# Best practices
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Cost optimization is a continual process of refinement and improvement over the span of a workload’s lifecycle. In addition to the best practices described in the [Cost Optimization Pillar whitepaper](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/wellarchitected/latest/cost-optimization-pillar/welcome.html), this section covers how the way you're designing and building your containerized applications can have a direct or indirect influence on the cost of running those applications. 

**Topics**
+ [Practice cloud financial management](practice-cloud-financial-management.md)
+ [Expenditure and usage awareness](expenditure-and-usage-awareness.md)
+ [Cost-effective resources](cost-effective-resources.md)
+ [Manage demand and supply resources](manage-demand-and-supply-resources.md)
+ [Optimize over time](optimize-over-time.md)