Harness AutoStopping™ helps FinOps teams eliminate up to 70% of idle cloud spend through intelligent, policy-driven automation. By automatically stopping and restarting unused resources without disrupting developers, organizations move from reactive cost reporting to continuous, proactive cloud cost optimization.
Cloud costs continue to rise faster than most organizations can manage them. Industry data consistently shows 25–35% of cloud spend is wasted on idle and underutilized resources. According to the Harness FinOps in Focus 2025 report, infrastructure cloud waste alone is projected to reach $44.5 billion, while the FinOps Foundation reports that waste has remained above 30% year over year due to gaps in visibility, ownership, action, and automation.
This is where modern FinOps automation becomes critical.
Harness Cloud AutoStopping™ is purpose-built to help FinOps, engineering, and finance teams actively eliminate idle cloud costs. As part of Harness Cloud Cost Management, AutoStopping enables organizations to achieve up to 70% reduction in non-production cloud spend through intelligent, policy-driven automation — without disrupting developer workflows.
The FinOps Problem AutoStopping Solves
FinOps teams know the pattern well:
- Development, QA, and staging environments run 24/7
- Cloud dashboards show the waste — but action is manual
- Engineers don’t own cost optimization
- Finance sees overspend after the fact
AutoStopping closes the gap between FinOps visibility and FinOps action.
Think of AutoStopping as a FinOps control that automatically enforces cost-efficient behavior across cloud infrastructure — continuously, intelligently, and at scale.
How Cloud AutoStopping Supports FinOps Best Practices
AutoStopping directly aligns to the core FinOps principles of optimization, governance, and automation:
Automatically Detects Idle Cloud Resources
AutoStopping continuously identifies unused or idle resources across development, test, and staging environments, removing the need for manual audits or cleanup efforts.
Intelligent Stop and Restart Automation
Resources automatically shut down when not in use and restart instantly when demand returns — ensuring savings without slowing teams down.
Zero Disruption to Engineering Teams
Developers access resources the same way they always have:
- Same URLs
- Same DNS
- Same SSH or RDP access
No tickets, no approvals, no retraining.
Policy-Driven Scheduling for FinOps Governance
Define schedules and rules that align with business hours, regional teams, and cost policies, giving FinOps teams governance without friction.
Proven FinOps Results From Real Customers
Organizations using AutoStopping are achieving measurable, auditable FinOps outcomes:
- United Airlines saved 15% of their total cloud cost with zero impact on developer productivity using Harness AutoStopping.
- Advanced reduced their annual cloud spend by 33% using AutoStopping and rightsizing, achieving 3 straight quarters where cloud cost matched budget.
- Discover Dollar, Dheemanth R, CTO: "We tried building something in-house because we couldn’t find a solution for a long time and this was perfect for what we needed. The total savings we’ve been able to bring in is easily 60-70% of our bill.”
These outcomes demonstrate how FinOps automation transforms cloud cost optimization from reactive to continuous.
Why AutoStopping Outperforms Manual FinOps Processes
Before AutoStopping, FinOps teams relied on:
- Static resource schedules
- Manual cleanups
- Homegrown scripts
- Quarterly optimization projects
These approaches fail because they don’t adapt to real usage.
Common Limitations of Manual Cost Controls
- Work schedules are unpredictable
- Forceful shutdowns break access
- Start/stop rules don’t optimize compute efficiently
- Scripts require constant maintenance
AutoStopping Delivers 2–3× Greater Savings
AutoStopping uses usage-based intelligence instead of static assumptions — delivering 2–3× the savings of traditional schedulers with none of the operational risk.
Advanced FinOps Capabilities in 2026
AutoStopping has matured into a comprehensive FinOps automation engine, including:
- Kubernetes AutoStopping — improved container orchestration and performance
- Spot Instance Orchestration — maximize savings without managing interruptions
- ALB Traffic-Aware Management — seamless load balancer integration
- Advanced Scheduling Rules — align automation with business patterns
- Multi-Cloud Support — AWS, Azure, and GCP
These capabilities enable FinOps teams to enforce cost efficiency across modern, cloud-native architectures.
From Reactive FinOps to Proactive Cost Optimization
AutoStopping represents a shift from after-the-fact cost reporting to real-time cost control.
- Engineers stay productive
- Finance gains predictability
- FinOps teams achieve continuous optimization
- Idle cloud waste disappears automatically
For organizations serious about FinOps maturity, AutoStopping delivers immediate, measurable ROI with minimal operational overhead.
Get Started with FinOps Automation
AutoStopping is available as part of Harness Cloud Cost Management. Our FinOps specialists can help you identify idle cloud spend, define optimization policies, and deploy AutoStopping in days — not months.
Stop paying for idle cloud resources.
Start enforcing FinOps best practices automatically.
Experience intelligent cloud cost optimization with Harness Cloud AutoStopping™.
Sign up for a free FinOps Maturity Assessment or for a demo today.
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Kelsey Rosen brings over a decade of experience in sales, marketing, and FinOps leadership—bridging strategy, creativity, and financial accountability. She’s known for transforming data into actionable insights that drive measurable results, optimize ROI, and unify finance with go-to-market teams. With a reputation for transparency, analytical precision, and collaborative leadership, Kelsey helps organizations scale efficiently while ensuring growth remains both strategic and sustainable.
