June 2026
This is a question we ask gently, because we know the answer before we ask it.
Every organisation we speak to that's running Citrix, VMware, or Windows 365 at scale has the same quiet frustration: the cost keeps going up, the flexibility doesn't improve, and every renewal cycle feels like a negotiation you can't win.
It's not that these platforms don't work. They do.
But the commercial model behind them - multi-year lock-ins, per-user licensing regardless of utilisation, dedicated infrastructure running 24/7 for desktops used 8 hours a day - was designed for a different era. One where you knew exactly how many desktops you needed, where everyone was in the office, and where "scale" meant buying more hardware.
That's not how most businesses operate anymore.
Why Does Traditional VDI Become So Expensive?
Across financial services, insurance, retail, and professional services, the frustrations are the same:
- You're paying for idle desktops. Desktops that run 24/7 but are used for a fraction of that. Weekend compute you don't need. Night shifts that don't exist.
- Licensing complexity has become its own job. Per-user, per-device, per-named-user, concurrent. Add GPU and the price jumps again. Add security features and it jumps further.
- Renewals feel adversarial. Every three years the vendor comes back with an increase. Switching costs are high, so you stay. They know this.
- Scaling requires planning. Need 200 extra desktops for a seasonal peak or an M&A integration? That's a procurement cycle, infrastructure provisioning, and weeks of lead time.
- There's a team whose entire job is keeping VDI running. Patching, troubleshooting session drops, managing golden images, dealing with performance complaints. That's expensive operational overhead.
If this resonates, you're not alone. It's the most common pain point we encounter when talking to IT leaders about end-user compute.
What Is a More Flexible VDI Cost Model?
AWS WorkSpaces isn't magic. It's just built on a fundamentally different principle:
You pay for what you use, and you stop paying when you're not using it.
What that looks like in practice:
- Hourly billing. AutoStop mode means the WorkSpace only runs when someone's logged in. No more 24/7 compute bills for 9-to-5 workers.
- No lock-in. Month-to-month. Scale up for a project, scale down when it's done. Spin up 200 desktops for Christmas in retail, drop back to 50 in January. No penalty.
- No infrastructure to manage. AWS handles the compute, storage, and networking. Your team focuses on the user experience, not the platform underneath.
How Does AWS WorkSpaces Compare to Traditional VDI?
| Legacy VDI | AWS WorkSpaces | |
|---|---|---|
| Infrastructure | Over-provisioned for peak | Right-sized automatically |
| Management | Dedicated VDI team | Managed service (Cloud Bridge) |
| Scaling | Months of planning | Minutes |
| Renewal Risk | Price goes up every cycle | No lock-in, no renewal |
The typical outcome: 25–40% total cost reduction. And that's before you account for the operational simplicity and the speed of change.
How Do Customers Prove the Business Case?
We don't ask anyone to commit to a full migration upfront.
We've found the best way to prove it works is in your environment, with your people, and your workloads.
Our free two-week trial deploys 25 fully managed AWS WorkSpaces into your own AWS account in two business days. Your team uses them for a fortnight. We monitor performance, security posture, and user experience throughout.
At the end, you get a report showing exactly how it compares to your current setup - and you decide whether it's worth going further.
No commitment. No contract. Just evidence.
Contact Us to find out more.
