Checkmate achieves an additional 17% AWS savings by switching to Archera's flexible-term commitments

Checkmate conquers commitment inflexibility with short-term Savings Plans and RIs

Checkmate provides cloud-based ordering solutions designed to boost restaurant sales and enhance customer relationships with their favorite brands. As their customer base expanded, monthly AWS costs surged, and manual attempts to save using Savings Plans (SPs) and Reserved Instances (RIs) commitments proved inadequate for the aggressive rate management posture Checkmate required.

Checkmate initially experimented with an autonomous discount management provider that quickly fell short of expectations due to only working with inflexible native RIs and SPs. Some of the limitations Checkmate encountered included:

1. Lack of innovation and commitment term inflexibility: Their previous platform simply automated the same reservations that AWS offered natively, locking them into rigid one and three-year terms. Checkmate desired the ability to flex in and out of commitments as required by their evolving infrastructure needs, particularly for large databases.
2. Limited cost and usage visibility and difficulty identifying spend hotspots: Checkmate needed a better solution for tracking the impact of cost management efforts and identifying gaps and unexpected growth. Their prior tool and the native AWS console lacked the abilities to properly segment resources and tie usage changes to increasing costs, especially for their Amazon EC2 usage.

Cloud rate management that was “light years ahead” of other approaches

Checkmate began evaluating Archera six months into their unfruitful relationship with their previous rate management tool. The crucial flexibility Archera offers through first-of-a-kind flexible-term Insured Commitments, as well as the transparency and candidness of Archera’s sales team during the engagement process played significant roles in Checkmate’s decision:

1. Unparalleled commitment flexibility: Archera's offered the flexibility that Checkmate required for hypergrowth and evolving architectural needs. This was a key advantage over other solutions which would just lock them into native one and three-year reservation terms.
2. Pricing and sales process transparency: The Archera team clearly explained the value of Insured Commitments and built reports and forecasts illustrating how Archera’s platform exceeds the value of other solutions, fostering trust and confidence.
3. Ease of onboarding: Checkmate fully onboarded in one day and immediately began identifying areas of savings, solidifying their decision to fully transition from their legacy tool. Archera’s alignment with Checkmate’s DevOps practices accelerated value.

“We’re a hypergrowth startup, so we’re making a lot of enhancements and evolving quickly. Archera’s Insured Commitments model allows us to really decompose and LEGO-block-build our cost savings approach. Archera has shifted the landscape for our cost savings, cost visibility, and overall long-term cost strategies.”

— Matthias Brooks, Director of DevOps, Checkmate

Savings, flexibility, and control: How Archera helps empower Checkmate’s strategic growth

Using Archera, Checkmate has achieved significant annual savings and gained greater control and visibility over their cloud costs, particularly for large database commitments. The flexibility of Archera's Insured Commitments model avoids lock-in to long-term reservations that are incompatible with frequent growth-led architectural changes:

1. Delivering on flexible savings: Archera’s Insured Commitments enable Checkmate to cover short-term usage with meaningful discounts, while Archera’s Moneyback Guarantee ensures that overcommitment is reimbursed via direct rebate. Checkmate especially sees the value of commitment term flexibility in regards to their high-cost 24xlarge databases, where changing usage limited them to purchasing at On Demand rates.
2. Ease of management and quick cost hotspot remediation: Archera's automated handling of commitment purchasing and adjustments eliminates the need for daily cost and usage monitoring and aligns well with Checkmate’s DevOps cadences. When costs do rise unexpectedly, Archera facilitates quick root-cause identification and enables efficient decision-making.
3. Immediate savings: Checkmate has realized an additional 17% just from switching to Archera, and corporate satisfaction with cost management has been recognized from the CEO on down. Archera-enabled savings has allowed Checkmate to repurpose funds to other strategic infrastructure initiatives and staffing.

Checkmate plans to expand its use of Archera, especially on Microsoft Azure, with a focus on optimizing significant costs for AI, serverless functions, and database services. Checkmate views Archera as an essential partner in their go-forward strategy, especially as they look to penetrate new markets and expand their business.

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