Unlock the backlog
Find idle capacity, rightsize services, improve commitments and remove obvious waste. Savings are large, measurable and well suited to a shared-outcome fee.
Savings pricing wins year one.
The contract must survive year two.
Percentage-of-savings pricing makes FinOps easy to buy.
But as the estate gets cleaner, the fee disappears,
even though the work continues.
Savings-linked fee100 → 18
Managed scopeStill active
Fee potentialIndexed · Q1 = 100
The percentage-of-savings trap
The better year one performs, the weaker year two becomes.
Share-of-savings pricing removes friction from the first FinOps sale. The client pays from measurable upside. But once the obvious waste is gone, new savings fall while the work of governance, forecasting and keeping the estate clean continues.
Year-one finding volumeHighThe optimization backlog is visible
Year-two fee potentialFallingFewer net-new savings remain
Operating responsibilityContinuousThe estate still needs active management
New savings available
Savings-linked feeFinOps work
The renewal problem: as the estate gets cleaner, the provider earns less—even when its ongoing work is what keeps the savings from returning.
Model misalignedA successful optimization program eventually removes the revenue source that paid for it.
Two different jobs
Discovery creates savings. Operations preserve value.
The commercial model fails when it treats those as the same service. Percentage pricing fits the initial hunt for recoverable waste. It does not naturally pay for the quieter second-year work that prevents regression and improves decisions.
Run the discipline
Track anomalies, maintain allocation, govern commitments, support forecasts and stop waste from returning. The value is recurring even when net-new savings are smaller.
The year-one clause
Agree on the transition while incentives are aligned.
Write the steady-state model before the savings curve falls.
Commercial transition blueprintFour elements
Define savings
Set the baseline, verification method, exclusions and duration for which a saving qualifies.
Bound the upside phase
State when percentage-of-savings pricing applies and how long verified savings remain shareable.
Name the trigger
Use a clear date, maturity threshold or agreed event that moves the service into steady state.
Price the operating model
Move to a recurring fee for managed scope, with optional upside for new savings beyond the baseline.
Commercial intent
“After the initial optimization period, fees transition from shared savings to a recurring managed FinOps fee, while retaining an agreed incentive for newly verified savings.”
Illustrative commercial structure only. Have legal counsel adapt the final clause to the agreement and jurisdiction.
At signatureAgree both pricing phases
Year oneShare verified savings
TransitionApply the named trigger
Year two+Fund continuous FinOps
FIND
PRIORITIZE
EXECUTE
VERIFY
Managed FinOps turns recommendations into an owned operating process.
A Recommendation Is Not a Result
Most platforms stop at the finding. Someone has to own what happens next
Without Ownership:
- Findings sit in a queue with no owner
- Alerts arrive without a next step
- Savings get counted the moment they are spotted
- The same waste returns next month
With Managed FinOps
- Findings arrive as tickets with an owner
- Low risk reversible actions run on approval
- Larger changes route to the MSP or escalate to us
- Savings count once a later invoice confirms them
Run Managed FinOps at Scale
Launch faster. Reduce operational overhead. Scale across customers.
Reduce
Skip the cost of recruiting, training, and retaining a dedicated FinOps team.
Earn
Go live in weeks and bill FinOps as a service rather than carrying it as cost.
Scale
Add customers without adding headcount or delivery complexity.