Duckbill

About Duckbill

Duckbill provides financial planning and analysis centered on enterprise cloud infrastructure, aiming to help companies understand, negotiate, and optimize their cloud expenditures. The company was founded in 2019 by Mike Julian and Corey Quinn, starting as a boutique consultancy focused on managing AWS costs. It has since evolved, combining expert services with a purpose-built software platform. The firm is led by CEO Mike Julian and Chief Cloud Economist Corey Quinn. Duckbill's business model integrates both software and expert services to address the complexities of cloud cost management. The company targets enterprises with significant cloud spending, typically in the tens to hundreds of millions annually. Its services are designed to align an organization's finance, engineering, and procurement teams by providing a common ground for understanding cloud economics. This is achieved by translating technical infrastructure details into financial implications, allowing for more strategic decision-making. The core of Duckbill's offering is its Skyway platform, a unified data platform designed for enterprises with large-scale cloud usage. Skyway ingests and normalizes billing and usage data from various cloud providers to provide clear insights into cost drivers and contract performance. Key features include the ability to visualize cost drivers, track usage against contract commitments, receive notifications on billing changes, and model future scenarios for budgeting and forecasting. Beyond the software, Duckbill offers specialized services such as contract negotiation, FinOps practice assessments, and ongoing retainers with their team of 'cloud economists'. The firm's expertise is informed by its experience in negotiating tens of billions of dollars in cloud contracts, providing clients with tailored benchmarking and market intelligence.