AWS Cost Explorer
Shows aggregate spend by service, account, time window. Good for understanding how much you spent.
Doesn't tell you which EBS volume is unattached, which NAT Gateway has zero bytes, or which RDS instance has no active connections.
Live demo scan · account redacted · 2026-05-24
$1,336.81/mo of high-confidence AWS waste.
IdleLens is a read-only AWS waste scanner. Below is a representative findings table — the same shape, evidence, and confidence labels every scan produces, with a real account's identifiers redacted. Your first scan is free: connect a read-only role, run it, and see exactly this for your own account — 6 findings tagged confidence = 'high' summing to $1,336.81/mo in this demo. Recurring scans, export, history, and team workflow start at ₹599/mo.
Read-only IAM · ~15 minute setup · Free first scan · No credit card upfront
12 findings · $1,699.81/mo total
Scanned 16 AWS resource types across 2 regions. Each row cites a CloudWatch datapoint or a structural fact. The confidence label is what the scanner emitted, not what we wanted to emit.
| Service | Region | Resource | Confidence | $/mo | Evidence | Suggested action |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SageMaker endpoint | us-east-1 | ml-prod-bert-classifier-v2 | high | $1,200.00 | 0 invocations / 30d | Delete endpoint |
| RDS (idle) | us-east-1 | analytics-replica-east | medium | $312.00 | 0 connections / 14d | Stop or downsize |
| Lambda Prov Conc | us-east-1 | order-validator-prov-conc | high | $58.40 | 0 invocations / 30d | Reduce concurrency to 0 |
| NAT Gateway | us-east-1 | nat-0abc12def34a56b78 | high | $42.16 | 0 bytes processed / 30d | Review routing, then remove |
| CloudWatch Logs | us-east-1 | /aws/lambda/legacy-payment-svc | medium | $24.00 | no writes / 90d | Set retention or delete |
| Transit Gateway | us-east-1 | tgw-attach-vpn-poc-2024 | medium | $18.00 | 0 packets / 30d | Detach |
| ALB | us-east-1 | alb-stage-deprecated | high | $16.20 | 0 requests / 30d | Remove |
| EBS | ap-south-1 | vol-058ad9c1f4b2e7a90 | high | $16.40 | unattached / 90d | Snapshot then delete |
| VPC Endpoint | ap-south-1 | vpce-0123abc456def7890 | medium | $7.30 | 0 bytes / 90d | Remove |
| EIP | us-east-1 | 52.84.x.x | high | $3.65 | unattached / 60d | Release |
| EC2 (stopped) | us-east-1 | i-09abc12def345678 | medium | $1.20 | stopped 45d | Terminate |
| EBS snapshot | us-east-1 | snap-0ab12cd34ef567890 | low | $0.50 | 365d old, no AMI | Review then delete |
| High-confidence total (6 of 12) | $1,336.81 | high-confidence subtotal | — | |||
Why this landing
The page you're reading is the product, not a screenshot of it.
Most cloud cost tools start with a demo request and a sales call. You only see whether the tool finds anything in your account after a contract is signed.
We inverted that. The findings table above is structurally identical to the Inbox you'd see at /findings after signing up. Same columns. Same confidence labels. Same evidence rules from the same idlelens/scoring.py the scanner runs. Your first scan produces this table for free.
What you see is what you get. No demo. No sales call. No credit card upfront.
Why existing tools aren't enough
Cost visibility is solved. Cleanup action is not.
AWS can surface some recommendations. IdleLens turns them into a defensible cleanup queue. We're not replacing these tools — we sit between cost visibility and engineering action.
AWS native checks
Trusted Advisor flags some idle resources; Compute Optimizer now recommends idle EC2, Auto Scaling groups, EBS, ECS on Fargate, Aurora, and RDS.
Recommendations, not an engineer-ready queue. No evidence cited per finding, no tag policy carried, no triage workflow, no activation-gated pricing. You still have to prove each one is safe to remove.
FinOps platforms
Vantage, CloudZero, Cloudability — operate at the bill level. Allocate cost, build chargeback, set budgets.
Built for finance, not engineers. By the time a "waste" line item reaches the engineer who owns the resource, it's already abstracted away from the resource itself.
IdleLens
Scans actual resources. Cites evidence per finding. Outputs a ranked cleanup queue with confidence labels and safe next actions.
Read-only. 15-minute setup. Free first scan; recurring plans from ₹599/mo.
Three steps
Connect AWS, scan, see the table. About 20 minutes.
1
Connect your AWS account
Deploy a CloudFormation stack with a read-only IAM role and an External ID. ~5 minutes. The exact policy is in the template — read it before you click Create Stack.
2
Run a scan
The scanner walks your account in 5–10 minutes across 16 resource types and the regions you select. Each finding lands in your Inbox with cost, confidence, evidence, and a suggested next action.
3
Triage and decide
Your first scan is free — review the full findings table, snooze or resolve items, see the evidence. Recurring scans, export, history, and team workflow start at ₹599/mo.
Who this is for
Engineers who feel the AWS bill personally.
$10k–$100k/month AWS spend. India / SEA / international remote teams. You have AWS console access and authority to spend ₹599/mo without a procurement cycle.
Platform engineer · Series A–B startup
"The bill grows every month and I don't have time to audit. I want a ranked list of what to clean up next, not another dashboard."
IdleLens outputs that ranked list in 15 minutes. Each item has the evidence you'd need to defend the cleanup to your eng manager.
DevOps lead · scaleup, multi-account AWS
"Tags are inconsistent across teams. I need evidence per finding because someone's always going to ask 'are we sure this isn't still in use?'"
Every finding cites a CloudWatch datapoint or a structural fact. Read-only cross-account IAM, designed for AWS Organizations.
CTO · <30-person startup (you ARE the platform lead)
"I own the AWS bill personally and I have maybe 30 minutes a week for cost discipline. Give me the fastest path from 'connect' to 'know what to delete first.'"
CloudFormation one-click, scan in 10 minutes, ranked findings sorted by monthly cost. The first scan is free, so you see what it finds before you pay.
Security
Read-only by design. Cleanup stays in your control.
The IAM role you deploy can't mutate your AWS account even if our scanner code wanted to. The CI test suite enforces this — the build would fail if any write API call landed in the scanner source.
IAM policy excerpt
{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [{
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": [
"ec2:Describe*",
"rds:Describe*",
"elasticloadbalancing:Describe*",
"lambda:Get*",
"lambda:List*",
"cloudwatch:Get*",
"cloudwatch:List*",
"ce:Get*",
"logs:Describe*",
"s3:GetBucketLocation",
"sagemaker:Describe*",
"sagemaker:List*",
"ec2-instance-connect:Describe*",
"tag:Get*"
],
"Resource": "*"
}]
}Zero Delete*, Stop*, Terminate*, Update*, or Put* permissions. Trust policy is account-bound with a workspace-specific External ID, which AWS uses to prevent the confused-deputy problem. The block above is an excerpt; the complete read-only IAM policy ships in the CloudFormation template you review before deploying.
- The scanner makes zero write API calls. Not even a tag write. Enforced by the CI test suite — a single write call anywhere in the scanner source fails the build.
- Cleanup decisions stay in your AWS console. IdleLens exports a ranked queue. Your team approves and executes.
- Audit log for every action. Every scan, every finding triage, every team-role change is recorded in your workspace's audit log.
- External ID per workspace. Generated once, never reissued. Prevents the confused-deputy problem in cross-account IAM.
- Data minimization. We store finding metadata (resource ID, region, evidence) — not your account's actual workloads, configurations, or business data.
Pricing
Your first scan is free.
Connect a read-only role, run one scan, see evidence-backed findings. Pay only when you want to keep watching.
Free first scan
₹0
One read-only scan across 16 AWS resource types — top findings, confidence labels, and evidence per finding. No recurring scans, export, history, or team workflow.
Recurring plans from ₹599/mo. No credit card upfront. Cancel anytime.
FAQ
Six real questions, answered honestly.
What's free and what's paid?
Your first scan is free — connect a read-only role, run one scan, and see evidence-backed findings across 16 AWS resource types. Recurring scans, export, finding history, alerts, and team workflow are paid, starting at ₹599/mo.
Is my AWS account safe?
The IAM role you deploy is read-only. The exact policy ships inside the CloudFormation template — inspect it before clicking Create Stack. The scanner source contains zero Delete*, Stop*, Terminate*, Update*, or Put* AWS API calls. CI would fail the build if any landed.
Is there a free trial?
No unrestricted trial. The free first scan is the trial — you see exactly what IdleLens finds in your account before paying. Recurring monitoring starts at ₹599/mo when you're ready.
What if my first scan doesn't find much?
Then you've spent nothing and you know your account is clean. The free scan gives you a finding table either way; there's no invoice unless you choose a recurring plan.
How is this different from Cost Explorer, Trusted Advisor, or Compute Optimizer?
Cost Explorer shows aggregate spend. Trusted Advisor and Compute Optimizer flag and recommend some idle resources. None of them shows evidence per finding, carries your tag policy, or gives you a triage workflow with a ranked cleanup queue. IdleLens sits between them and the engineer who actually owns the resource.
Can I cancel anytime?
Yes. Email support@idlelens.com and your next invoice stops. No cancellation call, no retention email sequence. Your data is exportable and gets deleted after 30 days.
Your move
Your AWS bill already has the clues. We show you where to look.
Connect AWS in 5 minutes. Run a scan in 10. Your first scan is free — you see the findings before you pay.
Free first scan. No credit card upfront. Cancel anytime.