General FAQs
How does Turn it Off compare to other FinOps tools?
Turn it Off was built with the real world in mind by people that experienced cloud cost issues daily. We wanted a product you could start using right now with minimum fuss, no heavy onboarding and no ‘adoption of FinOps practices’ across the organisation.
To do this we have taken an approach which avoids the common FinOps tooling methods, namely:
- A focus on doing one thing well rather than making you put your cloud spend through us or trying to control your governance, rightsizing, security and more.
- Avoiding data overload and heavy human input.
- Moving away from reservations as the default answer to all cloud cost issues and instead promoting an always-off mindset.
- Giving power to the business users rather than making it an IT problem only.
- Using a fair, pay-as-you-save model.
Where do you get your data on Co2e?
We source our CO2e (carbon dioxide equivalent) data from the most reliable and up-to-date open-source databases available. While the data provides a solid foundation for estimating carbon emissions, it’s important to note that cloud providers do not yet offer precise, uniform data on their energy usage or carbon footprint. We’re committed to transparency and continuously improving our data sources as more accurate information becomes available.
Can I cancel anytime?
Yes, you can cancel anytime on our Pro plan. We do offer Enterprise agreements for customers with large spends, for these we present custom pricing based on fixed contract lengths and minimum commitments.
How do you calculate the savings?
We calculate the savings by first determining the carbon usage and cost of each resource on a per-hour basis. We then assume that, under normal circumstances, these resources would be running continuously. By monitoring how many hours our product, Turn it Off, is used to switch off these resources, we can multiply those hours by the corresponding per-hour costs to estimate the savings. Afterward, we subtract the cost of running the Turn it Off agent (where utilised) to calculate the net savings.
Our payment structure is based on a percentage of this net saving, ensuring alignment with your actual cost and carbon reduction.
Technical FAQs
How does the Turn it Off agent work?
The Turn it Off agent is a lightweight, hosted page designed to empower business users to seamlessly manage their cloud environments without relying on IT support. It operates as a small virtual machine (VM/EC2) tailored to the specific cloud provider you’re using. The agent gives users the ability to easily turn environments back on when needed. You have full control over where the agent resides, and which authentication method is used. Once the environment is switched back on, the agent is automatically removed, ensuring minimal resource usage and seamless management.
Is there a way to stop Turn it Off from turning off my application?
Yes, you have complete control. You can pause Turn if Off on any environment (example; UAT or staging) at any time.
What resources do you support?
We currently support the following resources:
Resources we manage in AWS:
ALB
NLB
Elastic IP
Load Balancers
EC2
ECS
Beanstalk
Autoscaling Groups
RDS (Single AZ)
Resources we manage in Azure:
Front Door
Traffic Manager
Virtual Machines
Azure SQL Databases
Load Balancers
Public IPs
App Service Plans
App Services
App gateways
Flexible PostgreSQL servers
Flexible MySQL servers
How does this differ from writing a scripted schedule?
Our solution goes far beyond basic schedules. With Turn it Off, you get access to predefined rules, customisable schedules, and most importantly, our intelligent latency detection system, which automatically shuts environments down when no usage is detected. Everything is grouped and centralised for all your environments, and when changes occur. There’s no need to rewrite scripts or rely on a single person in your organisation.
Our platform also provides comprehensive reporting from both a sustainability and cost perspective, making it easier to track your impact. It also empowers business users directly, eliminating the need to depend on IT. What if you need an environment back up outside of scheduled hours?
Finally, we promote an ‘always-off’ or ‘off-by-default’ approach, ensuring resources are only used, when necessary, not just turned off every now and again—saving far more time and money than a script ever could.
How do we work with Terraform?
Our product plays well with Infrastructure as Code (IaC) tools like Terraform, ensuring that turning resources on and off won’t interfere with your configurations or cause drift issues. There are some exceptions around autoscaling groups and Fargate tasks. For these specific cases, there may be some impact on your Terraform state. However, using the ignore_changes directive can easily handle these situations, allowing you to maintain full control without disruption.
How do you handle things that can’t be switched off like App Service Plans?
For resources that can’t be fully switched off, like App Service Plans, we optimise them by scaling down to the lowest possible value within their current tier. This approach ensures you’re still minimising both cost and carbon impact, while keeping essential services available without unnecessary over-provisioning.
Does Turn it Off handle disks at the moment?
No, we do not yet cater for disks.
How does Turn it Off handle sequencing (i.e. if a system has to go down or come back online in a certain order)?
While we don’t yet support sequencing, it’s a feature currently in development. Once released, it will allow you to group resources and define the specific order in which they are turned on or off. This ensures that any systems with dependencies will be handled in the correct sequence, providing a smooth and reliable process for managing your environments.
Security FAQs
Is Turn It Off secure? How do I lock the tool down?
Yes, Turn It Off is built with security as a top priority. We offer a detailed security whitepaper, available upon request, which outlines our approach to safeguarding your environment. Our access to your environment is managed through IAM roles and service principals, allowing you full control over the scope of access. You can lock down access to specific resources or resource groups by account, subscription, or even tag. We have no access to data on your infrastructure at any time.
The agent aspect of the product is inherently secure because the agent operates entirely within your environment, not ours, ensuring that sensitive data and control remain within your own infrastructure.
Additionally, our internal processes follow ISO 27001-compliant practices (certification in progress), ensuring the highest standards of data protection. It’s important to note that we do not have direct access to any individual client account.
For added security, MFA is enforced for all Turn it Off end users, and it’s available for implementation within our product to secure your environment further.
Does the Turn It On page authenticate users or is it open to anyone?
The security of the Turn It On page depends on how you currently authenticate the endpoint. If you’re restricting access using Security Groups (SGs), Auto Scaling Groups (ASGs), Network Security Groups (NSGs), or by IP address, the same security measures will apply to the Turn It On page. However, if you’re using browser-based authentication (which prompts a login popup), the page would be open to anyone.
In those cases, we recommend relying on schedules and intelligent latency detection rather than using the Turn It Off page. You can always use the Turn It Off portal to bring environments back online when needed, ensuring secure and efficient management.
What data do we store from the cloud?
We store only the data that is returned from the cloud provider’s APIs, which typically includes basic information such as:
- Resource ID
- Resource Name
- Tags
- Sizing details
- Some configuration options that have been specified
This minimal data allows us to manage and optimise your resources without storing any sensitive information.
What user data do we store and how do we use it?
We only store minimal user data, including names, email addresses, company names, and addresses—all of which fall under non-special category data in terms of GDPR. This means that the data we collect does not include sensitive information like health, race, or political views, and is considered less sensitive under data protection regulations. Additionally, all financial and card details are securely stored by our global payment partner, Stripe. We do not have access to or store any of your payment information, ensuring your financial data remains protected.