Why MSPs need a Multi-Tenant Cost Management Tool

So you’re an MSP supporting tens, hundreds or maybe even thousands of clients.

Then there’s a good chance that you’re offering services for more than one cloud vendor.

You may even have clients who are Multi-Cloud (using more than one cloud vendor).

The Billing Challenge: Managing Complex Invoices

Now the first question is, How do I handle all these clients and multicloud deployments and what exactly am I managing?

So while every MSP is going to have its distinct offering for customers, ranging from on-demand professional services to fully outsourced management of an environment, nearly all MSPs are going to be cloud resellers, offering customers flexible plans to consume public cloud services and spend via the MSP.

Also, most MSPs will offer their clients some form of Finops / Cost optimization service.

Based on this, you’re going to need a solution that can:

1. Help you with billing & invoicing 
2. Assist you with all Finops activities, including but not limited to Cost reduction, usage analyst, reporting & budgeting.

Let’s dive in a bit here. You’re thinking to yourself, surely the Cloud vendors will provide me with a detailed bill that I can pass on to my clients.

Wrong! 

You will often be supplied with a massive invoice containing all of your clients’ billing in bulk. This invoice needs processing and breaking down for each client. The invoice may also contain special discounts for certain clients, credits, and refunds. All of these also need to be carefully dealt with to ensure that customers receive all the benefits they are entitled to.

Addressing Diverse Client Needs: Customization Is Key

Certain clients may also have specific requests. They may want an invoice split up into multiple invoices based on departments within their organizations, or in other words they want to perform internal chargebacks. So this is something else that you want to look out for.

As an MSP, you may also be receiving certain incentives from the vendor that you are entitled to, which are usually meshed up within the invoice and may also require processing accordingly. 

FinOps: Delivering Cost Optimization at Scale

From a cost optimization perspective, the list is never-ending and basically expanding every day.

This is a major factor in your decision-making process. First, you need to define the extent of Finops and optimization service that you will be providing to your clients. Larger clients will most likely have their own Finops teams and be less reliant on the MSP for this function. They may want to consult or request insights, but they will handle the day-to-day internally. However, smaller and mid-size clients will be more dependent on the MSP for the handling of Finops. While these may be smaller environments, they still need addressing and each environment will have its own specific challenges.

You’re going to need to build out your methodology for supplying these customers with Finops and cost optimization services. 

As this will most likely be  based on weekly, monthly, or quarterly review meetings, based on the client size, you are most likely going to want to focus on the following areas:

Waste control and cleanup, rightsizing of resources & implementation of reservations (RI’s) and saving plans (SP’s). Focusing on these three main areas will usually supply a good level of cost reduction that you as an external vendor will be able to supply the client and present the savings achieved accordingly. 

​​What Is Multi-Tenant, and Why Do MSPs Need It?

But wait, there’s more. While many tools will offer this functionality in one form or another as an MSP, you will also need a Multi-Tenant tool.

What exactly does this mean? Well, on the one hand, you will want a single pane of glass to view and manage all your clients. You’re also going to want to be able to achieve this with a single login and not have to login separately to each client’s environment. 

However, you’ll most likely also want your clients to be able to login to the tool, and in this case, they need to be limited to the scope of their own environments.

This is the meaning of multi-tenant, allowing you a central management console to view all of your customers while supplying each customer a slice and dice view of his own environment, of course, all with central user management. A big plus if the tool supports SSO and allows both you and your customer to login using your own and their own existing credentials such as Okta, Entra ID, Google etc.

And of course, let’s remember that if you’re supporting multiple cloud vendors, then you’re going to want a tool that supports these vendors. The last thing you want is to be using multiple tools to achieve the same goals but on different clouds.

Key Features Every MSP Should Look For in a Cost Management Tool

So to summarize the main points you want to be looking at:

• Billing & Invoicing
  
• Finops & Cost Reduction
• SSO with existing IDM’s 
• MultiCloud support 

All of this should be wrapped up in a Multi-tenant supported solution to allow you centralized management and views with slice & dice capabilities and end-user customer access, allowing them views of their own environments.

Let’s Talk About Your Needs

Looking to transform your MSP cost management and FinOps strategy? Talk to us today to discover how our multi-tenant solution can help you streamline operations, maximize cost efficiency, and deliver unparalleled value to your clients.