What is AWS Cost Explorer?
AWS Cost Explorer is a free tool for visualizing, analyzing, and managing your AWS costs and usage. You can break down spending by various dimensions such as service, account, region, or custom tags and analyze trends over days, months, or years.
Cost Explorer automatically identifies optimization opportunities and provides recommendations for Reserved Instances and Savings Plans. The forecast feature estimates future costs based on usage trends, enabling realistic budget planning.
Core Features
- Cost Visualization: Interactive charts and reports for all AWS spending
- Filters and Grouping: Analysis by service, account, region, tag, or time
- Savings Plans Recommendations: ML-based recommendations with projected savings potential
- Cost Forecasting: Prediction of future costs based on usage trends
- Cost Anomaly Detection: Automatic detection of unusual cost spikes
Typical Use Cases
Monthly Cost Analysis: Analyze your AWS bill and identify the biggest cost drivers. Cost Explorer shows which services, accounts, or projects incur the most costs and how spending is trending.
Chargeback and Showback: Allocate AWS costs to internal teams or projects. With Cost Allocation Tags, you can break down costs by cost centers and automate internal billing.
Savings Plans Planning: Use Savings Plans recommendations to find the optimal mix of commitment and flexibility. Cost Explorer calculates savings potential based on your actual usage.
Benefits
- Free for standard features and basic analysis
- Automatic identification of savings potential through Reserved Instances and Savings Plans
- Integration with AWS Budgets for proactive cost control
- Detailed breakdown to hourly granularity available
Integration with innFactory
As an AWS Reseller, innFactory supports you with AWS Cost Explorer: cost analysis, implementation of tagging strategies, Savings Plans planning, and continuous cost optimization.
Typical Use Cases
Frequently Asked Questions
What is AWS Cost Explorer?
AWS Cost Explorer is a tool for visualizing and analyzing your AWS costs and usage. You can filter costs by service, account, tag, or time period and identify trends to find optimization opportunities.
What does AWS Cost Explorer cost?
Standard Cost Explorer features are free. Advanced features like hourly granularity, Cost Anomaly Detection API access, or additional historical data incur small fees.
How does Cost Explorer differ from AWS Budgets?
Cost Explorer analyzes historical and current costs. AWS Budgets allows setting budget thresholds and sends alerts when exceeded. Both tools complement each other for effective cost management.
What recommendations does Cost Explorer provide?
Cost Explorer provides recommendations for Reserved Instances and Savings Plans based on your usage. Recommendations show potential savings, optimal term length, and payment options.