9 Best Cloud Cost Management Tools

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With over 30% of cloud budgets at risk of wastage, choosing the right cloud cost management tools is important for your business to navigate the cloud complexities.

Without reliable CCM tools, you will fail to understand your business’s resource usage and associated costs. Traditional cloud cost management methods are often unreliable because they have many limitations. This is where cloud cost management tools come into the picture.

But why is managing your business’s cloud spending so necessary? What are the best cloud cost management tools to complete the process?

This article will discuss the 9 best cloud cost management tools to help optimize cloud costs.

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What is Cloud Cost Management?

Cloud cost management helps your business understand and optimize the expenses related to cloud technologies. The primary objective of cloud cost management is to find more cost-effective ways to use the cloud.

As cloud infrastructure has become more complicated, cloud expenses have become difficult to manage, track, and predict.

Many cloud providers use a pay-as-you-go pricing strategy, ultimately worsening the problem. This is because expenses can fluctuate greatly depending on the actual resources.

Monitoring and maintaining cloud usage is of utmost importance. However, your business may face challenges in achieving this. With a cloud cost optimization strategy, you can craft a shared responsibility and budgeting framework.

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What are Cloud Cost Management Tools?

Cloud cost management tools (CCM tools) are specific software designed to control and monitor computing services and resources. They are one of the most important aspects of your business’s cloud infrastructure. Everyone, from IT professionals to administrators, uses CCM tools.

A Cloud cost management solution provides various features, including cost management, compliance, performance monitoring, security, automation, and more.

Cloud cost management tools can streamline numerous aspects of your business. They can help your finops teams monitor costs, streamline budgets, and optimize your cloud resources. Whether you own a small or large business, these tools will help you execute a cloud strategy successfully.

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5 Reasons Why We Need CCM Tools

As your business uses cloud services, you must manage rising costs. Overspending has been a big problem, and you want to ensure you’re saving money.

To optimize your cloud costs, you need to invest in excellent cloud cost management tools. Let’s take a look at the benefits of CCM tools:

You can save money: Cloud bills can pile up quickly without proper monitoring. Cost management tools review your cloud usage and uncover areas for optimization.

This could include identifying unused resources that are silently draining your budget. When you pinpoint these hidden cost drivers, you can reduce unnecessary spending and maximize the ROI from your cloud investment.

Enhanced visibility on cloud expenses: Cloud services are often extensive. This is why it’s difficult to know where your cloud investments are going. Thanks to an intuitive dashboard, CCM tools can provide clear and granular insights into your cloud spending.

These tools can break down costs by department, project, or service, giving you a comprehensive understanding of your cloud expenditures.

You can identify and manage idle resources: Imagine paying for a service you never use. Cloud resources can fall into the same trap. You might be unknowingly paying for resources that aren't being fully utilized.

These tools will help you monitor your cloud usage thoroughly. This way, you can know if you’re investing in cloud software that you’re not using.

Boost productivity through resource management: CCM tools can identify underutilized resources, resulting in better performance across your cloud-based applications.

Freeing up underutilized resources will help you allocate them to more critical tasks. This will ultimately enhance overall team productivity and ensure the efficiency of your cloud environment.

Robust cloud security: Cost management tools can strengthen your business’s cloud security. It provides detailed insights into your cloud resource usage.

Moreover, cloud cost management tools can help you comply with industry regulations by ensuring your cloud environment meets specific data security standards.

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9 Best Cloud Cost Management Tools

Now that you know what cloud cost management tools are and their benefits, it’s time to highlight the best tools in the market.

Remember that each tool comes with unique advantages and drawbacks. Read this article to the end to learn more.

1. CloudEagle

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CloudEagle is a SaaS management and procurement platform that helps teams save significantly on software expenses. It can integrate with your Cloud resources and provide complete visibility into their usage, spend, licenses, renewals, and vendor data.

You can use the insights to optimize your cloud expenses through effective vendor negotiations during renewal. It organizes all spending data in one dashboard, and finance integrations enable the platform to analyze your spending patterns and provide necessary cost optimization recommendations to optimize your cloud costs.

This platform can help your business’s procurement, IT, and finance teams streamline the overall SaaS purchasing and renewal processes.

With CloudEagle, your organization can effectively manage multi-cloud environments and align cloud budgets with their goals.

Tackling the Hidden Costs: CloudEagle integrates seamlessly with your cloud infrastructure, providing a clear view of your entire cloud spend. No more piecing together data from multiple sources.

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It consolidates everything into an intuitive dashboard, revealing every cost driver with pinpoint accuracy. It can identify duplicate, redundant apps and eliminate them, saving your business significant money on its cloud costs.

License Management: Stop wasting money on unused licenses. CloudEagle identifies inactive or underutilized licenses with pinpoint accuracy. Its end-to-end license management allows you to reclaim wasted spend and optimize your cloud subscriptions. You'll only pay for what you truly need.

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CloudEagle has license reclamation workflows to automate the license harvesting process to save on cloud costs.

Renewal Management: Stay ahead of the curve and eliminate the stress of missed renewals. CloudEagle automatically tracks all your upcoming cloud service and license renewals.

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It sends timely alerts and provides real-time cost comparisons from different vendors. This ensures you get the best possible deals when it's time to renew.

Contract Management: CloudEagle eliminates the risk of lost or forgotten agreements. It stores all your cloud contracts in a secure, central location that is readily accessible anytime. This way, you can know your contracts' actual terms and conditions, avoiding costly surprises.

Actionable Cost Optimization: CloudEagle isn't just about providing a clear view. It analyzes your cloud usage patterns and recommends concrete steps to optimize costs.

Rightsize your instances, identify and eliminate idle resources, and leverage an intelligent optimization engine to uncover and eliminate hidden waste within your cloud infrastructure.

Pros

• CloudEagle integrates SaaS management with expert negotiation, providing a one-stop shop for optimizing your cloud spend.
• As we have a team of expert negotiators, we will ensure you get the best deal from your SaaS spend.
• CloudEagle automates many of the tedious tasks associated with cloud cost management.
• CloudEagle ensures your cloud spending adheres to your organization's predefined policies.

Pricing

Now, let’s talk about the pricing structure. Unlike many other cloud cost management tools, CloudEagle has three transparent pricing plans.

• Starter: Starting at $2000/month
• Growth: Starting at $3000/month
• Enterprise: Starting at $4000/month

The final cost of each pricing plan will depend on the employee bucket size. For more detailed information, we recommend visiting CloudEagle’s pricing page.

2. Azure Cost Management + Billing

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Microsoft Azure Cost Management will help you manage your cloud finances on the Azure platform. It acts as a financial analysis tool, providing insights into spending patterns, cost trends, and areas for optimization.

You can use it to analyze your Azure expenditures, set budgets, and receive alerts for potential overruns. This will ultimately help you make informed decisions to reduce unnecessary spending.

Meanwhile, Azure Billing is the primary location for all your billing activities. It allows you to manage your Azure subscriptions and billing profiles, understand and pay your invoices, and track spending across different subscriptions.

Pros

• You will have a complete view of your Azure spending across all subscriptions and resources.
• It Integrates with Azure Advisor to offer recommendations for cost savings.
• Set budgets and receive alerts when costs exceed thresholds. This proactive approach helps you stay on top of your spending.
• You can allocate costs to specific departments, projects, or teams for better accountability and cost tracking.

Cons

• Advanced features require some technical expertise.
• It may not be ideal for managing expenses across multiple cloud providers.
• While the core service is free, some advanced features require additional fees.

3. Densify

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Densify can help your business maximize its cloud resources by automatically finding the perfect balance between performance and cost. It uses machine learning and advanced analytics to understand how your applications use resources. After that, it recommends the best setup and configuration.

Regarded as one of the best cloud cost management tools, it integrates with your existing deployment process. Hence, it can automatically choose the right type and size of cloud resources for your applications.

Densify can also analyze how your automatic scaling groups (ASGs) work and recommend ways to improve them. This can help ensure that your scaling groups are truly elastic and can handle changes in demand efficiently.

Pros

• Uses machine learning to analyze workload patterns and suggest optimal resource allocation.
• Suggests optimal configurations for cloud resources to avoid overprovisioning.
• Offers granular visibility into resource utilization across your cloud environment.
• Integrates with multiple cloud platforms for broader cost management.

Cons

• Free version only has basic features.
• Setting up and configuring Densify can be complex. You also need to have technical knowledge.
• Densify is primarily focused on cost optimization. Thus, it lacks broader cost management features.

Pricing

Here’s the pricing structure of Densify:

• Up to 1999 Licenses: $40,000/year
• 2000-3999 Licenses: $67,490/year
• 4000-5999 Instances: $104,990/year

4. Apptio Cloudability

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This cloud cost management platform facilitates comprehensive monitoring and analysis of AWS usage data, enabling your business to identify and capitalize on significant cost-saving opportunities.

Through in-depth insights, Cloudability provides a clear understanding of current AWS expenditures, allowing for the identification of usage patterns and potential inefficiencies that contribute to overspending.

Furthermore, Cloudability prioritizes proactive cost management through automated budget management alerts. These alerts function as early warning systems, notifying your business of spending anomalies that deviate from established baselines.

Pros

• Enables cost allocation to specific teams or projects for accountability.
• Simplifies cloud billing processes by consolidating invoices from different providers.
• Provides a comprehensive view of cloud costs across various categories.
• Offers sophisticated reporting and analytics tools for cost insights.

Cons

• Higher costs make Apptio a significant investment for smaller organizations.
• Some features will require training and expertise to fully utilize.
• If you need certain cloud environments, you need to implement further customization.

Pricing

Contact Apptio Cloudability to know more about their pricing plan.

5. AWS CloudWatch

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AWS CloudWatch is a monitoring and management platform that provides a complete picture of everything from AWS to on-premises apps.

It collects logs, performance data (metrics), and other operational details in one place, making it easier to manage everything without getting lost in separate tools. CloudWatch can even automate tasks and trigger alerts based on pre-set limits.

Think of CloudWatch as a one-stop shop for monitoring everything—applications, infrastructure, networks, the whole works. If something goes wrong, CloudWatch can analyze logs, metrics, and user activity to help you pinpoint the problem quickly, minimizing downtime.

CloudWatch also offers fancy dashboards that turn your data into easy-to-read charts and graphs. This makes CloudWatch one of the most famous cloud cost management tools. You can see everything in real-time, and CloudWatch can even store this data for up to 15 months.

Pros

• AWS offers user-friendly access to a platform designed for rapid and secure usage. Users can modify their data at their convenience from any location.
• More cost-effective than some other cloud cost management tools in the market
• AWS exhibits scalability through its AWS Auto Scaling service, which automatically adjusts resource capacity based on demand, ensuring continuous availability of applications.
• It integrates seamlessly with other AWS services, facilitating centralized monitoring and managing entire AWS infrastructures.

Cons

• The interface is super complicated. You will need to hire professionals to work on cloud infrastructure.
• Mastering advanced features and optimizing CloudWatch for specific use cases is hard.
• CloudWatch lacks advanced analytics capabilities for in-depth cost analysis and optimization

Pricing

While AWS CloudWatch provides a free tier, you must visit their pricing page for more detailed information.

6. nOPS io

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nOps is a one-stop shop for managing cloud costs across different providers. This one of the best cloud cost management tools provides in-depth cost analysis, budgeting tools, and detailed reports.

With nOps, you can finally take charge of your business’s cloud finances. You will know where to save, making more informed decisions to optimize your cloud spending strategy.

Plus, nOps helps you stay on top of your budget. Set spending limits and get alerts when you're getting close, so there are no surprises on your next bill. nOps helps you take charge of your cloud spending and get the most out of your cloud investment.

Pros

• If your business uses a multi-cloud strategy, nOPS io can prove highly beneficial
• It can provide specific recommendations for optimizing your cloud spending
• Potentially assist you in creating more accurate cloud budget forecasts.
• nOPS io provides vendor-agnostic recommendations, so you can be confident the tool is focused on optimizing your cloud spending overall

Cons

• The accuracy and effectiveness of nOPS io's cost optimization recommendations will depend on the data quality.
• If nOPS becomes central to your cloud cost management strategy, there's a risk of vendor lock-in
• Setting up and configuring a new cloud cost management tool can add complexity to your existing cloud environment

Pricing

nOPS io provides four different pricing plans, including a free one. Visit their pricing page for more information.

7. Spot by NetApp

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Coming in seventh on our list is Spot by NetApp. If your business runs workloads on the cloud, this cloud cost management tool will help you optimize costs effectively. This platform leverages a combination of advanced strategies for significant cost savings.

Spot by NetApp leverages its mastery of spot instances to deliver unmatched cost optimization. Spot instances represent surplus cloud computing capacity offered by providers at highly competitive rates.

Spot by NetApp strategically identifies and allocates these resources to your workloads, maximizing cost efficiency.

Furthermore, Spot by NetApp incorporates intelligent workload placement algorithms. These algorithms meticulously analyze your workload requirements, ensuring optimal resource selection for peak performance at minimal cost.

Pros

• Spot by NetApp helps you save money on cloud computing by automating the use of discounted resources
• This tool helps you understand your costs in detail. It lets you organize your spending into categories and then highlight the costs
• This tool constantly tracks how busy your workloads are and suggests ways to fine-tune how much computing power each container and overall workload needs
• Spot by NetApp focuses on shutting down nodes that aren't being used much

Cons

• Integrating Spot by NetApp will require additional effort
• It cannot comprehensively manage other cloud resources across multiple providers
• NetApp is known for enterprise-grade storage solutions, and Spot by NetApp might have a steeper learning curve

Pricing

Spot by NetApp has three pricing plans. Visit their pricing page and choose a suitable plan that fits your needs.

8. Harness

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Harness takes cloud cost management to the next level by offering an AI-powered centralized platform. This tool analyzes cloud usage patterns in real-time, identifying areas for optimization and delivering actionable recommendations.

Thanks to Harness, your business can comprehensively understand cloud spending. This will allow you to allocate resources effectively and avoid unnecessary expenses.

The platform boasts advanced analytics and reporting features to focus on your cloud spending habits. Harness also allows you to make data-driven choices that optimize your cloud spend.

Based on its analysis of your usage patterns, Harness delivers immediate recommendations for adjusting your cloud resources. These insights can help your business to make informed decisions and achieve significant cost savings without sacrificing performance.

Pros

• integrates seamlessly with your existing development process and provides powerful analytics to give you clear visibility.
• You can see exactly what is being used, what is sitting idle, and what is not assigned to any workload.
• This platform gives your team a clear picture of how their resources are used across all the public cloud providers you work with.
• Unlike some tools, Harness automatically tracks costs for your apps, services, and environments.

Cons

• Information about a free tier or trial for Harness CCM is difficult to find.
• If you’re unfamiliar with CCM tools, Harness is complicated.
• More expensive than some other cloud cost management tools.

Pricing

If you’re eager to use Harness, contact the sales today.

9. Flexera

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If managing software licenses and optimizing costs are top priorities for your organization, then Flexera is a powerful solution to consider. It provides in-depth insights to help you make informed decisions about software licenses, renewals, and spending. This translates to better governance and control over your software assets.

Flexera simplifies license tracking, ensures compliance, and streamlines software renewal processes. It's a comprehensive tool to help businesses optimize their software investments.

Moreover, it offers a complete suite of IT asset management features, giving you visibility into your IT spending.

The platform seamlessly integrates with major cloud providers like AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud. This way, you can manage all your assets from a single location, regardless of the environment.

Pros

• Flexera excels at providing a unified view of costs across various cloud providers (AWS, Azure, GCP, etc.)
• Flexera fosters collaboration between cloud teams and your business units to optimize spending
• Flexera leverages machine learning to analyze resource utilization and recommend rightsizing options
• Flexera simplifies the management of RIs, helping users identify underutilized instances

Cons

• For organizations with very simple cloud environments, Flexera's advanced features might be overkill
• Flexera's pricing structure can be complex, with costs potentially scaling based on features and cloud resource consumption
• The platform's extensive functionality can present a steeper learning curve for users

Pricing

Contact their team for thorough pricing and purchase information.

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Conclusion

The cloud offers many benefits, but controlling your cloud spending can be challenging. This is where cloud cost management tools come in.

As you’ve seen, these tools can help your business gain valuable insights into their cloud expenditures, identify areas for optimization, and ultimately reduce costs.

This guide explored nine of the most powerful CCM tools available, each offering unique features and functionalities.

Are you looking for the best cloud cost management tool to optimize cloud expenses? Book a demo with the experts at CloudEagle today.

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