AWS-COST-EXPLORER

AWS Cost Explorer native cost analytics console.

Definition

AWS Cost Explorer features: (1) Cost Analysis: daily + monthly granularity, last 13 months history + forecast 12 months, group by linked account, service (EC2, S3, RDS, etc.), region (us-east-1, eu-west-1, etc.), instance type, OS, tenancy, tag, charge type. (2) Forecasts: ML-based forecasting algorithm predicts next 12 months costs based historical patterns, confidence interval. (3) Cost Anomaly Detection: ML-based detection unusual cost spikes, configurable alerts via SNS/Slack/email. (4) Rightsizing recommendations: compute usage analysis suggesting underutilized EC2 + RDS + Lambda instances downsize. (5) Reserved Instance + Savings Plans recommendations: analysis usage patterns suggesting commitments savings. (6) Reports: Saved Reports, share via Console URL. Pricing: free for Cost Explorer console + Anomaly Detection, API calls $0.01 per pagination request. Limitation: AWS-only (single cloud), Cost Explorer data only retroactive after 24h delay. Companion: AWS Cost and Usage Reports (CUR) raw billing data dump S3 hourly granular detail.

Origin

AWS Cost Explorer initial release 2017 ; Cost Anomaly Detection added 2020 ; Rightsizing recommendations 2018+ ; Savings Plans recommendations 2019+ ; FOCUS adapter preview 2024.

Example in context

Netflix AWS account top 20 cloud customer worldwide uses Cost Explorer dashboard + Savings Plans recommendations identifying $50M+ annual potential savings via 1-year No-Upfront Savings Plans EC2 + Fargate compute commitment ; integration AWS Cost Anomaly Detection alerts production billing spike >20% week-over-week.

Related terms

• AWS CUR — raw billing data.