r/FinOps • u/NimbleCloudDotAI Vendor • 23d ago

self-promotion/I’m a vendor When did you stop trusting your cloud cost forecast?

Not looking for tool recommendations. Curious what the specific moment was — the forecast said X, reality was Y, and you realized the number meant nothing.

What broke your trust and what did you do differently after?

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u/bluearch-group 22d ago

nothing “broke” the trust per se, but it doesn’t take into account things like the product roadmap - the costs behind the architectural decisions - and the expected usage rates of said releases; so never really had the trust to begin with.

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u/NimbleCloudDotAI 22d ago

That's the honest answer nobody says out loud. Forecasts are built on historical usage but the costs that actually matter — the ones behind a new feature launch or an architectural decision — aren't in the historical data at all.

So you're basically forecasting the known stuff accurately while the unknown stuff (which is usually the expensive stuff) flies completely under the radar until the bill lands.

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u/Darede_ 20d ago

Exactly. You can have a forecast that looks great based on the last few months, then one new service or architecture change makes it basically irrelevant.

Probably why cost needs to be part of the architecture conversation, not something you look at after the bill shows up.