Technology for policies with reduced associated costs is disclosed. A policy may include an ordered rule set. When evaluated, the highest priority rule in the order that does not skip may control the policy outcome. Rules within a policy may have associated costs, such as data fetch and evaluation costs. In some contexts, it may be less important to evaluate every rule than to evaluate the policy quickly. Reduced policies that have one or more rules removed or that skip evaluation of some rules may be created for these contexts. When a rule of a policy is skipped, it may result in a possibility of a false allow or false deny. In some cases, rules may be duplicative. Removal or skipping of duplicative rules does not increase the possibility of a false allow or false deny. By using reduced policies in identified contexts, policy evaluation costs may be reduced.