Stage 1 · Lesson 7 of 7

Estimating before you build

Each provider has a free : the AWS Pricing Calculator, the Azure pricing calculator and the Google Cloud pricing calculator. A good estimate lists every resource with its size, hours per month, storage, and expected , and states its assumptions so someone can check them.

Compare the estimate with the first two weeks of real cost and update it. Estimating teaches you the pricing model faster than reading about it.

Common trapestimating at full production traffic for a service that will see a hundred users, or the reverse.

A question to check yourself, an AI practice session and 1 cheat sheet entry come with the full roadmap. Unlock

Resources for this stage

Start with· follow one of these

CourseFree
Introduction to FinOps (free course)
FinOps Foundation · Beginner
Free: the FinOps Foundation's own first course, so you start with the right picture of what FinOps is
CourseFree
Microsoft Learn FinOps modules
Microsoft · Beginner
Free: do "Get started with FinOps" now and keep the Azure module for later stages

Practise

Microsoft Learn: Azure Fundamentals (AZ-900) training
Free learning paths with sandboxes; the cost management units match this stage
Microsoft FinOps toolkit
Free sample billing exports: read a real-shaped bill line by line, whichever cloud you chose

Keep handy

Microsoft Cost Management documentation
The official Cost Management, Billing and Advisor docs for every Azure tool named in this stage
FinOps Framework
Skim the principles now; the framework stage comes back to them in depth

Also worth your time

Overview of Cost Management (opens in a new tab)Read
How usage becomes rated cost and an invoice, and when a month is final
Cloud FinOps, 2nd edition (O'Reilly)Go deeperPaid
The standard FinOps book; read the opening chapters for why cloud spend needs a new way of working