Your cloud bill is too low, and that’s a problem

Over the years, we’ve been conditioned to celebrate every drop in cloud spending like a hard-won victory. If I am honest, I helped create that mindset as well. Think about it… Monthly reports boasting “cloud cost reduced by 17%!” are high-fived in boardrooms. But what if I told you that a low cloud bill isn’t necessarily a win?

In fact, it might be a warning sign. Time to rethink…

The high cost of a low bill

A Ferrari that never leaves the garage doesn’t cost much in fuel. But that doesn’t make it a smart investment (btw, a car never is, but that’s not the point). If your cloud bill is unusually low, you might be underutilizing one of the most powerful platforms in your digital arsenal. If you are not careful, it’s a bit like buying a commercial plane because you like the peanuts being served. And no, Chat GPT didn’t come up with that.

Low spend can mean: You’re not embracing cloud-native services that accelerate innovation. You’ve scared teams into austerity instead of enabling them to experiment. You’re prioritizing short-term savings over long-term agility. Your users are complaining because their machines are over utilized and/or not sized properly.

When “efficiency” becomes a trap

Efficiency is a siren song. But there’s a difference between trimming fat and cutting muscle (have you ever burnt muscle instead of carbs or fat while running? Something you want to avoid. I have, many times. And It stinks, really bad). If your cloud usage is laser-optimized to save every penny, ask yourself: what are you sacrificing? It is a fine line.

Often, excessive optimization kills flexibility, or creativity even. Teams stop spinning up new environments. Experiments die before they start. Failure becomes unaffordable— which means innovation does too. And it shouldn’t, in fact, you should have a price for the biggest failure of the year, or for the person who failed most often, etc. What I am trying to say is, people should be encouraged to experiment, not the other way around. Something I picked up during my time at Nerdio (the idea isn’t mine 😊).

Metrics that lie

Cloud cost reduction is not a strategy. It’s a tactic. And it often becomes a dangerous proxy for performance.

What if instead you measured: Feature velocity: How fast are new ideas going from code to customer? Recovery speed: How quickly can you bounce back from failure? Experimentation rate: How many tests are your teams running per quarter?

If those metrics are flatlining while your costs drop, you’re not winning. You’re just shrinking.

Spend is not the enemy, waste is

This isn’t a defense of recklessness. Cloud waste is real. But the solution isn’t to “just” spend less. It’s to spend smarter. Being too careful is a thing as well.

Double down on services that shorten development cycles, time to market, enhance employee productivity (AI anyone), resilience, and unlock new capabilities for your customers and/or workforce in general. Shift your budgeting mindset from “how little can we spend?” to “where can we invest for exponential impact?”

Signs you’re not spending enough

1. Your devs are waiting days for infrastructure.
2. Adoption slows down, your funnel isn’t growing, sales stats are status quo.
3. You’ve avoided cloud-native features because they “look expensive.”
4. You haven’t piloted anything new in months. There are no “failures” to be “claimed”.
5. Zero downtime, but also zero progress.

The bottom line

Your cloud bill isn’t a liability. It’s a mirror. It reflects your ambition, your risk appetite, your willingness to build, break, and evolve.

So next time you see a dip in spending, don’t just celebrate. Ask yourself: are we saving money, or are we wasting potential?

Let me know what you think or how I can help in the comments.