Customer Overview
TechStart Inc. is a B2B SaaS company providing project management software to mid-market companies. Founded in 2019, they've grown to serve over 500 customers and process millions of API requests daily.
Like many fast-growing startups, TechStart's AWS infrastructure evolved organically. Engineers made decisions quickly to meet product demands, with cost optimization as an afterthought. By the time they hit $60,000 in monthly AWS spend, leadership knew they needed help.
The Challenge
Growing Pains
TechStart's infrastructure challenges were familiar to any scaling startup:
Development velocity over optimization: The engineering team prioritized shipping features over cost efficiency. "We'll optimize later" became a permanent state.
Limited visibility: Finance saw a monthly bill, but nobody understood what was driving costs. Attribution to specific features or teams was impossible.
Over-provisioned "just in case": After a minor outage caused by undersized instances, the team's default became oversizing everything. Better safe than sorry—but expensive.
Accumulating technical debt: Abandoned test environments, orphaned resources from failed experiments, and forgotten proof-of-concepts littered the account.
The Breaking Point
When monthly AWS spend crossed $60,000, the CFO started asking questions the engineering team couldn't answer:
- Why did costs increase 40% this quarter?
- Which customers are most expensive to serve?
- Are we getting value from this spend?
"We knew we were overspending, but we didn't have time to figure out where. Every engineer who looked at the bill got overwhelmed and went back to building features."
— VP of Engineering, TechStart Inc.
The Solution
Initial Assessment
TechStart started with our free waste scanner. In under an hour, we deployed the CloudFormation template and ran our 34-policy scan across their multi-account setup.
The results were eye-opening:
| Finding | Monthly Waste | Instances |
|---|---|---|
| Idle EC2 instances | $3,200 | 12 |
| Oversized RDS | $4,800 | 3 |
| Orphaned EBS volumes | $1,100 | 47 |
| Unattached Elastic IPs | $180 | 50 |
| Unused load balancers | $640 | 4 |
Total identified waste: $9,920/month ($119,000/year)
Implementation Roadmap
Not all savings can be captured immediately. We categorized findings by implementation effort:
Quick wins (Week 1):
- Release unattached Elastic IPs
- Delete orphaned EBS volumes after backup
- Terminate confirmed idle instances
Medium effort (Week 2-3):
- Rightsize oversized RDS instances
- Consolidate underutilized load balancers
- Implement Instance Scheduler for dev/test environments
Strategic (Ongoing):
- Reserved Instance and Savings Plan recommendations
- Architectural changes for cost-efficient scaling
Managed Billing Benefits
TechStart joined our Managed Billing program to get:
- Tier 1 support: Real engineers answering questions within 4 hours
- CloudBolt access: Continuous monitoring and anomaly detection
- Monthly optimization reviews: Regular check-ins to identify new savings
The monthly contract meant they could try it risk-free. No multi-year commitment, no lock-in.
The Results
Quantified Savings
Within 90 days, TechStart achieved:
| Metric | Before | After | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly AWS spend | $60,000 | $36,000 | -40% |
| Identified waste | $9,920/mo | < $500/mo | -95% |
| Cost visibility | None | Full attribution | Transformed |
| RI/SP coverage | 15% | 65% | +50 pts |
Annual savings: $288,000 in AWS costs
Net savings after Sentasity: $264,000 (accounting for any program costs)
Beyond Cost Reduction
The savings were significant, but the organizational changes were equally valuable:
Engineering empowerment: Teams now see their costs in real-time dashboards. Cost became part of the engineering culture, not just a finance concern.
Faster incident response: With proper tagging and visibility, troubleshooting became faster. When something spiked, they knew immediately what changed.
Better forecasting: Finance can now predict AWS costs with 90% accuracy, enabling better budgeting and planning.
Reduced operational overhead: Automated cleanup policies and scheduled actions reduced manual maintenance work.
Performance Validation
A common concern with cost optimization is performance impact. TechStart monitored closely:
- P99 latency: No change
- Error rates: No increase
- Customer complaints: Zero related to infrastructure
The rightsizing recommendations were conservative, and we validated every change in staging before production deployment.
Customer Perspective
"What impressed me most was the transparency. Sentasity showed us exactly how they make money—they're motivated to keep us as a long-term customer, not lock us into contracts. When they found savings, we captured 100% of them. When they recommended Reserved Instances, we saved money and they earned their margin from AWS. Everyone's incentives align."
— CFO, TechStart Inc.
"The technical depth of their team was a surprise. I expected cost optimization to be a finance exercise. Instead, we got genuine engineering insights that improved our architecture beyond just cost savings."
— VP of Engineering, TechStart Inc.
Key Success Factors
Looking back, several factors contributed to TechStart's success:
- Executive sponsorship: The CFO championed the initiative and held teams accountable
- Engineering buy-in: Developers understood the "why" and contributed to solutions
- Quick wins first: Early savings built momentum and credibility
- Systematic approach: Not just one-time cleanup, but ongoing processes
- Right tool, right time: The scanner provided immediate visibility; managed billing enabled long-term optimization
Lessons Learned
What Worked
- Starting with low-risk, high-impact changes
- Implementing tagging before cost allocation
- Using automation for recurring cleanup tasks
- Regular optimization review meetings
What They'd Do Differently
- Start cost optimization earlier (before hitting $60k/month)
- Install CloudWatch Agent for memory metrics from day one
- Build cost awareness into engineering culture sooner
Ready for Similar Results?
Every AWS environment has hidden optimization opportunities. The question is how much and where.
Start your free scan to discover your potential savings—typically 20-40% for organizations like TechStart. No commitment required, just valuable insights.
