https://www.g2.com/sellers/wiv) - **Company Website:** https://www.wiv.ai/ - **Year Founded:** 2023 - **HQ Location:** New York, US - **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/wiv-ai (17 employees on LinkedIn®) **Reviewer Demographics:** - **Top Industries:** Telecommunications - **Company Size:** 73% Enterprise, 18% Mid-Market #### Pros & Cons **Pros:** - Automation (13 reviews) - Ease of Use (10 reviews) - Cost Saving (7 reviews) - Customer Support (7 reviews) - Collaboration (6 reviews) **Cons:** - Steep Learning Curve (5 reviews) - Limited Customization (2 reviews) - Poor Onboarding (2 reviews) - Poor UI Design (2 reviews) - Software Bugs (2 reviews) ### 23. [Kubex](https://www.g2.com/products/kubex/reviews) Kubex is a sophisticated AI-driven analytics solution designed to assist enterprises in optimizing their Kubernetes, AI and cloud infrastructure. This innovative platform focuses on reducing operational costs, enhancing efficiency, and ensuring stability within complex and dynamic environments. **Average Rating:** 4.7/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 26 **User Satisfaction Scores:** - **Has the product been a good partner in doing business?:** 10.0/10 (Category avg: 9.3/10) - **Automation:** 9.2/10 (Category avg: 8.5/10) - **Reporting:** 9.6/10 (Category avg: 8.8/10) - **Usage Monitoring:** 9.5/10 (Category avg: 8.9/10) **Seller Details:** - **Seller:** [Kubex](https://www.g2.com/sellers/kubex) - **Company Website:** https://kubex.ai/ - **Year Founded:** 2022 - **HQ Location:** Richmond Hill, CA - **Twitter:** @Densify (2,190 Twitter followers) - **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/kubex-ai/ (69 employees on LinkedIn®) **Reviewer Demographics:** - **Top Industries:** Information Technology and Services, Financial Services - **Company Size:** 68% Enterprise, 25% Mid-Market #### Pros & Cons **Pros:** - Ease of Use (3 reviews) - Cloud Management (2 reviews) - Customer Support (2 reviews) - Insights (2 reviews) - Performance (2 reviews) **Cons:** - Azure Integration (1 reviews) - Compatibility Issues (1 reviews) - Cost Management (1 reviews) - Limited Cloud Integration (1 reviews) - User Interface (1 reviews) ### 24. [Archera](https://www.g2.com/products/archera/reviews) Archera is a cloud cost management and procurement platform designed to help organizations optimize and de-risk their cloud spending on AWS and Azure. By offering tools for automated savings plan and reserved instance management, as well as unique commitment insurance and financing products, Archera enables businesses to achieve significant cost savings while maintaining flexibility in their cloud resource commitments. Key Features and Functionality: - Free Cloud Management Platform: Provides comprehensive management for savings plans, reserved instances, and committed use discounts, along with cost and usage visibility, and long-term forecasting and assessments. - Insured Commitments: Offers flexible-term, insurance-backed commitments that deliver savings on short-term cloud usage, reducing the risk of overcommitment. - Automated Commitment Optimization: Continuously analyzes usage patterns and automatically adjusts commitments to maximize savings while minimizing the risk of over-commitment. - Cost and Resource Usage Visualization: Enables organizations to attribute, track, and display costs and savings from complex billing instruments, facilitating strategic decision-making. - Professional Services: Provides targeted professional service offerings, including managed setup services, expert reviews of commitment strategies, and assistance with long-term forecasting and budgeting. Primary Value and Problem Solved: Archera addresses the complexities and risks associated with cloud resource procurement by offering a platform that automates cost optimization and provides financial products to mitigate the uncertainties of long-term commitments. By enabling flexible, short-term commitments and offering tools for comprehensive cost management, Archera empowers organizations to reduce cloud spending, avoid overcommitment, and focus on innovation without the burden of complex financial planning. **Average Rating:** 4.7/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 34 **User Satisfaction Scores:** - **Has the product been a good partner in doing business?:** 9.1/10 (Category avg: 9.3/10) - **Automation:** 8.6/10 (Category avg: 8.5/10) - **Reporting:** 8.3/10 (Category avg: 8.8/10) - **Usage Monitoring:** 8.8/10 (Category avg: 8.9/10) **Seller Details:** - **Seller:** [Archera](https://www.g2.com/sellers/archera) - **Year Founded:** 2019 - **HQ Location:** Bellevue, WA - **Twitter:** @ArcheraAi (84 Twitter followers) - **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/archera-ai/ (50 employees on LinkedIn®) **Reviewer Demographics:** - **Top Industries:** Computer Software, Information Technology and Services - **Company Size:** 68% Small-Business, 29% Mid-Market #### Pros & Cons **Pros:** - Cost Saving (24 reviews) - Cost Reduction (12 reviews) - Ease of Use (10 reviews) - Cost Management (7 reviews) - Customer Support (5 reviews) **Cons:** - Billing Issues (1 reviews) - Complexity (1 reviews) - Confusion (1 reviews) - Dashboard Issues (1 reviews) - Steep Learning Curve (1 reviews) ### 25. [Spendbase](https://www.g2.com/products/spendbase/reviews) Spendbase is a spend management platform designed to break your SaaS / Cloud spend habits and introduce a radically different way of building cost efficiency. With huge software discounts, cloud credits procurement, and virtual cards, our easy-to-use platform brings you the savings you thought were impossible. The Spendbase platform lets you visualise your software costs and real-time usage so that it becomes obvious for you how to optimise your tech stack. You can manage your subscriptions and eliminate budget waste in a few clicks. Procurement rises to a new level with keeping all internal spend requests in one place, where they can be approved very quickly. And then paid for right there on the spot with the Spendbase virtual cards. Yes, we partner with Moorwand and offer virtual cards powered by Mastercard, with universal acceptance and flexible payment options. You get free virtual cards that you can use for subscriptions, projects, and one-off purchases. You can easily divide the balance between different virtual accounts, issue, assign, or lock cards unlimitedly, set spending limits, and get up to 1.5% cashback on each transaction. On top of that we provide massive discounts for SaaS and cloud tools, and we only charge you 25% of what we manage to save you. You’d have no idea the savings were even there and with Spendbase you free up hundreds of thousands you can find a better use of than overspending. To use the platform companies have to place a deposit depending on the size of the stack they want to manage with Spendbase. Later, they can fully use this money to cover for the 25% success fee. Spendbase was born in early 2023. Our hard work and desire to save money for companies in ways they couldn’t imagine have grown us into an international company with 800 clients worldwide. **Average Rating:** 4.7/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 127 **User Satisfaction Scores:** - **Has the product been a good partner in doing business?:** 9.6/10 (Category avg: 9.3/10) - **Automation:** 8.0/10 (Category avg: 8.5/10) - **Reporting:** 8.0/10 (Category avg: 8.8/10) - **Usage Monitoring:** 8.5/10 (Category avg: 8.9/10) **Seller Details:** - **Seller:** [Spendbase](https://www.g2.com/sellers/spendbase) - **Year Founded:** 2022 - **HQ Location:** Lewes, US - **LinkedIn® Page:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/spendbase/ (147 employees on LinkedIn®) **Reviewer Demographics:** - **Who Uses This:** CMO, Marketing Manager - **Top Industries:** Information Technology and Services, Marketing and Advertising - **Company Size:** 61% Mid-Market, 40% Small-Business #### Pros & Cons **Pros:** - Ease of Use (28 reviews) - Cost Savings (27 reviews) - Cost Reduction (23 reviews) - Cost Saving (17 reviews) - SaaS Management (17 reviews) **Cons:** - Limited Customization (13 reviews) - Missing Features (9 reviews) - Integration Issues (5 reviews) - Complexity (4 reviews) - Difficult Setup (4 reviews) ## Parent Category [IT Management Software](https://www.g2.com/categories/it-management) ## Related Categories - [Cloud Infrastructure Monitoring Software](https://www.g2.com/categories/cloud-infrastructure-monitoring) - [Cloud Compliance Software](https://www.g2.com/categories/cloud-compliance) - [Cloud Management Platforms](https://www.g2.com/categories/cloud-management-platforms) --- ## Buyer Guide ### What You Should Know About Cloud Cost Management Tools ### What are Cloud Cost Management Tools? Cloud cost management tools are software platforms a company utilizes to manage all costs related to cloud resources, optimization, and management. The software allows organizations to manage the costs associated with cloud computing. Managing cloud computing costs is done primarily with one focus in mind—to maximize cloud usage and increase operational efficiency. Cloud computing has been at the forefront due to its subscription or pay-per-use model. However, as companies wish to scale in terms of operations, tracking the cost of cloud services becomes a complex task and is not as transparent as “pay-per-use”. Numerous functions within an organization would have access to their cloud computing platforms, and having this decentralized approach could rack up massive amounts in cloud computing costs. Hence, having a cloud cost management tool ensures that cloud spend is kept in check and that the cloud resources are optimized and worth every penny spent. Cloud cost management focuses on understanding the different costs associated with cloud computing. Some key costs associated with the cloud include software licenses, web services, compute and storage costs, network costs, virtualized infrastructure/virtual machine instances, and additional costs such as training staff and personnel. As more companies move to the cloud, either partially or entirely, cloud storage costs do not remain the same. When a company needs to scale, IT staff can easily focus on acquiring more cloud services to ensure and support daily work activities without keeping concern for costs. Engineers or developers need to ensure that their products have a shorter time to market, thereby spinning up more cloud resources. This could have a huge impact on the business since there are no savings, but a huge cloud bill. Regardless of the cloud service provider, such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform, among several others, it is certain that money will be spent across resources that may or may not be utilized. When different cloud infrastructure is involved, cloud cost management software can make it much easier for companies to support cost optimization. For example, customers that have opted for multi-cloud environments. Cloud cost optimization needs to be given priority since different cloud service providers are being used. Hence, costs may vary across all providers, making it complex and difficult to track. By understanding the costs, companies can focus on cost optimization and ensure accountability. Cloud cost management is therefore, not just about cost control, it's about resource optimization, forecasting and budgeting, and reducing wastage. ### What are the Common Features of Cloud Cost Management Tools? Cloud cost management software has several features that makes it a strong choice for companies that want to keep track of their spending on cloud. The following are some core features within the software that can help users in several ways: **Automatic scaling:** The promise of unlimited scalability is one of the biggest pros of cloud computing technology. Automatic scaling ensures that resources are used and available when needed, and powered down when not in use. Companies do not need to spend large amounts on unutilized cloud resources. The software helps companies automate governance of costs, compliance, security, and cloud operations. Planning for maximum utilization all the time when using only some percentage of it is extremely expensive in the long run. **Instance management:** A key cost driver for cloud computing is the number of unused instances that a company opts for. If a firm is not using an instance, the cloud cost optimization software can track and alert the customer if there is no need for the instance and help to save costs. The software can also find discount instances that can be used for non-critical workloads that do not need to run constantly, thereby driving more savings. **Automated alerts and notifications:** Cloud spend management platforms allow users to set up automated alerts and budgets. These alerts warn the user when there are authorization failures, sudden cost spikes, untagged infrastructure, and when budget limits are crossed. Having alerts sets is critical to ensure business continuity and keep costs optimized. **Cost allocation:** A key feature of cloud cost management tools is that it allows the user to keep track of the team spends on cloud computing resources. This will allow management to set up appropriate budgets and track spends by various company functions.  **Chargeback:** Chargeback is a feature where the cost of cloud services is applied or “charged-back” to the business unit responsible for the cloud expense. The chargeback feature in different cloud cost savings platforms allows companies to track the departments that are making the most (and least) use of cloud costs—this information is useful while making budgeting decisions. ### What are the Benefits of Cloud Cost Management Tools? Benefits of cloud spend management platforms include: **Reduce cost:** This is understandably the most important benefit of cloud cost management software. Companies use cloud cost management software to ensure cloud optimization. Companies can monitor and track their spending, ensure optimal resource allocation, and take advantage of discounts offered by cloud service providers such as AWS, Microsoft Azure, GCP. Companies can even use this software to visualize and understand their cost profile when evaluating cloud migration, deploying new cloud security policies, and maintaining cloud health. **Eliminate waste:** By understanding and tracking their cloud usage and cloud bills, companies can reduce waste and ensure that they are making the best of their cloud resources. Techniques that support this include automatic scaling and load balancing. **Improve business performance:** A business needs to ensure its cloud strategies align closely with its business goals. Overprovisioning of cloud resources means significant wastage of company profits and underprovisioning could cause workloads and applications to suffer if there is no proper cloud support. In such a situation, planning for the right cloud cost management solution is key to ensuring smooth performance in any environment—whether on a public, private, hybrid, or moving from on-premises to cloud. **Gain visibility into cloud storage costs:** Cloud spend management platforms provide visibility into cloud resource costs that are kept idle, unallocated, over-utilized. Some cloud cost management software provide an hourly granularity as well. Having a single pane of glass dashboards ensures a single point for admins to manage, organize and optimize their cloud environment. **Get recommendations to cut costs:** One of the key benefits is that the software can provide recommendations to reduce costs. These recommendations are based on analyzing different workloads and their cloud requirements. Costs are analyzed down to the root sources, and recommendations are made to the user. **Improve reporting and analytics:** Data-driven decisions will help the user make better decisions regarding their cloud spending. By tracking patterns in cloud spending, cloud cost management tools can provide their users with graphs or tables of data that can be used for data analysis—these analytics can be cross-referenced with business outcomes to ensure the company is on the right track with its cloud strategy. Major cloud providers provide reporting as part of their subscription packages such as AWS Cost and Usage report.  ### Who Uses Cloud Cost Management Tools? **Cloud architects:** Cloud architects manage the technical requirements of cloud architecture and oversee a company’s cloud environment and strategies. A cloud architect is the main persona that uses cloud cost management software. Understanding how to manage cloud spends and optimize cloud resources falls upon the cloud architect. A cloud architect doesn't just work with engineering and development, they also work closely with HR, finance, logistics, and security to ensure that cloud strategies are being optimized. **Cloud cost managers:** Cloud cost managers handle various tasks such as forecasting, budgeting, business development practices and processes, identification of trends and opportunities, cloud governance best practices, among many others. Managers can use the analytics dashboard to keep track of cloud strategies and propose changes and suggestions to decision makers based on derived insights. **IT teams and admins:** IT admins use cloud cost management tools to optimize cloud infrastructure and ensure all resources are being used judiciously. Cloud admins can use the software to set up real-time monitoring, budget, notifications, and alerts. Administrators gain access and control the cost view over the company cloud through a web-based interface they can access from anywhere. **Cross-functional teams:** Cloud computing has become an integral part of enterprises across the globe. Several cross-functional teams such as engineering teams and application development and testing teams within an organization depend on cloud to ensure they create and release products with a much lower time to market. The heads of cross-functional teams within an organization can keep track of how spending on cloud resources to ensure they are well within the budget provided. **Cloud service providers:** Cloud service providers offer cloud cost optimization options. Having internal cost management options that are reliable, scalable, consistent, and available as required is a key benefit for several customers. Some of the biggest names in cloud platforms include AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Alibaba Cloud, IBM Cloud, and several others have their specific cloud spend management platforms such as Amazon CloudWatch, AWS Budgets, Azure Cost Management, Cost management by Google Cloud, among several others. Integrated cost management tools along with billing support are offered at no additional costs by these cloud giants. #### Software Related to Cloud Cost Management Tools [Cloud management platforms](https://www.g2.com/categories/cloud-management-platforms) **:** Cloud cost management forms a key part of cloud management platforms. A cloud management platform is a set of unified software tools which help companies monitor and control cloud computing resources. This software brings the administrative visibility and capability of cloud cost management solutions. [Infrastructure as a service (IaaS) providers](https://www.g2.com/categories/infrastructure-as-a-service-iaas) **:** Cloud cost management tools are typically paired with infrastructure as a service (IaaS) offerings to minimize the costs of a pay-as-you-go model. Companies also use a combination of these tools to increase the efficiency of their cloud service usage—these solutions often provide reporting features to outline waste and redundancies.  [SaaS spend management software](https://www.g2.com/categories/saas-spend-management) **:** Cloud cost management software has some overlap with SaaS spend management software, but the latter is used to monitor and manage spending on cloud applications rather than cloud infrastructure. ### Challenges with Cloud Cost Management Tools Cloud cost optimization solutions can come with their own set of challenges.  **Billing challenges:** Complexity in billing practices and not understanding what the customer bill contains is a key challenge. Without understanding the bill itself, optimizing costs is a difficult task since the customer cannot identify avenues for cost optimization. **Approach towards policies:** Each team would follow their respective budgets allocated and manage their cloud resources and cost. Having a cloud cost management tool could generate some backlash since costs by each team are being monitored, which could be quite tricky to manage. **Budget forecasting:** Cloud cost optimization is difficult when there are plans in the pipeline to add new products and services, handle unexpected business demand, or make any changes to software design. Forecasting is complex, and cloud spend management platforms must rapidly adjust to capacity or alerting users of sudden spikes in cost due to such scenarios. **Cloud sprawl:** One of the biggest challenges that companies face is that in the excitement of cloud computing technology, they end up moving entire databases and applications without a plan. This leads to cloud sprawl, wherein an organization does not have a complete view of all the cloud infrastructure. Organizations will end up managing several cloud instances, providers, services, and therefore are unable to view or maintain accountability for all cloud components. Even with cloud cost management software, organizations might not be able to understand and deploy the full use of this software due to cloud sprawl. **Lack of skilled resources:** Finding the right talent to invest, track, and optimize all cloud resources within an organization is tough. Identifying the type of skills required and finding the right fit is a huge challenge. ### How to Buy Cloud Cost Management Tools #### Requirements Gathering (RFI/RFP) for Cloud Cost Management Tools When researching cloud cost management platforms, the first and foremost step is to ask one question—what issues could potentially be solved using a cloud cost management tool? It is essential to understand cloud spend inefficiencies and identify the ones harming the buyer’s organization. Taking into consideration the reasons for cost inefficiencies is critical. Some of the key reasons that cause companies to rack up huge cloud bills are:  **Poor resource management caused by oversizing:** Companies usually end up spending a lot on acquiring resources but only utilize half of that at any point in time. A capacity that isn't needed is a part of the wasted cloud costs. Rightsizing ensures that costs are being optimized and the company is not facing copious amounts in bills. **Software inefficiency:** Since several different teams would be using the cloud resources within the company, it becomes quite difficult to keep track of the cloud storage costs. Failure to measure software efficiency or not having set targets can lead to an increase in the wastage of cloud computing resources. **Forecast issues:** As discussed earlier, scaling is a key feature of cloud computing. However, when companies fail to forecast their needs (which is a difficult task) such as developing new services or changing existing ones, it could rack up unintentional costs since the company would be over or underprepared for the additional needs. **Architectural design:** With the hype around moving to cloud, several companies are moving to cloud just to enter the hype; realizing later that it is much more expensive than anticipated. Workloads might not be suitable for some specific cloud environments or not supported, additional licensing might be required, governance issues might crop up, and a host of other problems that would only drive costs further up. Once a company has identified the issues and cost inefficiencies, it becomes much easier for the customer to filter out and identify what type of cloud cost management they are looking for. If the buyer prefers having a single software solution owner, they could opt for a single cloud provider with inherent cloud cost optimization capabilities. However, if the buyer prefers a separate tool to manage various cloud environments like hybrid and multi-cloud environments, they could opt for another stand-alone solution altogether. Customers can use reviews here at G2.com as a guide to move forward with choosing the software. #### Compare Cloud Cost Management Tools Products **Create a long list** This step involves creating a long list of cloud cost management software providers that assist buyers in cost optimization plans. Some key factors to consider include automation, server instances tracking, billing methods, dashboard functionality, cost reduction, security support, data privacy, etc. In this step, it is important to note that many top cloud service providers provide cloud cost optimization as a part of their cloud offerings (on a subscription basis), hence it is important to evaluate whether the added functionality is sufficient or a stand-alone solution is required. **Create a short list** Once the long list of cloud cost management tools has been identified, it is time to remove software that does not meet all the business criteria. For this, it is important to fall back on the assessment made earlier on what is to be done before choosing a cloud spend management solution. Based on the assessment, buyers can further shorten their list and only choose those software vendors that meet all the business requirements. **Conduct demos** Once the list has been reduced to a couple of vendors, buyers may begin to request a demo. The demo will give them an idea of how the software will work once and help them assess all the various features the software has to offer. Having a demo on resources and applications is a good way to ensure the best fit. At this step, the buyer should ask several questions to the vendor about after-service support, staff training, and other additional features that can be provided. Understanding the dashboard and visualization of the cost parameters is essential during demos. #### Selection of Cloud Cost Management Tools **Choose a selection team** Choosing the right team to work together on choosing the software is a critical part of the process. This team will be in charge of identifying pain points to finally overseeing the entire implementation of the cloud management software. The team should include a mix of different personas who have the required skills, interest, and time. Some roles include cloud architects and cloud admins, IT admin and staff, department heads, and finance managers (for budget allocations).  **Negotiation** When choosing a cloud cost management tool, bringing in negotiation factors is very important especially on pricing. Since a buyer’s requirement for the cloud might change based on the types of workloads being run and applications being developed, buyers should ensure that the software accurately reflects the resources being utilized at that point in time and account for possible changes in the future. This is necessary to ensure that the customer is not being overcharged. Bringing such discussions to the negotiation table is key. In addition, it is important to negotiate possible additional costs that might come in for the remainder of the contract. **Final decision** Once all the steps are complete, the final decision is made weighing all factors and scenarios. Buyers can first try to run cloud cost management software with a smaller number of instances and monitor the cost savings and resources being optimized. Based on this feedback, it can be used for enterprise-wide cloud cost management.