Every FinOps vendor loves to talk about "maturity models."
Crawl, Walk, Run. Level 1 through 5. Bronze, Silver, Gold.
It's a brilliant sales tactic: no matter where you are, there's always a next level to sell you.
But here's the thing — maturity isn't the goal. Results are.
And I've seen plenty of "mature" FinOps practices that don't actually save money.
Picture this conversation:
Consultant: "Based on our assessment, you're at Level 2 maturity." Client: "What does that mean?" Consultant: "You have basic cost visibility but lack optimization automation and cross-functional alignment." Client: "So... we're bad?" Consultant: "Not bad! Just not mature. We can help you get to Level 3."See what happened? The maturity model created a problem (you're not mature enough) and positioned the consultant as the solution (we'll help you mature).
But the client still doesn't know if they're actually wasting money or by how much.
I've seen "Level 1" startups that are incredibly cost-efficient because engineers naturally care about burn rate.
I've seen "Level 4" enterprises with dedicated FinOps teams, sophisticated tooling, and beautiful dashboards — who are still wasting 40% of their cloud spend.
The difference isn't maturity. It's culture, incentives, and action.
Forget maturity levels. Ask these questions instead:
This is the only question that matters. Everything else is process.
Do a sanity check:
If you can't answer these questions, you don't have a maturity problem — you have a visibility problem.
Not "can they look it up in a dashboard." Do they know, instinctively, roughly what their services cost?
When they design a new feature, do they consider the cost implications? When they choose between implementation approaches, is cost a factor?
If yes, you're doing well regardless of your "maturity level."
If no, all the maturity in the world won't help.
The faster you detect waste, the faster you can fix it.
"It's everyone's job" means it's no one's job.
Someone — a person with a name — needs to be responsible for:
This could be a full FinOps team or a part-time role. But it needs to exist.
Not "identified potential savings." Not "created a roadmap." Actually saved money.
When was the last time you deleted something, right-sized something, or committed to something that reduced your bill?
If you can't point to specific, recent savings actions, your FinOps practice is theater.
Look, the FinOps Foundation does good work. Their maturity model isn't wrong — it's just incomplete.
It measures process, not outcomes. It tells you how you're doing FinOps, not whether it's working.
A company can check every maturity box and still be hemorrhaging money. A company can ignore the model entirely and be incredibly efficient.
Use the maturity model as a guide, not a goal.
Instead of chasing maturity levels, chase these outcomes:
Notice there's nothing about maturity levels. Just outcomes.
The next time a consultant shows you a maturity model with five levels and suggests you need to "advance to the next stage," ask them:
"How much money will moving from Level 2 to Level 3 save us?"
If they can't answer with a specific number, they're selling process, not results.
You don't need a mature FinOps practice. You need an effective one.
There's a difference.
