Connected vs. Offline Assessment: Which Do You Need?

Cloudsaver offers two levels of savings assessment, designed for different stages of evaluation. Both answer the same core question — how much are you leaving on the table? — but with different levels of detail and different requirements from your team.

Offline assessment (free)

The offline assessment is the starting point for most companies. It requires no platform connectivity, no API access, and no credentials. You provide invoices and existing reservation inventories, and the analysis is done externally.

What it requires

• Most recent monthly invoice from each cloud provider (AWS, Azure, GCP).
• Current reserved instance and savings plan inventory (exported from your console).
• Any existing pricing agreements (EDP, EA, negotiated terms).

What you get

• Coverage analysis: Your current discount coverage rate across all clouds, broken down by service and region.
• Gap identification: Where on-demand spend exists that could be covered by discount instruments.
• Savings estimate:A projected savings range based on achieving 90–95% coverage with Managed Discounts.
• Expiration timeline:When existing commitments expire and what the impact will be if they're not renewed or replaced.

Timeline and cost

The offline assessment takes 2–3 business days and is completely free. There is no obligation to proceed with any service after receiving the results.

Accuracy

An offline assessment provides approximately an 85% picture of your savings opportunity. It captures the major coverage gaps and expiration risks, but it relies on point-in-time invoice data rather than continuous usage data. For most evaluation purposes, this is more than sufficient to determine whether Managed Discounts is worth pursuing.

Connected assessment ($10K per cloud)

The connected assessment provides the full picture. It connects to your cloud environment via read-only API access and analyzes actual usage data over time — not just invoices.

What it requires

• Read-only API access to your cloud billing and usage data (IAM cross-account role for AWS, reader role for Azure, billing export for GCP).
• A brief onboarding call to configure the connection and scope the analysis.

What you get

Everything in the offline assessment, plus:

• Usage pattern analysis:Detailed view of how usage varies over time — daily, weekly, and monthly patterns that affect optimal instrument selection.
• Instance-level recommendations: Specific recommendations for which instance types, families, and regions should be covered and with which instruments.
• Rightsizing opportunities: Where instances are over-provisioned relative to actual utilization, which affects both the coverage strategy and the savings estimate.
• Multi-cloud optimization map: A unified view of savings opportunities across all connected clouds, with prioritization by dollar impact.

Timeline and cost

The connected assessment takes 2–3 weeks to complete and is priced at $10,000 per cloud provider connected. This fee is credited toward your first year of Managed Discounts service if you proceed. Visit the pricing page for details.

Accuracy

A connected assessment provides a complete picture of your savings opportunity. Because it analyzes actual usage data over time rather than a single invoice snapshot, it captures seasonal patterns, workload volatility, and optimization opportunities that an offline assessment cannot.

Which one should you choose?

Start with the offline assessment if:

• You're evaluating whether managed discounts is the right approach for your organization.
• You need a quick answer on the size of the savings opportunity before involving additional stakeholders.
• Your security or procurement process requires a business case before granting API access to any external service.
• You want to validate the opportunity at zero cost and zero risk.

Go directly to the connected assessment if:

• You already know you want to pursue managed discounts and need a detailed implementation plan.
• Your cloud environment is complex (multi-cloud, hundreds of accounts, dynamic workloads) and you need instance-level precision.
• You need a comprehensive report for board or executive review that includes usage trends and rightsizing data.

The typical path

Most companies start with the free offline assessment. If the numbers support it, they either move directly to Managed Discounts or proceed to a connected assessment for the full picture. The offline assessment usually provides enough detail for a procurement decision; the connected assessment adds precision for implementation planning.

Ready to start? Visit how it works to request your free offline savings assessment, or contact us to discuss a connected assessment for your environment.