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Commitment Optimization begins with a readiness assessment — a structured review that establishes whether the conditions are right to start purchasing commitments and what those initial commitments should look like.

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When You’re Ready

Cloud Capital looks for three conditions before proposing the first commitment: 1. Financial and legal onboarding complete Compliance checks, credit assessment, and the legal agreement must be in place before any commitment is purchased. This is completed with your Cloud Capital account team — some Forecasting customers do this during their initial engagement; others complete it at this stage. If you’re unsure whether it’s done, ask your account team. For what’s involved, see Financial Onboarding. 2. Forecast established At least 3 months of AWS cost data should be available in Cloud Capital, and your Cost Layers should reflect your real business structure — Production vs Non-Production at minimum, with more granular separation where it matters. The forecast doesn’t need to be perfect, but it needs to be grounded in real data. 3. AWS technical setup complete The dedicated commitment account and Optimization IAM role must be deployed before Cloud Capital can execute purchases. See Commitment Purchasing Authorization for the setup steps.

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What Cloud Capital Assesses

Once the preconditions are met, Cloud Capital runs an initial assessment covering three areas:

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Current Commitment Posture

Are there any active Reserved Instances or Savings Plans in your AWS Organization already? If so, Cloud Capital reviews their terms, utilization, and expiry dates. Pre-existing commitments remain your financial responsibility until they expire, but their coverage is factored into the proposal so there is no double-up.

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Committable Spend

From your CUR data, Cloud Capital identifies the portion of your spend eligible for commitment discounts — primarily compute workloads (Compute Savings Plans) and database workloads (Database Savings Plans or Reserved Instances). This establishes the addressable pool of spend that commitments can cover.

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Forecast and Risk Appetite

Your forecast — built from Cost Layers, business metrics, and engineering initiatives — shapes how aggressively the initial commitment is sized. Your risk appetite, discussed during the setup meeting, determines the term mix: how much 1-year vs 3-year coverage to start with.

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The Initial Commitment Meeting

Cloud Capital schedules a setup meeting with your finance and engineering stakeholders to walk through:
  • The current spend baseline and committable spend analysis
  • The proposed first commitment step — instrument type, term, and size
  • The Guaranteed Savings Rate for the proposed commitment
  • Any questions about the ladder approach and review cadence going forward
Nothing is purchased at this meeting. The proposal is reviewed, adjusted if needed, and only executed with your explicit approval.

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After the First Purchase

The first commitment is purchased on your behalf through the dedicated commitment account in your AWS Organization — the first rung of a structured coverage ladder. From there, Cloud Capital moves to a weekly review cadence during which each subsequent ladder step is reviewed and approved before purchase. Coverage builds incrementally until your committable spend is fully optimized. See Commitment Proposal & Onboarding for the full ladder structure and review process, and Commitment Strategy for how each proposal is constructed.