OpEx covers spending that recurs in the course of operations and is generally recorded as an expense in the period it is incurred. For a technology team that includes staff costs, software subscriptions, cloud usage, license renewals, maintenance contracts and support.
OpEx is usually contrasted with capital expenditure, which buys long-lasting assets. Cloud services shifted a lot of spending from one to the other: instead of buying servers up front, companies pay monthly for what they use. That improves flexibility and lowers the upfront cost, but the bill can keep growing without a natural stopping point.
Because OpEx is continuous, small things add up: unused licenses, idle servers and forgotten subscriptions. Usage-based services can also produce surprising bills, especially if a key or an account is misused, which is one reason usage limits matter.
Review recurring costs regularly, assign an owner to each subscription, set budgets and alerts on usage-based services, and compare cost with value at each renewal.