Here are five practical steps to avoid writing that big check to your cloud provider at the end of the commitment year:

1. Monitor Your Commitments Closely

Stay proactive—track your cloud usage regularly. Waiting for a surprise invoice limits your options. Early awareness is your best defense.

2. Alert Your Teams to Potential Risks

Spotted excess capacity? Notify your teams immediately and have them review your forecasts. A quick double-check can uncover hidden spend or upcoming projects you might’ve missed.

3. Keep Optimizing Costs

Don’t pause your cost optimization efforts. Options like workload adjustments, rightsizing instances, or shifting to spot instances can help reduce cloud spend. There are always options for dealing with a shortfall.

4. Lean on Your Cloud Account Manager

Reach out to your provider’s account manager for support. They know your account and can suggest creative solutions—like prepaying for storage or other services—to offset unused commitments.

5. Explore Contract Renegotiation

Renegotiating your contract might extend its term, but it’s a viable last resort. We’ve seen clients turn potential losses into long-term savings with this approach.

Every enterprise uses the cloud differently, and each situation offers unique opportunities to solve commitment challenges. Take one enterprise we helped: facing an $800,000 shortfall, we set up a new private pricing agreement for their storage with a partial upfront payment, saving them from a costly surprise and reducing their overall storage costs. That’s the power of expert guidance.