Preparing Your SaaS Startup for Acquisition By Streamlining Your Cloud Costs And Devops

Want to make your SaaS startup acquisition-ready? Focus on optimising cloud costs and refining DevOps practices.

Buyers value efficient operations. High cloud expenses and weak DevOps processes can lower your valuation and raise concerns during due diligence. Here's how to address these issues:

• Cut Cloud Costs: Use FinOps practices, right-size resources, and leverage Reserved/Spot Instances to reduce waste.
• Improve DevOps: Optimise CI/CD pipelines and adopt Infrastructure-as-Code to enhance scalability and reliability.
• Track Metrics: Showcase financial health (e.g., ARR, CAC, retention) and technical efficiency (e.g., cloud cost per customer, deployment speed).

These steps not only save money but also demonstrate your business is scalable, efficient, and ready for seamless integration post-acquisition. Read on for actionable strategies to make your startup stand out.

Optimizing Cloud Costs for SaaS Startups

Building Your Cloud Cost Optimisation Foundation

Before trimming expenses, it’s crucial to figure out exactly where your money is going. Many SaaS startups are often shocked by how much they overspend on cloud resources. Research indicates that enterprises spend 35% more than necessary [6], and only 3 in 10 organisations have a clear understanding of their cloud expenses [4].

Laying the groundwork for cloud cost optimisation involves two key steps: thoroughly analysing your current spending habits and implementing FinOps practices to establish financial accountability across the organisation.

Reviewing Your Current Cloud Spending

Start by gaining complete transparency into your cloud expenses. Many SaaS startups lack visibility into their spending, which makes spotting inefficiencies or opportunities for improvement nearly impossible.

Take advantage of built-in cost management tools like AWS Cost Explorer and Google Cloud Cost Management. These tools provide detailed insights into costs across services, regions, and timeframes, acting as your go-to resource for understanding spending trends.

It’s important to go beyond the overall monthly bill and dig into the details. Cloud costs generally fall into three categories: compute costs (virtual machines and processing power), storage costs (data storage and backups), and data transfer costs (bandwidth and egress fees) [4]. Be extra mindful of hidden charges - data egress fees, for instance, can skyrocket if you’re transferring large amounts of data between regions or to external platforms.

A tagging strategy is a must. Tags let you categorise resources by team, project, environment, or cost centre, making it easier to pinpoint cost drivers [5]. Without proper tagging, accurately allocating expenses - especially during due diligence - can become a serious challenge.

Set up budgets and real-time alerts to keep track of spending. Notifications can help flag when costs exceed set thresholds or when unusual patterns emerge [5].

Setting Up FinOps Practices

Once you’ve mapped out your spending, the next step is to bring financial discipline into your cloud operations through FinOps practices. According to the FinOps Foundation, FinOps is about “bringing financial accountability to the variable spend model of the cloud, enabling distributed teams to make business trade-offs between speed, cost, and quality” [9].

Managing cloud costs is a top challenge for over 80% of business leaders [8], yet 61.8% of organisations are still in the early crawl stage of adopting FinOps [7]. This creates an opportunity for your startup to stand out by establishing mature financial practices.

Build a cross-functional Cloud Centre of Excellence or FinOps team. Include members from engineering, finance, and operations to create policies, monitor expenses, and incorporate cost considerations into decision-making.

Ensure there’s a single, consistent source of truth for cloud costs to avoid reporting discrepancies [9]. Standardising your approach ensures all teams work from the same data.

Instead of focusing solely on total expenses, measure unit costs. Metrics like cost per active user or cost per transaction can reveal whether your spending scales effectively with growth [9]. For example, OpenX was able to cut their per-unit costs by over 60% in just nine months by applying the five pillars of the Cloud FinOps framework to their operations [8].

Make cost discussions part of your regular workflows. Adding cost impact assessments to technical design reviews and sprint planning helps engineering teams understand how their decisions affect the budget.

Finally, align your pricing models with customer usage patterns. By tailoring your infrastructure to match predictable customer behaviours, you can reduce unnecessary expenses and improve unit economics - an essential metric for acquisition due diligence.

Regular cloud cost audits should become a standard practice [5]. Monthly reviews not only uncover new optimisation opportunities but also ensure existing cost-saving measures remain effective. Plus, maintaining a detailed record of these audits strengthens your position during acquisition discussions, showing potential buyers that your financial operations are well-managed.

Proven Methods for Cutting Cloud Costs

Cutting cloud costs while maintaining performance is achievable with the right strategies. In fact, companies can reduce cloud expenses by as much as 30% when their environments are properly optimised [11]. Beyond saving money, optimising resources enhances your company's appeal during acquisition due diligence by demonstrating efficiency and scalability - two qualities that potential acquirers value.

Right-Sizing Your Resources

One of the biggest culprits behind inflated cloud bills is oversized resources. Many SaaS startups over-provision for peak usage, leaving resources idle most of the time. Right-sizing means tailoring your cloud resources to actual usage needs rather than preparing for worst-case scenarios [11].

Start by analysing resource usage over a defined period. Identify instances that are consistently underutilised and downsize them accordingly.

Take MetaMap, for example. This customer identity verification SaaS platform achieved a 33% reduction in Amazon EC2 costs within six months by fine-tuning Kubernetes nodes and pods, balancing spot and on-demand instances, and optimising EBS volumes [Source: Amnic Case Studies, 2025]. Similarly, LambdaTest, a cross-browser testing SaaS platform, cut NAT and CloudWatch expenses by 30% using similar strategies in 2024–2025 [Source: Amnic Case Studies, 2025].

To sustain these savings, implement auto-scaling with clear policies and schedule regular audits. Storage optimisation is another area worth attention. Review your EBS volumes for unattached storage that’s still racking up charges, and use lifecycle policies to move infrequently accessed data to cheaper storage tiers automatically.

Auditing resources regularly is crucial, especially for development and staging environments where over-provisioning is common. These reviews can uncover new opportunities to optimise and ensure existing measures remain effective.

Once your resources are right-sized, you can further reduce costs by leveraging specific instance options.

Using Reserved Instances and Spot Instances

After optimising resource sizes, the next step is to strategically use Reserved Instances (RIs) and Spot Instances to slash compute costs. Switching from On-Demand to Reserved Instances can save up to 72%, while Spot Instances can offer discounts of up to 90% compared to On-Demand prices [13].

Reserved Instances are perfect for predictable workloads. Analyse historical usage patterns to identify consistent tasks, like production database servers or core application infrastructure, and consider Convertible RIs to maintain flexibility as your requirements evolve.

Spot Instances, on the other hand, are ideal for workloads like batch processing, data analysis, and fault-tolerant applications. According to AWS, Spot Instances are terminated less than 5% of the time [14], making them a reliable option when used correctly. Companies like Freshworks and Wildlife Studios saved 80% and 45%, respectively, by adopting a hybrid approach with Spot Instances [13].

To maximise the benefits of Spot Instances, diversify your instance types, sizes, zones, and regions. This reduces the risk of interruptions. Use tools like Spot Fleets or Spot Instance Pools to distribute workloads intelligently. Auto-scaling groups can also prioritise Spot Instances while defaulting to Reserved or On-Demand options when necessary. Setting maximum prices for Spot requests and using scripts to handle interruptions ensure tasks are gracefully stopped or transferred. For longer jobs, checkpointing can help preserve progress if an instance is terminated [13].

The ideal strategy combines both Reserved and Spot Instances. Reserved Instances cover baseline capacity, while Spot Instances handle variable or burst workloads. This hybrid model offers significant cost savings without compromising reliability - an essential factor for attracting potential acquirers.

To refine your approach, monitor Reserved Instance usage and Spot interruption rates regularly. Tools like Kubernetes, Auto Scaling Groups, and Spot Fleet can help manage this balance. AWS's Rebalance Recommendations, introduced in November 2020, can also alert you to increased interruption risks, allowing you to adjust workloads proactively [15].

Lastly, consolidating cloud purchases and negotiating rates based on committed usage volumes can lead to even more savings [12].

Improving DevOps Practices for Acquisition

Strong DevOps practices are as crucial as disciplined cloud cost management when it comes to showcasing operational strength. They play a key role in reducing IT costs, speeding up deployments, and increasing developer efficiency - all of which make your startup more appealing to potential acquirers. Companies with well-established DevOps practices report a 22% drop in IT costs, a 30% rise in deployment rates, and a 30% boost in developer productivity [21]. During technical due diligence, acquirers carefully assess these capabilities to ensure the acquisition won’t result in operational challenges or an influx of technical debt.

Here’s a closer look at refining CI/CD pipelines and adopting Infrastructure-as-Code to strengthen your technical setup.

Improving CI/CD Pipelines

A well-optimised CI/CD pipeline not only enhances software reliability but also reduces downtime and accelerates delivery [16]. It’s a clear indicator of operational efficiency.

Start by implementing version control for all code and configurations. This ensures traceability and promotes better collaboration among teams. While automation is key to streamlining processes, retain manual checks for deployments that carry higher risks.

Tools like CloudBees CI can significantly cut deployment times in half [17]. A Senior Software Engineer from a SaaS-based M&A technology provider shared:

Thanks to CloudBees CI, we have a stable, maintainable and reliable CI/CD pipeline. Our deployments are faster and smoother and our feature engineering teams are all on the same page. Our developers enjoy a better quality of life and are free to define new processes. [17]

To safeguard your pipeline, integrate security at every stage. Automated vulnerability scans and role-based access controls can help maintain the integrity of your processes.

Before rolling out CI/CD practices across the board, pilot them on a smaller scale. This approach helps identify and resolve issues without disrupting critical systems.

Implementing Infrastructure-as-Code

Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC) changes how infrastructure is managed, turning it into a version-controlled and transparent process that acquirers can easily evaluate. Think of your IaC tools as executable documentation, offering a clear view of your technical architecture [18].

Use Git to manage IaC, breaking down configurations into reusable, modular components for better tracking and maintainability. Writing idempotent IaC code ensures that repeated deployments yield consistent outcomes, lowering risks significantly.

To streamline processes further, integrate IaC with your CI/CD pipelines. This allows infrastructure changes to be tested and deployed automatically. In July 2023, Humanitec highlighted how using a Platform Orchestrator as the configuration engine can dynamically generate both application and infrastructure configurations during deployments, cutting lead times and time to market by up to 40% [20].

Clear and thorough documentation is essential for collaboration. Infosys emphasises this point:

One of the key patterns for Infrastructure as Code is to maintain everything related to your infrastructure as code in source control. This includes not just the scripts used to create and manage infrastructure but also the pipelines used for provisioning. [19]

Security should be a priority in your IaC practices. Handle sensitive information carefully, enforce strict access controls, and implement monitoring and logging to keep track of infrastructure changes and quickly address any issues.

Acquisition Readiness: Metrics and Management

Once you've optimised cloud costs and fine-tuned your DevOps processes, the next step is to showcase operational excellence. This means presenting clear technical and financial metrics that stand up to scrutiny during due diligence. Here’s a breakdown of the metrics and practices that signal you're ready for acquisition.

Key Metrics for Technical Due Diligence

Financial Health Indicators

Financial metrics are the cornerstone of acquisition readiness. For SaaS businesses, due diligence hinges on solid data and reliable financial models [22]. Start by reporting your Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) and Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR), segmented by customer, cohort, product line, and size. This segmentation provides a clear picture of your recurring revenue's overall health [24].

Another vital metric is the customer acquisition cost (CAC) paired with the LTV/CAC ratio, which reflects how efficiently you're driving growth. Since staffing costs typically account for around 70% of total expenditure in SaaS startups [22], tracking ARR per head is a helpful way to demonstrate how well revenue scales with team growth.

Retention is equally critical. Smaller SaaS companies might face annual churn rates of 31%-58%, while larger ones tend to see rates around 6%-10% [25]. Even a modest 5% improvement in retention can lead to a 25% increase in profitability [23].

Technical Performance Metrics

Your technical metrics should highlight operational maturity and scalability. Focus on indicators like your technical health score, code quality metrics, security score, and scalability benchmarks [26]. Ensure your codebase is well-documented and thoroughly tested, with intellectual property securely managed [25].

Cloud Cost Efficiency Metrics

Clear data on cloud cost efficiency is essential. Track metrics such as cost per customer, infrastructure costs as a percentage of revenue, and month-over-month cost reduction. As a benchmark, cloud hosting costs typically range between 6%-12% of revenue [1].

Highlight specific savings achieved through measures like right-sizing, reserved instances, and other strategies. With up to 32% of cloud budgets often wasted [10], proving disciplined cost management can make your business stand out.

Setting Up Continuous Optimisation

Beyond presenting initial metrics, a commitment to continuous optimisation reinforces your operational discipline.

Automated Monitoring Systems

Use monitoring tools to maintain visibility into cloud spending. As Martin Amps of Stitch Fix explains:

Best practices are important, but there's no substitution for real measurement and cost optimisation. Datadog Cloud Cost Management helped us attribute spend at a granular level over dozens of accounts to achieve significant savings. [30]

Choose tools that suit your needs - native cloud provider tools are great for basic tracking in single-cloud setups, while third-party platforms are better for multi-cloud environments requiring more advanced analytics [31]. For instance, ViacomCBS reduced their annual Zoom costs by over 32% in 2020 by right-sizing SaaS licences [27].

Regular Review Processes

Schedule quarterly audits to evaluate application usage, tool alignment, and licence efficiency [28]. Establish clear procurement guidelines across teams to streamline decisions and avoid unnecessary purchases [29]. Regularly monitor SaaS licence usage to identify underutilised licences and redistribute them effectively.

Building a Cost-Conscious Culture

Incorporate cost considerations into product workflows so teams balance cost with functionality. This approach signals to potential acquirers that cost awareness is embedded across the organisation, not just managed at the leadership level.

Tim Ewald, CTO at Kevel, highlights this mindset:

It's not about tradeoffs between cost and performance: cost is a need, just as important as scalability and security. CCM has empowered engineers in our organisation to understand this and act on cost data in the same way they would on performance, to maintain efficiency as we scale. [30]

Conclusion: Your Path to Acquisition Success

By refining your cloud costs and DevOps strategies, you're setting the stage for acquisition success. These efforts highlight your operational strengths, making your startup a standout candidate for potential buyers. When you streamline deployment processes, the results speak for themselves: 30 times more frequent code deployments, 200 times shorter lead times, and 168 times faster failure recovery - metrics that acquirers value immensely [34].

Financial Impact

Focusing on cost optimisation does more than just save money - it boosts your valuation. Disciplined spending reflects your commitment to sustainable growth, especially when 61% of companies lack a formal cloud cost management strategy [2]. This structured approach puts you ahead of the curve.

Hitting key viability benchmarks becomes more attainable when wasteful spending is eliminated. With only 15% of SaaS companies reaching these critical benchmarks [32], those that do often command stronger valuations [3]. Your optimised infrastructure and efficient operations not only help you meet these goals but also ensure you're positioned as a strong acquisition target.

Beyond the Numbers: A Cultural Shift

The real breakthrough happens when cost awareness becomes part of your company's DNA. As Sam Middleton from Bloom and Wild puts it:

We focus on maintaining essential services while cutting costs. It's not just about reducing spending arbitrarily but ensuring that every pound spent on SaaS contributes to business efficiency and growth. [33]

Embedding this mindset into your culture shows acquirers that your team operates with an ownership mentality. When engineers balance cost considerations with performance, you've built a sustainable foundation that won’t require major restructuring post-acquisition. This cultural shift not only improves internal efficiency but also strengthens your technical profile during due diligence.

Standing Out in Due Diligence

Technical due diligence is your opportunity to shine. Your documented cost-saving strategies and advanced DevOps practices create a compelling story for potential buyers. Your DORA metrics won’t just highlight operational efficiency - they’ll demonstrate predictable, scalable processes that reduce acquisition risks.

Acquisition success isn’t just about high revenue; it’s about proving you can grow efficiently and sustainably. By focusing on cloud cost optimisation and DevOps excellence, you’re not just building a product - you’re building a business that’s ready to scale within a larger organisation.

Every step you take today towards operational discipline lays the groundwork for scalable, sustainable growth post-acquisition.

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