A recent analysis of 249 EC2 instances across three AWS accounts for a mid-market fintech company uncovered $256,000/year in potential savings. This isn't an isolated case; according to Flexera's 2024 State of the Cloud Report, 32% of cloud spend is wasted, with many companies unaware of overpaying. The most common culprits include oversized EC2 instances, unattached EBS volumes, old EBS snapshots, outdated EBS gp2 volumes, and idle RDS instances.

Oversized EC2 instances are prevalent, with 70-80% of instances oversized by at least one size class. This can be detected by checking average CPU utilization over the past 14 days and downsizing if usage is consistently low. Similarly, unattached EBS volumes and old EBS snapshots can be identified and removed, leading to significant cost reductions.

Migrating from EBS gp2 to gp3 volumes, which offer a 20% lower base cost and better performance, is another area for savings. Lastly, idle RDS instances, often found in development or staging environments, can be stopped or deleted if not in use. This analysis emphasizes the importance of regular cloud resource audits.

AWS users are encouraged to run these checks to identify potential savings and optimize their cloud spend. Automated tools like CloudPruneAI can help by scanning AWS accounts and generating Infrastructure as Code (CDK) to implement fixes, ensuring that waste doesn't accumulate over time.