Key points
- Flexera's 2026 State of the Cloud report estimates 29% of IaaS and PaaS spend is wasted, a self-reported figure and the first increase in five years.
- The calculator multiplies your spend by a waste share and a recovery rate. Both are assumptions you control.
- Treat the result as a conversation starter, then measure your real waste with a scan of your own accounts.
Estimate your cloud waste
Total across AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, OCI and Kubernetes, before tax.
Defaults to the 29% estimate from Flexera's 2026 State of the Cloud report. It is a self-reported industry figure, so replace it with your own estimate if you have one.
Your assumption, not a benchmark. Recovery depends on ownership, risk appetite and how much work you put in. The scenarios below show 10%, 25% and 50%.
Include licences and the engineering time to act on findings. Leave at 0 to see gross savings.
Your estimate
- Estimated waste per month
- $14,500
- Estimated waste per year
- $174,000
- Recoverable savings per year
- $43,500
An illustration built from your inputs, not a forecast or a guarantee. Run a scan on your own accounts for a real number.
Scenarios at 29% waste
| Scenario | Recovered | Savings per year |
|---|---|---|
| Cautious | 10% of waste | $17,400 |
| Typical | 25% of waste | $43,500 |
| Ambitious | 50% of waste | $87,000 |
How the estimate works
The arithmetic is deliberately simple: monthly waste is your spend multiplied by the waste share, annual waste is that figure times twelve, and recoverable savings are annual waste multiplied by the share you expect to recover. If you enter an annual tooling and effort cost, the calculator subtracts it to give a net figure and a payback period.
The default waste share comes from Flexera's 2026 State of the Cloud report, which estimates that 29% of IaaS and PaaS spend is wasted. Flexera attributes the rise to the added complexity of AI workloads and newer services. It is survey data, so your own number could be lower or higher. The recovery share is not a benchmark at all: it is the one input that depends most on your team, so we show three scenarios rather than a single claim.
Recovering the savings
Waste is only worth something once it is removed. A sensible order:
- Remove idle and orphaned resources: unattached volumes, idle load balancers, unused IPs. See the AWS cost optimization checklist.
- Schedule non-production and shut down idle AI and GPU capacity. See idle GPU cost.
- Rightsize over-provisioned compute and databases, testing first.
- Commit last to the steady baseline that remains. See Savings Plans vs Reserved Instances vs Spot.
For a 30-day plan, read where cloud waste hides, and for the metrics to track, see FinOps KPIs. Unfamiliar terms are defined in the FinOps glossary.
Frequently asked questions
How much cloud spend is wasted?
Flexera's 2026 State of the Cloud report estimates that 29% of IaaS and PaaS spend is wasted, up from 27% in 2025 and the first increase in five years. It is a self-reported estimate from survey respondents, so use it as a starting benchmark and replace it with your own number once you have measured it.
How accurate is this calculator?
It is an illustration, not a prediction. It multiplies your spend by an assumed waste share and an assumed recovery rate. The result is only as good as those assumptions, which is why both are adjustable and why a scan of your real accounts gives a better answer.
What share of cloud waste can realistically be recovered?
There is no universal figure. Quick wins such as unattached volumes, idle resources and non-production schedules are low risk, while rightsizing and architecture changes take longer. The scenarios on this page show 10%, 25% and 50% so you can see how sensitive the result is.
How can I measure my actual cloud waste?
Group cost by service and account, then look for idle and orphaned resources, oversized instances, unused commitments and always-on non-production environments. A platform with continuous detectors, such as Varcio, produces a costed list of findings across AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, OCI and Kubernetes from your first scan.
Sources
- Flexera 2026 State of the Cloud findings — Flexera, 2026
- State of FinOps 2026 — FinOps Foundation, 2026
Provider pricing and discount figures were checked against the linked documentation on 7 October 2026. Providers change pricing and programs regularly; confirm current terms before making purchasing decisions.