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FinOps Overview

This document defines the high-level FinOps and cost governance model for ConnectSoft's AI Software Factory, core platforms, and SaaS products. It is written for product managers, finance teams, architects, and operations teams who need to understand cost ownership, attribution principles, and how internal costs relate to pricing and business models.

ConnectSoft operates a multi-tenant, AI-heavy ecosystem with multiple SaaS products and platforms. Effective FinOps is critical to maintain visibility and control over costs per tenant, per product, and per environment, enabling informed pricing decisions and sustainable growth.

Important

Cost Visibility First: FinOps at ConnectSoft prioritizes visibility and attribution over cost reduction. Understanding where costs originate (tenant, product, environment, component) enables better pricing decisions, capacity planning, and operational efficiency.

Introduction

Why FinOps is Critical for ConnectSoft

ConnectSoft's architecture presents unique FinOps challenges:

  • Multi-Tenant Architecture - Costs must be attributed to specific tenants while maintaining shared infrastructure efficiency
  • AI-Heavy Workloads - AI token usage, model selection, and context windows significantly impact costs
  • Multiple SaaS Products - connectsoft.io, connectsoft.me, and vertical suites each have distinct cost profiles
  • Factory Runs - Code generation and agent execution create variable compute and AI costs
  • 3rd-Party Dependencies - External APIs (email/SMS, marketing tools, CRMs) add variable costs

Without proper FinOps practices, ConnectSoft risks:

  • Unprofitable pricing due to unknown cost structures
  • Uncontrolled cost growth from runaway scaling or inefficient AI usage
  • Inability to optimize capacity and resource allocation
  • Lack of visibility into tenant profitability

See: Operations Overview for operational context.

See: FinOps Cost Model for detailed cost modeling.

Scope of FinOps

Cost Coverage Areas

FinOps at ConnectSoft covers all cost categories across the ecosystem:

Core Platform Services:

  • Identity Platform (authentication, authorization)
  • Config Platform (configuration management)
  • Audit Platform (event logging and querying)
  • Documents Platform (document storage and processing)
  • Communications Platform (messaging infrastructure)
  • Billing & Subscription Platform (payment processing)

AI Factory & Factory Runs:

  • Factory execution infrastructure
  • Agent runs (code generation, planning, orchestration)
  • AI model usage (tokens, context windows, model selection)
  • Knowledge base and memory systems

SaaS Products:

  • connectsoft.io (marketing automation, CRM modules)
  • connectsoft.me (personal agents platform)
  • Vertical suites (Insurance, AdTech, HR/PeopleOps)

AI Usage:

  • Token consumption (prompt + completion tokens)
  • Model pricing tiers (cheap vs. expensive models)
  • Context window sizes
  • Multi-agent workflow costs

Observability Stack:

  • Log storage and querying
  • Metrics collection and retention
  • Distributed tracing
  • Alerting infrastructure

3rd-Party APIs:

  • Email/SMS providers
  • Marketing automation APIs
  • CRM integrations
  • Payment processors
  • External data sources

See: Product Portfolio Overview for product details.

See: Factory Overview for Factory architecture.

Key Concepts

Cost Drivers

Primary cost drivers across the ConnectSoft ecosystem:

  • Compute - AKS/ACA pods, workers, API services
  • Storage - Databases, blob storage, document stores, cache
  • Messaging - Queues, topics, service buses
  • Observability - Logs, traces, metrics storage and queries
  • AI Tokens - Prompt and completion token consumption
  • 3rd-Party APIs - External service costs

See: FinOps Cost Model for detailed cost driver analysis.

Cost Attribution

Cost attribution enables understanding costs at multiple levels:

  • Per Tenant - Total cost to serve a specific tenant
  • Per Product - Cost breakdown by SaaS product or platform
  • Per Environment - Dev, test, staging, production costs
  • Per Component - API gateway, orchestrator, worker, database, storage, queue costs

Attribution uses resource tagging, usage metrics, and runtime instrumentation to allocate costs accurately.

See: FinOps Cost Model for tagging standards and attribution methods.

Capacity & Scaling

Capacity planning and scaling policies balance:

  • Latency SLOs - Meeting service level objectives
  • Cost Efficiency - Avoiding over-provisioning
  • Cost Ceilings - Budget limits that constrain scaling

Scaling decisions consider both performance requirements and cost budgets, with different policies for different product tiers and tenant plans.

See: FinOps Scaling Policies for detailed scaling rules.

Budgets, Alerts & SLOs

FinOps integrates with operational practices:

  • Budgets - Defined per environment, product, and optionally per large tenant
  • Alerts - Threshold-based, rate-of-change, and anomaly detection
  • SLOs - Service level objectives that may be adjusted based on budget constraints

When budget limits are approached, operational behavior may change (cost-saving mode, throttling, model selection adjustments) while maintaining SLO commitments for high-tier customers.

See: FinOps Budgets & Alerts for budget and alerting details.

See: Support & SLA Policy for SLO definitions.

Responsibility Model

Cost Ownership

Cost ownership is distributed across teams:

Platform Team:

  • Owns costs for shared infrastructure (Identity, Config, Audit, Documents, Communications, Billing platforms)
  • Responsible for platform efficiency and multi-tenant cost optimization
  • Manages shared observability stack costs

Factory Team:

  • Owns costs for Factory execution infrastructure
  • Responsible for Factory run efficiency (code generation, agent orchestration)
  • Manages AI model selection and token usage optimization

Product Teams:

  • connectsoft.me Team - Owns costs for personal agents platform
  • connectsoft.io Team - Owns costs for marketing/CRM SaaS modules
  • Vertical Suite Teams - Own costs for Insurance, AdTech, HR suites
  • Responsible for product-specific cost optimization and capacity planning

FinOps Interaction Points

Product Management:

  • FinOps data informs pricing decisions
  • Cost per tenant/product data guides packaging and tier design
  • Unit economics analysis supports business model decisions

Finance:

  • FinOps provides cost allocation data for financial reporting
  • Budget tracking and variance analysis
  • Cost forecasting and planning

Operations:

  • FinOps data guides capacity planning and scaling decisions
  • Budget alerts trigger operational responses
  • Cost optimization opportunities identified through attribution

See: Business Model Overview for business model context.

See: Pricing Strategy for pricing approach.

Relationship to Pricing & Business Models

Internal Costs Inform Pricing

FinOps cost data directly informs pricing decisions:

connectsoft.io Pricing:

  • Cost per module (marketing automation, CRM, etc.) informs module pricing
  • Cost per tenant informs subscription tier pricing
  • AI usage costs inform usage-based pricing components

connectsoft.me Pricing:

  • Cost per agent run informs agent execution pricing
  • Cost per tenant informs subscription tier design (Free, Pro, Family)
  • AI token costs inform usage limits and overage pricing

Marketplace Revenue Shares:

  • Cost attribution helps determine marketplace commission rates
  • Partner-delivered solution costs inform revenue share models
  • Template and agent marketplace pricing considers underlying infrastructure costs

Business Model Integration

Factory Business Model:

  • Factory run costs inform project pricing
  • AI usage costs inform SaaS vs. self-host model recommendations
  • Infrastructure costs inform licensing model decisions

SaaS Platforms Model:

  • Platform costs inform platform subscription pricing
  • Multi-tenant efficiency gains inform volume discounts
  • Cost per tenant informs enterprise pricing tiers

Squads Business Model:

  • Squad execution costs inform subscription pricing
  • AI usage costs inform usage-based pricing components
  • Infrastructure overhead informs base subscription costs

See: Factory Business Model for Factory pricing model.

See: SaaS Platforms Model for platform pricing.

See: connectsoft.me Business Model for personal agents pricing.

See: Marketplace Business Model for marketplace pricing.

Operations FinOps Documents

Business Model Documents

Operations & Observability