What is AWSCost used for?

AWSCost is a read-only AWS account scan with 33 checks that finds wasted spend on EC2, RDS, NAT gateways, load balancers and S3, priced in real dollars. It is a good fit for founders trimming an AWS bill and engineers auditing idle resources.

How much does AWSCost cost?

Paid plans for AWSCost start at $49 as a one-time payment, and there is no free plan.

Is AWSCost open source?

No. AWSCost is proprietary (closed-source) software and can't be self-hosted. In the CI/CD & DevOps category, open-source options include RunsOn, TaskCat and Ansible.

What are some alternatives to AWSCost?

AWSCost competes with Vantage, CloudZero and nOps.

AWSCost: features, pricing and alternatives

About AWSCost

AWSCost is a hosted service that scans an AWS account for wasted spend. You connect through a single read-only CloudFormation role, with no access keys to paste and no agent to install, and it runs 33 checks across every enabled region, pricing each finding at that region's current rate.

Findings cover resources such as EC2, RDS, NAT gateways, load balancers and S3. The site says 15 of its 33 checks have no AWS equivalent, for example unused interface VPC endpoints, Site-to-Site VPN connections with both tunnels down and log groups that keep data forever. The role can only perform Get, Describe and List actions, the stack can be deleted at any time, and the scan adds about $0.10 to the customer's own AWS bill.

The scan is free and shows the total monthly waste and the number of findings before any charge. A full report is priced between $49 and $149 depending on the size of your bill. It suits engineers and founders who want a quick cost review without enabling extra AWS tooling.

Key features

33 read-only checks for wasted AWS spend
One-click read-only CloudFormation role
Scans every enabled region
Findings priced at live regional rates
Checks with no native AWS equivalent
Total waste shown before payment

Good fit for

→Founders trimming an AWS bill
→Engineers auditing idle resources

Tags: aws; cost-optimization; finops; cloud-cost; devops; cloudformation

AWSCost: questions and answers

What is AWSCost used for?: AWSCost is a read-only AWS account scan with 33 checks that finds wasted spend on EC2, RDS, NAT gateways, load balancers and S3, priced in real dollars. It is a good fit for founders trimming an AWS bill and engineers auditing idle resources.
How much does AWSCost cost?: Paid plans for AWSCost start at $49 as a one-time payment, and there is no free plan.
Is AWSCost open source?: No. AWSCost is proprietary (closed-source) software and can't be self-hosted. In the CI/CD & DevOps category, open-source options include RunsOn, TaskCat and Ansible.
What are some alternatives to AWSCost?: AWSCost competes with Vantage, CloudZero and nOps.