How GPTZero saves tens of thousands on cloud costs each month with Archera’s flexible commitments

Rapid scaling introduced cloud cost hurdles that were incompatible with savings opportunities that required long-term commitments

GPTZero, a provider of artificial intelligence detection solutions, has seen exponential growth with the rise and proliferation of generative AI and now serves millions of users. This rapid expansion, while successful, created cloud cost visibility and containment challenges: While cloud commitment discounts could provide significant savings without threatening developer autonomy, term inflexibility made them unworkable amidst changing needs:

1. Long-term commitment options were incompatible with constantly-changing usage: GPTZero’s cloud usage is highly dynamic due to rapid user growth and an evolving multicloud approach. Uncertainty about adequate access to inference compute, for example, including to Amazon EC2 P family instances, made year-long commitment impossible.
2. Identifying savings opportunities was difficult amongst fluctuating usage: For GPTZero, centralized, digestible cost intelligence and the ability to quickly identify and action savings opportunities was critical.
3. Balancing developer autonomy with cost-aware cloud service usage: Engineering agility and velocity are key strategic advantages for GPTZero. Cost management needed to be autonomous, and FinOps initiatives couldn’t impact current or future infrastructure choices or rely on the often uncertain capacity of spot instances.

Short-term commits promised big savings with unmatched flexibility

When considering a solution to optimize their cloud infrastructure, GPTZero had specific, non-negotiable requirements for a cloud cost optimization solution. Better insight into costs, flexibility, and low overhead were all key considerations:

1. Commitment flexibility without sacrificing savings: GPTZero saw Archera’s Insured Commitments as a key innovation, delivering savings similar to year-long agreements with low-risk terms as brief as 30 days. Flexible commitments contrasted with legacy approaches like spot capacity, which proved too unreliable.
2. Seamless integration and low overhead: A key requirement for GPTZero was a solution that wouldn't constrain or burden their engineering team. During evaluation, Archera’s simple onboarding and immediate identification of savings opportunities foreshadowed the ongoing value GPTZero would receive.
3. Enhanced cost visibility and actionable insights: GPTZero needed a clear, centralized way to understand and optimize cloud spend. Archera’s spend dashboard, along with monthly reports and usage visualizations would provide actionable insights into savings opportunities. Archera’s automated commitment recommendations and purchasing automation also stood out as important differentiators.

It just made so much sense: there’s more flexibility than reserved, not as much unpredictability as spot instances. I just think there was a great onboarding experience. I felt the technology was a pretty seamless integration, I didn’t need to code anything — my main thing was like, ‘how is this even possible’ — Alex Cui, Co-founder and CTO, GPTZero

Empowering engineers and saving $100K+ annually

Since integrating Archera, GPTZero has quickly realized a range of critical benefits that have transformed their cloud operations and directly impacted their business success:

1. Substantial cost reductions: GPTZero has achieved a significant financial advantage, saving tens of thousands of dollars each month. Archera's commitment lifecycle management and short-term commitments deliver savings comparable to long-term agreements without the associated risk.
2. Increased Engineering velocity without the overhead of legacy FinOps: Archera frees GPTZero's engineers from worrying about cloud costs, enabling them to concentrate on innovation, while automated handling of renewals and the automated selling of unused commits reduces mental and operational overhead.
3. Enhanced cost visibility and confidence in cloud spending decisions: Archera provides GPTZero with a clear understanding of their cloud costs and optimization opportunities. Dashboards and monthly reports enable GPTZero to make commitments soon after making usage changes. The ongoing support and expertise of the Archera Customer Success team also serves as an important value-add to GPTZero’s experience.

Archera enables GPTZero to confidently manage cloud costs during rapid growth. Moving forward, they'll continue to leverage Archera’s uniquely flexible offerings to maintain cost efficiency and adapt to evolving needs without restricting Engineering workflows. GPTZero considers Archera an indispensable, low-overhead partner, vital for optimizing cloud costs and accelerating engineering velocity.

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