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Case Study · Energy & Utilities · AWS Cloud

Energy Company Cuts AWS EDP Spend by $3.1M — Without Reducing Cloud Usage

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✓ NO SAVE, NO PAY — 25% gainshare only

A major US energy company had committed to a 3-year AWS Enterprise Discount Program — and was still overpaying by $3.1M annually. The problem wasn't how much cloud they used. It was the structure of the commitment, the Reserved Instance coverage gaps, and the discount tiers AWS had built in their favour.

IndustryEnergy & Utilities
Annual AWS Spend$18.4M
Verified Savings$3.1M / year
Engagement Length11 weeks
Model25% gainshare
AWS EDP renegotiated — 17% annual cost reduction
$3.1M
Verified annual savings on AWS
17%
Reduction in annual AWS bill
11
Weeks from kickoff to signed amendment
$0
Upfront fee — 25% gainshare only
The Situation

AWS Designed the EDP to Benefit AWS — Not the Buyer

The client — a Fortune 1000 energy company with operations across 14 US states — had signed a 3-year AWS EDP in 2022. At the time, their AWS team celebrated the deal: they'd secured what they believed was a competitive tiered discount structure and a modest annual commitment growth ramp.

By early 2025, the picture looked different. AWS spend had grown faster than the committed amounts, pushing them into higher tiers — but AWS had structured the tier boundaries such that the incremental discount gains were minimal relative to spend growth. Meanwhile, Reserved Instance (RI) and Savings Plan coverage was sitting at 41%, meaning more than half of all compute spend was running at full on-demand rates.

The company's FinOps team had identified the coverage gap but lacked the vendor-side intelligence to know whether Amazon would renegotiate an active EDP, what levers were available mid-contract, and what a credible benchmark for their workload profile should look like. They reached out to NoSaveNoPay six months before their EDP renewal window.

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What We Found

Five Structural Overpayment Drivers

Our cloud cost forensic analysis identified five distinct areas where the client was systematically overpaying — each individually significant, collectively material.

⚠️
EDP tier structure misaligned with spend trajectory. The committed spend tiers were set at levels that maximised AWS's revenue recognition, not the client's discount capture. As spend grew into higher tiers, marginal discount rates barely moved — an intentional AWS pricing design. Our benchmarks showed comparable workloads at peer energy companies receiving 4-6% higher effective discounts.
⚠️
41% RI/Savings Plan coverage — industry standard is 70-80%. The client's FinOps team had been focused on immediate cost optimisation rather than systematic commitment coverage. With 59% of compute on on-demand pricing, the effective compute rate was running 28-35% above what it should be for a stable workload profile.
⚠️
Egress costs not included in EDP scope. The original EDP covered compute and storage but excluded data egress — a significant and growing cost centre as the company moved operational data between AWS regions and to on-premises SCADA systems. Egress charges were $740K in the prior year, all at rack rate.
⚠️
Support tier mispriced. The company held AWS Business Support at $1.1M annually. Our analysis showed they were systematically underusing the support benefits relative to the tier cost and qualified for Enterprise Support at a negotiated rate that would have been competitive with their current Business Support spend.
⚠️
Graviton migration credits unclaimed. AWS had an active incentive programme for customers migrating workloads to Graviton-based instances. The client had 14 candidate workloads. Zero Graviton migration credits had been requested or received.
Negotiation Timeline

11 Weeks from Analysis to Signed Amendment

Wk 1–2

Forensic Spend Analysis & Benchmark Development

We pulled 18 months of AWS Cost Explorer data, mapped spend by service, region, and account. We benchmarked effective discount rates against comparable energy sector EDP customers and developed a credible counter-position on tier structure and coverage commitments.

Wk 3–4

RI & Savings Plan Optimisation Modelling

We modelled the optimal Reserved Instance portfolio for the client's EC2 and RDS workloads, identifying $890K in immediate savings available through RI restructuring independent of any EDP amendment. This gave the client a no-regret action item and a credible commitment coverage argument for the EDP negotiation.

Wk 5–6

AWS Account Team Engagement — Initial Position

We engaged the AWS account team through the client's existing relationship structure but with a clearly changed dynamic. Armed with benchmark data and a specific counter-proposal covering tier restructuring, egress inclusion, and support repricing, the first meeting set a different tone from the usual renewal process.

Wk 7–9

Counter-Proposal & Escalation to AWS Deal Desk

AWS's initial response conceded on support repricing but held firm on EDP tier structure. We escalated through the client's AWS Executive Sponsor relationship to the AWS deal desk, presenting a competitive cloud cost analysis that included Azure and Google Cloud alternatives for three workload categories. This changed the conversation materially.

Wk 10–11

Final Terms Agreement & Amendment Execution

AWS agreed to restructure the EDP tier breakpoints, include egress within scope, reprice support, and provide Graviton migration credits. The total package represented $3.1M in annual savings — 17% of prior year AWS spend — verified against the client's Cost Explorer baseline.

Results Breakdown

$3.1M in Verified Annual Savings

Each savings element was independently verified against prior-period AWS billing data and contractually locked into the amended EDP terms.

$1.34M

EDP Tier Restructuring

Improved discount rates across all spend tiers by 4.2 percentage points on average, effective from contract amendment date.

$890K

RI & Savings Plan Coverage

Optimised RI portfolio from 41% to 74% coverage. Savings locked in through 1-year and 3-year Reserved Instance commitments.

$620K

Egress Inclusion in EDP

Data egress brought within EDP discount scope, eliminating rack-rate egress charges for inter-region and on-premises transfers.

$160K

Support Tier Repricing

Enterprise Support negotiated at a rate competitive with prior Business Support spend, with materially better SLAs and Technical Account Manager access.

$90K

Graviton Migration Credits

AWS agreed to fund migration credits for 14 candidate workloads across EC2 and Lambda, reducing migration cost and accelerating payback.

$3.1M

Total Annual Savings

17% reduction in annual AWS spend. Client retains 75% ($2.325M). NoSaveNoPay fee: 25% ($775K). Zero upfront cost.

"We'd been through two AWS EDP renewals internally and thought we were getting reasonable deals. What NoSaveNoPay showed us was that AWS had structured those deals very deliberately — and not in our favour. The forensic analysis was a revelation. The negotiation itself was conducted with complete professionalism and the results speak for themselves."
— VP of Infrastructure & Cloud, Major US Energy Company (name withheld per NDA)
Key Takeaways

What Every AWS EDP Customer Should Know

EDP Structure Matters More Than Headline Discount

Most AWS customers focus on the headline EDP discount percentage. The real value — and the real overpayment risk — sits in where the tier breakpoints are set, what services are in scope, and how ramp rates are structured. AWS has a systematic advantage in setting these parameters during initial negotiations.

Active EDPs Are Negotiable — AWS Won't Tell You That

AWS account teams will not proactively offer to renegotiate an active EDP, even if your spend has grown materially. The right to amend exists in almost every EDP contract — but exercising it requires independent benchmarks, a credible counter-position, and willingness to escalate past the account team to the deal desk.

RI/Savings Plan Coverage Is Structural, Not Optional

The 41% RI coverage this client had is not unusual — Gartner benchmarks suggest the average enterprise AWS customer runs at 45-55% coverage. Every percentage point of on-demand compute running at rack rate is a structural overpayment. Getting to 70-80% coverage is the single highest-ROI cloud optimisation action most enterprises can take.

Egress Is AWS's Hidden Revenue Line — Negotiate It In

Data egress charges are rarely included in EDP scope by default. AWS prices egress at rates that have not declined as compute costs have. For enterprises running hybrid architectures or multi-region deployments, egress can represent 5-10% of total AWS spend — all at rack rate if not explicitly brought into EDP scope.

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