# CloudKnife > CloudKnife is the FinOps 3.0 platform that measures what your apps actually need on Azure and trims everything else. Evidence first, your approval always. CloudKnife is a FinOps 3.0 platform for cloud cost optimisation, built in Ghent, Belgium. It connects to your cloud, finds oversized, idle and orphaned resources, explains each saving with evidence and a price tag, and applies the changes you approve (or that fall within guardrails you set). Azure is supported today; other clouds are on the roadmap. ## Platform - **Understand**: Your whole cloud, consolidated in one place. Cost evolution explained: where the money goes and what moved it. Catch drift early. Every alert lands with its root cause, so you fix the leak, not the symptom. See the full 360. Slice spend by application, team or customer. Cost and ownership, always clear. - **Optimise**: Optimise with impact. Recommendations land with evidence, context and reasoning. Ready to act in full confidence. The holy trinity of cuts. Scheduling, commitments and zero waste, each with the saving spelled out. Every signal, one fix. Tags, usage and budget signals converge into a single candidate solution. - **Execute**: Easy to adopt. Built to execute. Recommendations don’t gather dust on a backlog. They get carried out, at your pace. You set the rules. Policies and IaC guardrails decide exactly what Autopilot may touch. Never goes stale. Autopilot keeps adjusting your infrastructure as workloads drift. ## Use cases - **Compute**: Sized to the job it does. We learn what each compute runs and when, then find the size and schedule that fit. - **Databases**: Tuned to the load it carries. No database stands alone. We understand each one in the context of your architecture, then cut the waste without the slowdown. - **Storage**: Matched to the data it holds. We learn how each disk and storage supports the workload, then match the tier and clear out what got left behind. - **Commitments**: Commitments that pay off. Understand what each reservation and savings plan covers, get full use out of them, and make your next commitment with confidence. ## Plans - **Free plan**: For individual developers, or curious minds. €0, free forever. Includes: Up to €5k spend; 3 Azure subscriptions, 2 users; Cost overview, evolution and reservations; Resources and orphaned resources; Optimise preview. - **Standard plan**: For stable clouds requiring visibility and light optimisation. 1% of monthly cloud spend, €100 to €500 a month for €10k to €50k of spend. Includes: Up to €50k spend; 10 Azure subscriptions, 10 users; Cost overview, evolution and reservations; Resources and orphaned resources; Optimise preview. - **Full plan**: For dynamic clouds requiring continuous optimisation. 4% of monthly cloud spend, €400 to €2,000 a month for €10k to €50k of spend. Includes: Up to €50k spend; 100 Azure subscriptions, 100 users; Cost overview, evolution and reservations; Resources and orphaned resources; Optimise preview; Every recommendation, with the resource and what to change; Every scheduling recommendation; Accept, dismiss and track each decision; Alternatives, activity history and CSV export; Dedicated line to a CloudKnife engineer. - **Enterprise plan**: for cloud spend above €50k a month. Contract, billing and limits tailored to your company, with onboarding by the CloudKnife team. [Talk to sales](https://cloudknife.com/contact). Paid plans are priced on monthly cloud spend, counted on the next €5k step (€12k counts as €15k). They are billed quarterly or yearly; the prices above are per month when billed yearly, and yearly billing is 5% cheaper than quarterly. 14 day free trial, no creditcard required. ## CloudKnife compared to Azure Advisor Azure Advisor is FinOps 2.0: a fine start. CloudKnife picks up where it stops. - Azure Advisor finds potential savings from usage data. CloudKnife understands workload context, its purpose, history and behaviour. - Azure Advisor gives your team a list to investigate. CloudKnife does the reasoning and validation. You're ready to act. - Azure Advisor presents recommendations individually. CloudKnife combines related actions into one clear plan. - Azure Advisor shows savings that may not survive your discounts. CloudKnife simulates each change against your commitments, including who takes over the coverage. - Azure Advisor flags low usage, not when a resource is actually needed. CloudKnife finds when resources actually need to run and when they can scale down or switch off. - Azure Advisor leaves you to organise implementation. CloudKnife guides your team from decision to execution. ## Why CloudKnife - Whitebox not blackbox. Every recommendation shows its reasoning and data. Never take our word for it. - European by design. Hosted on Azure in West Europe and processed in the EEA, under EU law. - CloudKnife learns your preferences. Plugs into your environment as it is. ## Frequently asked questions ### Will CloudKnife change things without asking? No. Every change starts as a proposal that you review and approve. Automation is opt-in and follows rules you define, so you decide exactly how much you hand over. ### What is FinOps 3.0? The third generation of cloud cost management. Generation one gave you dashboards, generation two gave you recommendations. Generation three acts: continuous analysis, business context, and changes that actually get applied, with your approval. ### How quickly will we see the first proposals? The first analysis starts as soon as you connect. Proposals typically land the same day, and they get sharper as CloudKnife learns your usage patterns. ### Which clouds does CloudKnife support? Azure today. The engine underneath is built cloud-agnostic, so support for other providers is on the roadmap. ### Who is CloudKnife for? DevOps and cloud engineers use it day to day: it speaks their language, with SKUs, metrics and evidence. The results are reported so a CIO or CFO can validate them, with every saving traceable to an approved change. ## Company Founders: Gilles Uytenhove (Founder & CEO), Thomas Rosseel (Founder & CTO), Jonas D’hollander (Founder & COO). Supported by imec.istart and Startit & KBC. ## Pages - [Home](https://cloudknife.com/): product overview, use cases, pricing and FAQ - [European by design](https://cloudknife.com/european-azure-cost-optimisation): a Belgian company, the platform hosted on Microsoft Azure in West Europe inside the EU Data Boundary, data processed in the EEA - [Book a demo](https://cloudknife.com/contact): talk to the CloudKnife team - [Jobs](https://cloudknife.com/jobs): open roles at CloudKnife in Ghent - [Sign up](https://app.cloudknife.com/signup): start on the Free plan or a 14 day free trial - [Terms](https://cloudknife.com/legal/terms) - [Data processing agreement](https://cloudknife.com/legal/dpa) - [Privacy policy](https://cloudknife.com/privacy) - [Cookie policy](https://cloudknife.com/cookies) - [Accessibility statement](https://cloudknife.com/accessibility)