What is the AWS Cost and Usage Report?
The AWS Cost and Usage Report (CUR) is the most detailed data source for AWS costs and usage. The report contains hourly or daily breakdowns of costs for every AWS service used, every region, every linked account, and every resource. Data is automatically delivered to an S3 bucket where it can be analyzed with analytics tools.
For organizations that want to systematically optimize their cloud costs, the CUR is an indispensable foundation. Unlike AWS Cost Explorer, which provides aggregated views, the CUR contains the most granular data at the individual resource and time interval level.
The report can be analyzed with Amazon Athena, Redshift, QuickSight, or external BI tools. Many FinOps platforms rely on CUR data as their primary data source for cost analysis and optimization recommendations.
Core Features
- Granular Data: Hourly or daily cost breakdown per service, region, account, and resource
- Resource IDs: Optional inclusion of individual resource IDs for mapping individual costs
- Parquet Format: Efficient columnar format for fast analytics queries
- Automatic Delivery: Regular updates and delivery to the configured S3 bucket
- Cost Allocation Tags: Breakdown by custom tags for project-based cost allocation
Typical Use Cases
Detailed Cost Analysis: FinOps teams analyze CUR data to break down costs by services, regions, teams, and projects. The granular data enables identifying cost drivers at the resource level.
Cost Optimization: By analyzing CUR data, teams identify unused or undersized resources, untapped Reserved Instance potential, and opportunities for Savings Plans.
Automated Cost Reporting: Organizations build automated dashboards and reports on CUR data that regularly provide stakeholders with cost overviews and trend analyses.
Benefits
- Most detailed cost data available in the entire AWS ecosystem
- Free service (only S3 storage costs)
- Flexible analysis with AWS and third-party tools
- Foundation for systematic FinOps processes
Integration with innFactory
As an AWS Reseller, innFactory supports you with the AWS Cost and Usage Report: from setup and configuration to connecting analytics tools like Athena and QuickSight to developing automated cost dashboards and optimization recommendations.
Typical Use Cases
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the AWS Cost and Usage Report?
The AWS Cost and Usage Report (CUR) is the most comprehensive cost dataset AWS provides. It contains detailed hourly or daily cost and usage data for every AWS service, region, and linked account.
In what format is data provided?
Data is delivered as CSV or Parquet files to an Amazon S3 bucket. Parquet format is recommended as it enables more efficient queries with Athena, Redshift, or other analytics tools.
How current is the data?
The report is updated multiple times daily. The data reflects costs in near real-time, with final billing finalized after month-end.