Liaison Education
Higher education technology company. skie cut its AWS costs by $1.8M a year while keeping performance and scalability.
Read the Liaison Education case study →skie Sage
Your always-optimized cloud starts here
Sage combines FinOps automation and expert guidance to cut cloud costs by 25-50%, across AWS and Azure. It plans right-sizing and commitments together, because changing one changes the answer to the other.
Zero-risk model: pay only on achieved savings. Available through AWS Marketplace.
Why most tools fail
The connected intelligence difference
Most cloud optimization tools work in silos. Each recommendation looks sensible on its own, but disconnected decisions can actually increase costs or break critical systems.
Blind to commitments
A resize that fights your reservation
A tool tells you to right-size an instance without realizing you hold a 3-year reservation for the current type.
Blind to certification
A family switch that breaks SAP
Or it recommends switching instance families without checking whether your SAP HANA workload is certified for the new type.
Sage is different. We see the complete picture.
Recommendations become results
Who implements the recommendations?
Most tools hand you a list and wish you luck. The reason those lists sit untouched for months is rarely disagreement. Right-sizing an instance means stopping and starting it, and nobody wants to open a change window purely to save money. Sage removes that problem by attaching the change to a window you already run.
1
Sage recommends
A right-sizing run produces the proposed instance type change, with the resource, account and region attached.
2
An action is scheduled
The change becomes a tracked action, set to apply on your next OS patch. The downtime is already budgeted, so the resize costs nothing extra in risk or coordination.
3
Guardian executes it
skie Guardian carries out the change during the patch window, alongside the maintenance work you were doing anyway.
4
The outcome comes back
The result is written onto the recommendation, with timestamps and a status. Applied, pending and cancelled actions are counted, and failures stay visible rather than disappearing.
Automated implementation is available today for EC2, RDS and EBS. The estates it runs against include production SAP S/4HANA and HANA database instances.
Sage is one half of a pair.
The other is Guardian, which runs the estate day to day and applies these changes as part of that operation, which is why the recommendations on this page turn into results rather than backlog. See how Guardian operates the estate →
One solve, not three
Why optimize EC2, ECS and EKS together?
Savings Plans and Reserved Instances are shared across EC2, ECS and EKS. Optimize any one of them on its own and you get the other two wrong. Sage solves all three in one run, so the commitment plan reflects the footprint you will actually have after right-sizing rather than the one you have today.
What that looks like in a single optimization run
| What the run does | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Cuts right-sizing spend and raises commitment spend in the same plan | Right-sizing changes the shape of your usage, so the correct commitment position changes with it. Sometimes the cheapest total means buying more commitment, not less. A tool that treats the two separately cannot reach that answer. |
| Scales one node group up while emptying others | Consolidating workloads onto fewer, better matched node groups can mean growing one of them. The total falls even though a line item rises. |
| Flags Reserved Instances and Savings Plans as over-committed | Sage tells you when you are committed beyond the usage you can cover, reconciling every individual commitment against its measured monthly utilization. It is the opposite of the usual incentive to sell you more commitment. |
| Treats EKS as a fleet | Node groups are sized on nodes, cores and memory together, rather than one instance at a time, which is the only way the numbers come out right for Kubernetes. |
| Carries reservation coverage next to every proposal | A resize is never recommended without showing what the current instance is covered by. This is the disconnected-decision problem that raises costs when tools work in isolation. |
Beyond compute
Does this only cover compute?
No. Databases and storage are optimized the same way, and they carry their own commitment instruments rather than borrowing the compute model. A database run reaches across RDS, Aurora and DynamoDB in a single pass, weighing reserved instances and database savings plans against the sizing changes it is proposing at the same time.
Two measures
How do you know where you stand?
Two measures, and they answer different questions. One tells you how well sized your compute is. The other tells you how well covered that compute is, and what you are paying for and not using. Both are tracked continuously, so the answer is a number rather than an opinion.
Are the machines the right size?
Raw CPU percentages are misleading across a mixed fleet, because a busy small instance and an idle large one do not carry equal weight. Sage normalizes for that: every instance type is weighted by its relative compute capacity, then utilization is measured at the p90 to p99 range rather than the average, so short peaks are not hidden by long quiet periods. The result is one figure for the whole estate.
Is that compute actually covered?
Right-sizing changes what you need to cover, so coverage has to be read against the sized footprint rather than the original one. Alongside it, Sage tracks the commitments you are paying for and not using, and when your existing commitments expire.
The Sage Commitment Portfolio Engine
Turn complex cloud commitments into maximum savings
Before
Commitments bought one at a time
40%25%35%
- On-demand, no discount
- 1-year commitment, 30% off
- 3-year commitment, 50% off
25%blended discount, typical for self-managed
Sage weighs
Six signals, continuously
- Hourly usage patterns
- Spend forecast
- License implications
- Right-sizing headroom
- Standard or Convertible
- Term laddering
Rebalanced monthly
After
A layered commitment portfolio
| Instrument | Coverage | Discount |
|---|---|---|
| Standard RI + RI Volume Discount | 20% | 75% |
| Instance Savings Plans | 25% | 70% |
| Compute Savings Plans | 30% | 50% |
| Convertible RIs | 25% | 50% |
60%blended discount across a 3-year ladder
While others guess at commitments, Sage orchestrates a sophisticated portfolio strategy that achieves a 60% blended discount vs. the typical 25%.
Modelled example. The coverage split and discount depths shown are AWS list rates for a representative estate; your blended result depends on your own usage mix.
Four stages, repeated
How Sage builds your optimal commitment portfolio
1
Deep usage analysis
- Hourly usage patterns across all instances
- Workload migration opportunities (Graviton, modernization)
- Spot instance eligibility assessment
2
Commitment strategy design
- Instance family standardization recommendations
- Multi-year discount optimization
- Regional vs. global coverage decisions
3
Portfolio construction
- Layer commitments for maximum coverage
- Balance flexibility with discount depth
- Account for volume discounts and spreading options
4
Continuous optimization
- Monitor utilization in real-time
- Adjust for workload changes
- Maximize new instance family opportunities
The Sage advantage
A 60% blended discount vs. 25% from typical approaches
And the flexibility others can't offer.
| Capability | Basic approach | Sage portfolio |
|---|---|---|
| Blended discount | 25% | 60% |
| Considers hourly patterns | ✕ | ✓ |
| Instance standardization | ✕ | ✓ |
| Commitment flexibility | ✕ | ✓ |
| Spreading capability | ✕ | ✓ |
| Expert review | ✕ | ✓ |
"Sage didn't just save us money—it transformed how we think about cloud commitments. The portfolio approach delivered 58% savings while actually reducing our risk."
VP Infrastructure, Fortune 500 Company
Deliverables
What do you actually get?
Three concrete outputs from every run, all exportable.
Right-sizing recommendations
Per resource: the current and proposed instance type, the account and region, an efficiency score before and after, and the commitment coverage already attached to it. Resources that should be left alone are labelled as such rather than quietly dropped.
A commitment buy plan
Line items you can execute: region, instance family, platform, term, payment option, hourly rate and annual cost, split across Instance Savings Plans, Compute Savings Plans and Convertible Reserved Instances.
An honest disruption estimate
How many instances would change family or vCPU count if you acted on the plan. The cost of acting is stated up front, not discovered afterwards.
Coverage
What Sage optimizes
Comprehensive optimization across all major cloud services, on AWS and Azure.
Compute
- AWS EC2 Instances
- AWS Compute Reservations and Savings Plans
- AWS Container Services (ECS/EKS)
- Azure Virtual Machines
- Azure Scaling Sets
- Azure Virtual Machine Reservations and Savings Plans
- Licensing (Microsoft, Oracle and SUSE)
Storage
- AWS S3 Buckets & Lifecycle
- AWS EBS Volumes
- AWS EFS & FSx
- Azure Managed Disks
- Azure Files
- Azure Blobs
- Azure Storage Reservations
- Backup & Archives
Databases
- AWS RDS Instances
- AWS ElastiCache, Redis and Valkey
- AWS OpenSearch
- Azure SQL Database
- Azure SQL Managed Instance
- Azure Database for PostgreSQL
- Database Reservations
And more
- AWS Load Balancers
- AWS Elastic IP
- Commitment Portfolio Management
- Automation: apply recommendations
On AWS, depth by service
| Service | Depth | What Sage does |
|---|---|---|
| EC2 | Optimized | Right-sizing and re-typing, commitment planning, automated implementation |
| ECS | Optimized | Included in the shared compute commitment solve |
| EKS | Optimized | Node group fleet sizing across nodes, cores and memory, plus the shared commitment solve |
| RDS | Optimized | Right-sizing, reserved instance planning, automated implementation |
| EBS | Optimized | Volume type and size optimization, automated implementation |
| ElastiCache | Optimized | Right-sizing and reserved node planning |
| OpenSearch | Optimized | Right-sizing and reserved instance planning |
| S3, EFS, FSx | Visibility | Inventory, spend attribution and reporting |
| DynamoDB, Redshift, Timestream | Visibility | Inventory, spend attribution and reporting |
| Load balancers, NAT gateways, elastic IPs | Visibility | Inventory and spend attribution, with idle resource reporting |
Go deeper on your cloud
Sage for AWSEC2, ECS, EKS, RDS and moreRight-sizing and commitment planning solved in one pass, with approved changes applied inside your patch window.See Sage for AWS →Sage for AzureVirtual machines, SQL and disksSizing and reservation decisions produced together, so a resize is never recommended blind to the commitment paying for it.See Sage for Azure →
Why teams choose Sage
Savings you can count on, with no risk
25-50% cost reduction
Our proven optimization strategies consistently deliver 25-50% cost savings. Most clients see results in their first 90 days. Across all our customer base running Sage through 2025, realised cloud spend fell 41% on average against their pre-optimization run rate.
Zero risk model
Pay only on achieved savings. No upfront costs, no monthly fees. If we don't save you money, you don't pay us anything.
Expert support
Dedicated team of certified FinOps and DevOps experts guide you through every optimization, ensuring successful implementation.
Multi-cloud ready
Optimize across AWS and Azure with a single platform. Get unified visibility and optimization recommendations for your entire cloud estate.
Automated execution
Get recommendations and implement them automatically. Our platform integrates with your tools for continuous optimization.
Continuous optimization
Cloud usage changes constantly. Sage continuously monitors and optimizes, ensuring you're always running at peak efficiency and at the lowest cost.
Proven results
Navisite: "We saved $3M annually in just 7 months." Join hundreds of companies achieving similar transformational savings.
Enterprise ready
Handle complex multi-account environments, standardize instance families, and manage commitments across your entire organization.
After optimization
What happens after the spend comes down?
Optimization is not the end state. It is what creates the room to build.
Customer arc
Growth that lands on an optimized baseline
One customer's AWS consumption fell from roughly $44K a month to $29K after the first optimization pass, then grew to $126K as they expanded onto the platform, with no additional cloud operations headcount. The growth landed on an optimized baseline rather than an inherited one, so the new workloads were sized correctly from the day they were built.
See how this works for growing teamsMonthly AWS consumption for a single customer estate. Figures rounded. Consumption growth reflects new workloads the customer chose to build; it is reported alongside the optimization work, not attributed to it.
Common questions
Before you ask
What does a first optimization pass typically find?
A right-sizing recommendation for every resource in scope, a commitment plan solved against the post-right-sizing footprint, and a stated count of how many instances would change. Savings are quoted against one of three priced scenarios rather than as a percentage. The assessment is free and runs against your real usage.
Will it recommend resizing something that is under a reservation?
Every right-sizing proposal shows the commitment coverage on the resource it applies to, and the commitment plan is solved against the post-right-sizing footprint. That connection is the point of running a single pass across compute rather than optimizing each service in isolation.
Does Sage make changes to my infrastructure automatically?
Only where you allow it, and only inside a maintenance window you control. Changes for EC2, RDS and EBS become scheduled actions that Guardian applies during your next patch window. Every action keeps a record showing what changed, when, and whether it succeeded.
Can Sage tell me I have bought too much commitment?
Yes. Reserved Instances and Savings Plans are reconciled against measured utilization, and over-committed positions are flagged. Every individual commitment is listed with its monthly commitment against its monthly usage.
Does it work with Kubernetes?
EKS node groups are sized as a fleet, across node count, cores and memory together, and EKS shares the compute commitment solve with EC2 and ECS.
What baseline are savings measured against?
Sage prices three scenarios: no commitments at all, your current mix, and the optimized plan. Savings are always stated against one of those rather than as an unattributed percentage.
How often does it run?
Optimizations can be run on demand or in batches, and each run is stored as a dated snapshot so plans can be compared over time. Analyses older than thirty days are flagged as stale.
Can we buy this through AWS Marketplace?
Yes. Sage, Guardian and Muse are all transactable through AWS Marketplace, so spend applies against your existing AWS commitment.
Free cloud cost assessment
Discover your savings potential
Get a detailed report showing exactly how much you can save and where the opportunities lie. No commitment required.
- AI-powered analysis of your entire cloud infrastructure
- Detailed savings projections by service and resource
- Risk-free recommendations with implementation roadmap
- Results delivered in 2 weeks or less
- No access to sensitive data required
- Read-only access to cost and usage reports
- White-glove service from cloud experts
- 100% free with no obligations
Perfect for organizations with growing cloud spend
1
Quick setup
Provide read-only access to your AWS Cost Explorer or Azure Cost Management. We handle the rest with zero disruption to your operations.
2
Deep analysis
Sage analyzes your usage patterns, identifies inefficiencies, and calculates savings opportunities across all services and resources.
3
Detailed report
Receive comprehensive recommendations, projected savings, and a clear implementation roadmap you can execute immediately.
Start with your own numbers
See what Sage finds in your account
A free assessment runs against your real usage and shows exactly where the savings are, with a roadmap you can act on. You only pay on savings achieved.