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Cost awareness

Evaluation question

Is cost visible, explainable, proportionate to value, and likely to remain acceptable as usage changes?

Cost is an architecture constraint and an operational signal. It is not a monthly surprise or a separate reporting feature added after implementation.

What to examine

  • Fixed cost and cost per execution
  • Cost drivers and attribution
  • Services that charge while idle
  • Volume and frequency sensitivity
  • Retention and logging cost
  • Budget guardrails
  • Cleanup and orphaned resources

Evidence in the first Decision Case

The retail sales case must estimate cost before deployment, record observed cost after validation, explain the main cost drivers, and identify the volume or requirement changes that would make the selected architecture uneconomic.