AWS pricing is extremely granular, which is great in some ways, but it can mean that whilst things just sound like a few pennies here and a couple of pounds there, they actually all really add up. And it’s almost impossible for a non-technical person to know what they’re paying for and why – and if they really even need it.

Have you noticed your AWS costs going up lately?

If you’ve noticed a particular increase lately, there could be a number of reasons – alongside just the fact that everything on earth seems to be getting expensive. Sometimes an increase over time is just because you’ve accrued more storage, or have more old files backed up that you don’t really need any more – it makes sense to make and keep back ups but eventually you should get rid of the really old ones. There can also be times when you’ve held on to something that you might need, but it’s been so long now, that even if you did need it again it’d probably be so out of date – just because of how tech and servers move on – that it wouldn’t actually be any good and you’d need to rebuild it anyway.

Sometimes though it’s because of Extended Support charges. AWS have a thing where if your server is using old software, and really should be upgraded, it’ll let you stay on the old version for longer, but charge you an extended support fee. So if you’ve noticed “RDS Extended Support” appear on your invoices, ask your developer about it and seriously consider getting them to upgrade your database so that you’re not needing to pay that fee anymore. Yes it’ll take your developer time (and so cost you) for them to do it, but your site will be more secure and resilient, and your monthly costs will go down. It’s an easy thing to overlook but can pack a punch on your monthly invoice.

AWS account costs audit

We often get called on to assess AWS accounts for clients and whilst you can get software to do it automatically for you, really that only comes into play when you’ve got LOTS of developers all spinning up new services or servers constantly and it’s a constant growing beast. If you’ve just got a website or two, you just need a pragmatic developer who knows their way around AWS to look over the account and ask you a few questions. Obviously the developer who set things up is best placed to do that, because they’ll know what they did and why – but if they’re not available, then do drop us a line as we can take a look for you, tell you what’s what, and try to help you decide what you still need.