Cloud Commitment Discounts and Rightsizing Playbook

Cloud savings usually comes from two levers:

• rightsizing and eliminating idle capacity
• commitment discounts for stable workloads

Teams get burned when they treat commitment discounts as a finance trick instead of an operating decision. This playbook installs beginner-safe decision rules so you can save money without locking yourself into the wrong commitments.

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What you will install

1. Rightsizing workflow and owner

2. Commitment discount strategy with coverage targets

3. Guardrails to avoid over-commitment

4. Quarterly review cadence (coverage, utilization, drift)

5. Evidence pack format Finance can trust

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Beginner-safe definitions

Rightsizing: adjusting resources to match actual demand.

Idle capacity: resources running with low utilization.

Commitment discount: reduced pricing in exchange for a commitment period or spend level.

Coverage: the portion of eligible spend that is covered by commitments.

Utilization: whether the committed capacity is actually being used.

Drift: changes in workloads that make prior commitments less useful.

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The right order of operations

Do this in order:

1. tagging and ownership (or you cannot sustain changes)
2. waste cleanup (remove obvious idle spend)
3. rightsizing (reduce overprovisioning)
4. commitment discounts (only for stable workloads)

Commit first is how teams get stuck.

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Step-by-step implementation

Step 1: Define stable workloads

A workload is stable when:

• it runs continuously
• demand is predictable
• it is unlikely to be retired in the next 3 to 6 months
• the owner team agrees it is stable

If you cannot name the owner team, it is not stable.

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Step 2: Set a coverage target

Beginner-safe coverage target:

• start in a range, not a single number
• example range: 40 to 60 percent of eligible compute

Do not ramp coverage until you can measure utilization and rollback risk.

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Step 3: Define the commitment decision record

Every commitment decision should be documented. This prevents repeat mistakes and creates audit evidence.

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Step 4: Establish a rightsizing cadence

Weekly (30 minutes):

• review top overprovisioned services
• downsize safely and incrementally
• track rollbacks and root causes

You want “small, frequent, safe changes,” not one big gamble.

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Step 5: Quarterly review and reset

Quarterly (60 minutes):

• commitment coverage and utilization
• forecast accuracy and drift
• workload retirements and new services
• decision to increase, hold, or reduce future commitments

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Templates

A) Commitment discount decision record (copy and paste)

Copyable template (TEXT)
Copy
Commitment Discount Decision Record

Quarter:
Owner team:
Eligible compute spend:
Coverage percent target:
Discount percent:
Commitment term:
Workloads covered:
Risk notes:
Evidence links (utilization, forecasts):
Decision (approve / defer / revise):
Approver:

B) Rightsizing backlog (copy and paste)

Copyable template (TEXT)
Copy
Rightsizing Backlog

Service:
Owner team:
Current size:
Observed utilization:
Proposed change:
Expected monthly savings:
Risk notes:
Rollback plan:
Status:

C) Quarterly FinOps review agenda (copy and paste)

Copyable template (TEXT)
Copy
Quarterly FinOps Review (60 minutes)

1) Coverage and utilization of commitments
2) Savings achieved vs expected
3) Rightsizing outcomes and rollback incidents
4) Drift and forecast accuracy
5) Workload retirements and new services
6) Decisions for next quarter commitments

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Common mistakes to avoid

• committing discounts before rightsizing
• using commitments to “hide” a cost problem
• ignoring utilization and drift
• no owner for shared services
• no quarterly reset

Savings only stay real if governance is real.