Cost Explorer

The Cost Explorer provides comprehensive cost analysis tools to understand where your cloud spend is going and how it's trending over time.

Accessing Cost Explorer

Navigate to FinOps > Cost Explorer in the sidebar, or visit /finops/explorer.

Filters and Controls

Global Filters

At the top of the page, you'll find filters that apply across all tabs:

• Date Range: Custom date picker or preset periods (7, 14, 30, 90, 180 days)
• Cloud Connection: Filter by specific AWS account or Azure subscription
• Service: Filter by specific cloud service (EC2, S3, RDS, etc.)
• Tags: Filter by configured cost allocation tags

Export

Click Export CSV to download the current view's data. The export includes:

• Trends tab: Date, actual cost, forecast, upper/lower bounds
• Breakdown tab: Name, cost, percentage of total
• Details tab: Time series cost data

Trends & Forecasting Tab

Cost Trend Chart

An area chart showing:

• Actual Cost: Historical daily costs (solid line)
• Forecast: Predicted future costs (dashed line)
• Confidence Band: Upper and lower forecast bounds (shaded area)

Key Metrics

• Total Cost: Sum of costs in the selected period
• Average Daily Cost: Mean daily spend
• Burn Rate: Projected monthly cost based on current trends
• Month-End Forecast: Estimated cost at end of current month

Forecasting Algorithm

The forecast uses a time-series analysis approach:

1. Analyzes historical spending patterns
2. Accounts for weekly/monthly seasonality
3. Provides 30-day forward projection
4. Calculates confidence intervals

Use Cases

• Budget Planning: Project future costs for budgeting
• Trend Detection: Identify spending increases early
• Capacity Planning: Correlate cost trends with usage

Cost Breakdown Tab

Visualization Options

Two chart types available:

1. Donut Chart: Proportional view of cost distribution
2. Bar Chart: Comparative view with absolute values

Breakdown Dimensions

Analyze costs by:

Cost Table

Below the charts, a detailed table shows:

• Service/dimension name
• Total cost
• Percentage of total
• Daily average
• Trend indicator

Interactive Features

• Click on chart segments to filter
• Sort table by any column
• Hover for detailed tooltips

Details Tab

Hierarchical Drill-Down

The Details tab provides a multi-level drill-down capability:

Service (e.g., Amazon EC2)
  └── Component (e.g., Compute, EBS)
      └── Instance Type / Usage Type
          └── Tag Keys (Environment, Project, etc.)
              └── Tag Values (prod, staging, etc.)

Navigation

• Breadcrumb: Shows current drill-down path
• Arrow buttons: Navigate deeper into the hierarchy
• Back links: Click breadcrumb items to navigate up

Service Overview (Level 1)

Shows all services with:

• Service name and category
• Total cost
• Resource count (from inventory)
• Daily trend sparkline

Component View (Level 2)

After selecting a service, see components:

• Component name (e.g., "EBS Volumes", "Data Transfer")
• Breakdown type (Instance Type or Usage Type)
• Total cost and usage metrics
• Resource count

Instance Type / Usage Type (Level 3)

Grouped by:

• Instance Types: For compute services (t3.medium, m5.large)
• Usage Types: For other services (data transfer, API calls)

Shows:

• Type name
• Cost and usage amount
• Resource count
• Daily trend

Tag Analysis (Level 4-5)

Drill into configured tag keys:

• See cost distribution by tag key
• Drill further into specific tag values
• Identify untagged resources

Sparkline Charts

Each row includes a sparkline showing daily cost trend. Hover over the sparkline for a detailed chart popup with:

• Full area chart visualization
• Min/Max values
• Date range

Resource Count Note

Resource counts come from inventory snapshots and may not match cost data exactly:

• Resources created and destroyed between syncs won't show in counts
• Auto-scaled instances may appear in costs but not inventory

Best Practices

Analyzing Cost Spikes

1. Use the Trends tab to identify when spikes occurred
2. Switch to Breakdown tab to see which services increased
3. Use Details tab to drill into specific resources
4. Check tag analysis to identify which teams/projects are affected

Regular Cost Reviews

Weekly:

• Review Trends tab for unexpected changes
• Check top 5 services in Breakdown tab

Monthly:

• Analyze costs by tag for showback/chargeback
• Review year-over-year trends
• Identify optimization opportunities

Optimizing Query Performance

For faster load times:

• Use shorter date ranges when exploring
• Apply filters to reduce data volume
• Use the service filter when investigating specific services

Keyboard Shortcuts

Related Documentation

• FinOps Overview
• Usage Analysis
• Anomaly Detection