Cloud Cost Efficiency: Advancing Through the FinOps Maturity Model with These Proven Steps

Many enterprises struggle to control cloud spending, despite having multiple tools and frameworks in place. The FinOps Maturity Model offers a structured approach, guiding organizations from basic cost awareness to advanced financial management. In this blog, we'll explore the FinOps Maturity Model in depth and discuss how customers can best navigate each stage.

Many businesses struggle to control cloud costs, even with multiple tools and frameworks. The FinOps Maturity Model provides a clear path—from basic cost awareness to advanced financial management. If your organization has hit limitations with native or homegrown tools, understanding this model can help you implement a scalable, data-driven approach to cloud cost management.

What is the FinOps Maturity Model?

The FinOps Maturity Model is a framework that enables organizations to progressively refine their cloud cost management strategies. It moves businesses through distinct levels of financial operations, helping them improve visibility, control and optimization of cloud expenditures.

Each stage represents a different level of FinOps capability, from recognizing cloud costs to implementing FinOps as a Service with full automation and strategic cost alignment.

Each stage in the FinOps Maturity Model represents a different level of maturity, capability and sophistication in managing cloud costs, helping organizations identify where they currently stand and what steps are needed to advance their FinOps practices.

The journey through this model begins with recognizing the substantial costs associated with cloud services and establishing basic financial practices. As organizations progress, they develop more structured and sophisticated approaches, ultimately achieving a state of proactive, data-driven financial management. Let's explore each stage in detail.

From crawl, walk to run: The stages of the FinOps maturity model

Crawl

In the "Crawl" phase, organizations are just beginning to recognize the substantial costs associated with cloud services and establish basic FinOps practices. This stage is characterized by limited visibility into actual spending and its drivers, with an initial awareness of the need for cost management. These are typical Crawl stages:

Cloud is Expensive (Initial Awareness)

At this stage, organizations recognize that cloud costs are significant but lack structured processes to manage them effectively.

Common challenges:

• No clear understanding of where costs originate
• Lack of accountability for cloud spending
• Initial frustration with escalating cloud expenses

💡 Next Steps: Start tracking costs at a high level and establish a culture of cost awareness.

Basic Cost Management

Organizations introduce cost tracking and reporting mechanisms to gain visibility into cloud expenses.

Key activities:

• Implementing basic financial controls
• Setting up cost allocation methods
• Generating manual reports on cloud usage

💡 Next Steps: Move beyond reactive cost tracking by adopting BYOL (Bring Your Own License) strategies and leveraging third-party tools like USU’s cloud cost management platform.

Walk

As organizations progress to the "Walk" stage, they implement more structured FinOps processes. This stage involves gaining better visibility into cloud spending, setting up more advanced financial controls, and implementing structured cost optimization strategies. See typical Walk stages:

Commitment-Based Cost Optimization

This stage involves implementing structured processes for cost reduction, including:

• Reserved instances and savings plans to reduce compute costs
• Rightsizing workloads to avoid overprovisioning
• Establishing an approval process for resource scaling

💡 Next Steps: Adopt FinOps as a Service to streamline commitment-based savings and ensure ongoing cost efficiency.

Cost Allocation & Showback

Enterprises at this level use automation and governance frameworks to allocate costs effectively across teams and departments.

Key features:

• Automated chargeback/showback mechanisms
• Tagging strategies for accurate cost distribution
• Financial accountability assigned to business units

💡 Next Steps: Leverage FinOps consulting to ensure best practices in cost allocation and compliance.

Run

In the "Run" stage, organizations achieve a high level of maturity in their FinOps practices. This stage is characterized by proactive, data-driven financial management, advanced cost optimization techniques and automated financial management practices. Please find typical stages during the Run phase:

Advanced Cost Optimization

Organizations achieve a proactive approach to cloud cost management by leveraging real-time data.

Key strategies:

• Dynamic auto-scaling to match demand fluctuations
• Using spot instances for non-critical workloads
• Continuous monitoring to detect anomalies and prevent overspending

💡 Next Steps: Automate cost optimization with AI-driven tools, ensuring continuous savings.

Advanced FinOps Practices & Automation

At this stage, FinOps is fully integrated into the organization’s business strategy.

Key characteristics:

• End-to-end automation of cloud cost governance
• Predictive analytics for cost forecasting
• Cross-functional collaboration between finance, IT and business leaders

💡 Next Steps: Transition to fully automated cloud cost management, supported by USU’s FinOps consulting expertise.

Cloud Unit Economics & Cost per Customer

The highest level of FinOps maturity focuses on understanding cloud unit economics, such as cost per customer or per transaction.

Key benefits:

• Clear insight into profitability at a granular level
• Ability to benchmark cloud costs against industry standards
• Enhanced decision-making for pricing models and financial forecasting

💡 Next Steps: Optimize cloud investments to align spending with business objectives, ensuring long-term financial efficiency.

Conclusion

Most enterprises struggle with FinOps adoption due to complex cloud environments and limitations of native tools. USU provides a comprehensive FinOps tool and Enterprise Support to serve businesses advance through the FinOps Maturity Model efficiently.

🔹 Tailored FinOps Strategies – Align FinOps practices with your business goals
🔹 Automation & AI-Driven Insights – Reduce manual effort and improve cost optimization, driven by indepth reporting
🔹 BYOL Support & Cloud Cost Management – Optimize licensing and reduce unnecessary expenses
🔹 Continuous Improvement – Evolve from cost tracking to full FinOps as a Service

Is your organization ready to take the next step in FinOps maturity? USU can guide you through the transformation with industry-leading solutions and FinOps-certified expertise.

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Mission: FinOps - Showcasing our own FinOps use case

In this webinar, we share our own FinOps journey: why we needed a FinOps tool, how we chose the right solution, and the results we see today. When: May 15, 2025, 1:00 pm EDT

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