Stage 1 · Lesson 5 of 7
The lines nobody estimated
Teams estimate compute and forget the rest. The usual surprises are (between zones, between regions and out to the internet), that charge per hour and per GB processed, load balancers, public IPv4 addresses, and retention, snapshots and backups, idle managed databases and the support plan.
Marketplace software and AI model usage can also appear as their own lines. Read the bill by service and by at least once and find these lines on purpose.
Common trapbelieving a that lists only VMs and a database, then spending a month explaining the other 30%.
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
- CourseFreeIntroduction 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
- CourseFreeGoogle Cloud cost management courses (Google Skills)
Google Cloud · Beginner
Start "Understand Your Google Cloud Costs": billing accounts, invoices and resource organisation